Little checkmates

Checkmate: Fifth Annual Youth Chess Tournament Held in Frostburg
News – Frostburg News
Written by Richard Kerns
Sunday, 01 March 2009 19:23
Appalachian Independent – Cumberland, MD, USA

FROSTBURG –A dozen Frostburg-area children went head-to-head Saturday morning in the game of kings, with bronze, silver and gold medals distributed to the winners – and they were all winners – of the Fifth Annual Youth Chess Championship.

Organized by Frostburg resident Paul Yearling, the championship tournament is the culmination of a two-months of weekly chess play Saturday mornings at the Frostburg Community Library. Yearling began the chess club to encourage his own children to play, and the activity has now grown to include children from throughout the area.

Over the past two months, the budding chess masters honed their skills under the watchful eye of Yearling and other parent-volunteers, with the young people playing three or four games informally during each hour-long session.

For Saturday’s championship, the children were divided by age into three sets of four, with each child paying three games, one apiece against the others in that section. Games were played for 15 minutes. If a match was not won outright in that time, the winner was determined by points, based on captured pieces.

Parents brought juice and cookies for the kids to fuel up on between matches, all of which began and ended with a handshake between the competitors.All of the children received medals, with gold for the winners, silver for second place and bronze for the third and fourth. In applauding Yearling as photos were snapped of the players at the end of the championship, the parents unanimously agreed that the tournament’s friendly and unflappable organizer deserved a gold medal all his own.

Yearling plans to hold the chess program again next year, with play beginning toward the end of December. Notices will be sent out through area schools.

Source: http://appindie.org