Weber students hone chess skills with club
Josh O’Leary • Iowa City Press-Citizen • February 25, 2010
Nine-year-olds Arshaq Saleem and Pranav Krishnamurthy were hunched over their board discussing the finer points of a four-knight takeout and a Ruy Lopez opening.
Nearby, fellow members of the Weber Elementary School chess team were huddled around tables and sprawled out on the floor studying game pieces long before the day’s first classes began.
Visit the school’s media center on a Wednesday morning and it’s little wonder to hear that Weber is among the state’s top chess schools.
“We have a remarkable club at Weber School,” said the team’s coach, Greg Schmidt. “This has been a strong chess school for many years.”
The team checkmated the competition just a few days earlier by winning the Iowa Elementary Team Chess Championship on Saturday at St. Theresa School in Des Moines. It was the second time in the past five years Weber has won the state title, following a first-place finish in 2006.
“It was awesome,” said Arshaq, a fourth-grader who won four of his five matches Saturday. “We have a lot of experienced players who have been playing quite a while. I think we’re a strong group of experienced chess players.”
Here is the full article.
Very nice.