Category: General

In the past we had seven different chess skill groups that we used to split up our players.   Panthers, Groups A, B, C, D, E and T.  This year, we decided to simplify into four skill groups:

	New Group Name	Last Year's Name	Description
	Panther Pawns	Panthers and Group E	Beginner Players typically grades K-2 with little or no Chess experience
	Knights	Groups C and D	Intermediate players with some tournament experience typically grades 1-3
	Rooks	Groups A and B	Advanced players with tournament experience typically grades 2-4
	Spicewood Kings	Group T	Expert players with tournament experience typically grades 3-5.

The coaches and club leadership will have the ability to move players into the appropriate skill group based on their observation of the students chess play.

Today the PTA and Spicewood staff held a Get to Know Spicewood Elementary meeting for new 1st – 5th grade parents and students from 8-9 AM in the library.  The students were given a tour of the school while the parents met with the school staff and listened to details about what to expect the first few weeks of school.

The Chess Club setup a table with information about the club and provided the parents with a flyer that describes the club details and a new bookmark for the students to take home.  The bookmark has our website address displayed and on the back has the Fall Chess local scholastic tournament schedule.

We met many new parents that showed interest in joining the Chess club.

The 2014-2015 school yearbooks were delivered this week and our club has a nice one page layout with many photos of our club members.  Thanks to all the people who worked on the yearbook and made it so nice.  Here is a scan of the page, can you find yourself in the photos?

At this morning’s chess club meeting, we showed a Chesskid.com video on the Fried Liver Attack opening.

Chesskid.com Video

The Fried Liver Attack, also called the Fegatello Attack (named after an Italian idiom meaning “dead as a piece of liver”), is a chess opening. This colorfully named opening is a variation of the Two Knights Defense in which White sacrifices a knight for an attack on Black’s king.

The Fried Liver has been known for many centuries, the earliest known example being a game played by Giulio Cesare Polerio in about 1610.

At today’s Chess Club meeting, we showed a video on how to anticipate and defend against the Scholar’s Mate.  The Scholar’s Mate is sometimes referred to as the “Four-Move Checkmate”, although there are other ways to checkmate in four moves.  We also introduced the students to the “Squares of Doom”, which are the weakest squares on the chess board, F2 and F7, because they are only defended by the King.  The Scholar’s Mate uses this weakness of the square of doom to checkmate the King.

The Scholar’s Mate is known by different names in other countries:

• In some languages, including French, Turkish, German, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese: Shepherd’s Mate
• In Italian: Barber’s Mate
• In Persian, Greek and Arabic: Napoleon’s Plan
• In Russian: Children’s Mate
• In Polish, Danish, German, Croatian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Slovakian and Hebrew: Shoemaker’s Mate
• In Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish: School Mate
• In Esperanto: Stultula Mato

Chesskid.com Opening Traps: Scholar’s Mate  Video Link that shows examples on how to defend if your opponent bring out their Bishop first.

A followup video is also recommended to watch where they show how to defend if your opponent bring out their Queen first.

This is a ~30 minute short film that documents scholastic chess in France.  It follows kids and parents as they compete in a tournament to earn a spot in the French championship tournament.   While it is in French, it has subtitles and worth watching to get a better understanding of the tournament experience.