I need to brag today. My boys play chess. They both learned at the age of four. They compete in tournaments locally and we drive to big tournaments that happen to be within driving distance. We had all planned to go to Houston this past weekend for the National Grade Championship, but after attempting such a tournament with CiCi in St. Louis recently I told my DH to take the boys and I would stay home with her. At this point he decided to fly. :)
Anyway, this tournament is designed so that the best kids from all over the country come together and duke it out on the chess board. 1st graders play only 1st graders, 2nd graders play only 2nd graders and so on. My sons are in Kindergarten and 3rd grade. This tournament is hard. These are the best of the best kids competing and it can become pretty intense.
My third grader, Arby, did exactly as he should have done. He won all of the games he should have won and he lost the ones he was most likely to lose. This is huge. Often you can be intimidated and lose games you shouldn't. He never did. He ended up in 56th place (out of over 160 kids competing in Houston in his grade). Very impressive!!
Kenz blew us away. He played seven games. He won the first and then the second. At this point they paired him with the second top rated child in his grade and he beat him!!!! We couldn't believe it. He then got paired against the top guy and lost. Next game he was paired against the guy that ended up winning the tournament and he lost that one, too. He won his next game. With one game left, we knew(he did not)that if he won he would have been in the top 5 - for the entire country!!! Unfortunately he lost (he would have been in 4th place), however he ended up in 11th place!!! 11th place...in the whole country!!! We are so proud of him. He really has no idea what he has accomplished. He loves to play and it truly is a game for him. We want to keep it that way for both of our boys while gently encouraging them to continue playing (forever) because it is such an amazing game and one that can be played well past any physical sport they want to play. My boys are very athletic, so balancing the time commitment of chess with the time commitment of sports will forever be a challenge for our family.
Thanks for letting me brag!!! :)
2 comments:
Kerry - That is awesome! Congrats to your sons. I love chess - but hardly ever play. Maybe I'll get motivated now to teach my son.
Well, just now able to catch up with your blog and see what is going on that I missed! I did not even know that K played chess! that is awesome! It is wonderful that R is still doing great and loving it too!
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