From left to right, Ryan Houston, Thinh Nguyen, Parth Patel(captain-8th grade), Mitch Westlund, Iver Westlund, Coach Mike Maguire.
Great picture and congratulations to the chess team from North High School that just finished in 6th place in the 12th and Under Division of the Scholastic Chess of Indiana championships, where many/most of the best scholastic chess players in the state of Indiana were battling each other to try to finish in the top 10.
It was an incredible comeback in the final 2 rounds!
After 2 rounds, they were in 17th place.
In round 3, they won 3 of 4 games and jumped all the way up to 10th place.
In the final round 4, they needed 3 wins to clinch the sought after top 10 finish and actually swept the round with wins on every board, going 4-0 and popping up to 6th place. For the afternoon they had 10 wins, 5 losses and 1 draw/tie.
Recently, these players have made tremendous improvements in their chess game with a great deal of independent studying and self teaching. It showed on Saturday. They played as much chess in between rounds as they did in the competition.
Amazing stamina!
As somebody that's taken dozens of teams to this event in the past, I can tell you that it can mentally wear out some students by the end of the day just from the tournament games in the playing hall. In between rounds, these guys were playing numerous additional games, including very fast paced bullet chess.
Best finish in history for NHS in a SCI team tournament!
Again, most of their progress this year has been a self imposed, labor of love but hard work by them. It's great fun to observe students like this exceed the coaches chess playing skills.
Meteorologist Mike
Earlier in the year at the January SCI Individual Championships, our 8th grade captain, Parth Patel (playing up in the high school team competition above) was the state of Indiana champion!
He won a $1,000 scholarship.
Parth came out of nowhere from the JV division, with just a 771 rating after his previous competition in 6th grade to not only win the championship division but he beat a 1959 rated player in the final round.
This has NEVER happened before in Scholastic Chess of Indiana history!
https://joepye.net/sci/2022TeamFinalsEntries.htm
We're getting ready to start another chess season in just over a month, so it's time to shift gears and focus more time on that!
These videos and links are good for everybody. From beginner/want to learn to experienced player.
The only requirement to get benefits?
You want to learn/improve.
Chess videos for improving skills
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/83579/
I actually forgot about this one. I should add another story about our 2022, 6th place state championships team this past March. There is a interesting history with each student that makes it extremely unique.
Chess Coach Stories
14 responses |
Started by metmike - July 29, 2021, 7:23 p.m.
Best chess coach ever (not me)
Started by metmike - Feb. 6, 2022, 3:19 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/81440/
Learn how to play chess! Started by metmike - Jan. 26, 2022, 12:45 a.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/80819/
Wonderful ChessTournament with pictures
10 responses |
Started by metmike - March 2, 2020, 4:17 p.m.
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/48387/
Chess tournament November 16, 2019 with pictures
6 responses | 1 like
Started by metmike - Nov. 16, 2019, 9:12 p.m.
Congrats Mike! Well done!
Did you ever watch the documentary "Brooklyn Castle", of the inner city school that produced numerous chess champions?
Very moving
I've never seen it but this looks like a wonderful movie that everyone should watch, joj. Thanks!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Castle
I'm working on a letter of recommendation for one of our chess students and am using this thread to copy images that don't transfer onto the computer well from the actual sources.
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https://www.uschess.org/index.php/Player/Rating-Lookup-Old-format.html
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https://www.evansville.edu/news/articleDetail.cfm?articleId=3156
3rd place: $23,000 per year
Boomerang Learning: Kris Lau, Abdul-Aleem Mohammed, and Parth Patel (Signature School, Evansville, Ind.)
Summary: Boomerang Learning is program to help students that have had trouble catching up to Indiana standards post COVID and to help students who are falling behind their peers.
