Thanks to NYC Council Member Ben Kallos, Saturday’s are still for CHESS!

When NYC schools shut down, Chess in the Schools cancelled all of our tournaments for March and April because without schools available to host us, we would be unable to run these events.  Fast forward a couple weeks and social distancing policies have increased, Chess in the Schools decided to move all of our events ONLINE!  Chess in the Schools has worked with CHESS24, LICHESS, and CHESSKID to provide digital tournaments to our students! We having been doing daily events with great success, but our most successful online tournament so far has been “The 2020 CIS CM Ben Kallos Virtual Chess Challenge hosted on CHESS24 which was held on Saturday, March 28, 2020 from 12 Noon to 3PM.”

A total of 235 students participated in this year’s Council Member Ben Kallos Chess Challenge, which was hosted online in accordance with social distancing efforts. “I love chess and I love computers , what better way to practice ‘social distancing’ than playing chess from home…This online chess tournament will go a long  way in helping keep children busy and doing something productive while they have to stay indoors.” Kallos said in a statement. (Sourced from PATCH.com article).

Chess in the Schools thanks CM Ben Kallos for his sponsorship of this event and for his continued support of the Chess in the Schools program.  Both CM Ben Kallos and Debbie Eastburn, President and CEO of CIS,  thank CHESS24 for working with us to make this event possible and such a success!  “We have longed believed that chess is an important part of a young person’s education and life, providing lessons that go far beyond the chessboard,” Eastburn said in a statement.  “Those lessons must not stop simply because Coronavirus has fundamentally interrupted our lives, and we must work hard to ensure that these essential opportunities remain for our young people.”

An added benefit for the “online version” of the event is that we were able to have student participants from all of the world, including students from Italy, Spain, Germany, India, and many more countries. Knowing that this epidemic has impacted the entire world, it is nice to see students from all over the globe playing chess with each other while at the same time staying home to help keep others and themselves safe.

The tournament included 4 sections and here are your top tournament finishers:

Participants of the event wanted to continue to playing chess on Saturday and many contacted us that they missed the event and wanted to play, so Chess in the Schools continued the CM Ben Kallos Chess Challenge on LICHESS at 6PM and had another 53 players participate.

Chess in the Schools plans to continue offering daily online events and weekly Saturday tournaments while NYC schools are shut down.  You can register for all of our online events on the CIS website.

Email tournaments@chessintheschools.org for questions.