Checkmate!

PINEHURST — Pinehurst Elementary School recently hosted their fifth annual fourth and fifth grade Chess Tournament.

At PES, every fourth-grade class learns how to play chess during the year, learning one piece at a time until they know how all of the pieces move.

Once they know the pieces, rules, strategy and other special chess situations, students are given the opportunity to enter the tournament.

PES teacher Eli Bourgard heads up the tournament and believes it to be beneficial to the students for a myriad of reasons.

“Lots of research exists linking chess in schools to higher student performance, particularly in the area of problem solving,” Bourgard said. Most kids are naturally interested in learning the game, and to keep it fun throughout the year we do a several different tournaments including class tournaments, a chess ladder and a chess simul (short for simultaneous exhibition, where every student plays a match against their teacher). The spring tournament is a fun way for the kids to show what they have learned during the year, and many of the kids get to be quite good.”

This year's tournament had 18 kids participate and ran very smoothly.

Each participant played five matches in a round-robin style.

Matches were to checkmate or 15 minutes, whichever came first (after 15 minutes, points were counted to determine the winner of each round).

After those five rounds, the top two records play each other for the championship match.

This year the finalist were Draeden Taylor and Andrew Lewis (each 5-0) where Lewis earned the $10 cash prize for first place.

The tournament also is a way for the kids to learn some life skills that can be applied in multiple aspects of life.

“In my experience, the most important things the kids learn from playing chess is self-control and sportsmanship,” Bourgard said. “The kids are very deliberate in planning their moves and always shake hands before and after every match, regardless of the outcome. That’s the first rule of chess we teach them, before learning any of the pieces: to congratulate the winner, shake hands and be humble in victory.”