I Am Officially A Chess Mom
I knew I would never be a soccer mom; I tried the tee-ball mom thing for a season and that didn’t work out either. As of today, I am officially a chess mom. At the urging of the coach of the chess club at my son’s school, I took Alexander to his first chess tournament today. He was in the K-3 under 600 category and come in as an unrated player. His first match was against an adorable and equally shy little boy that looked to be 5. About 20 minutes later Alexander came out and gave me a big hug. He told me “I got checkmated.” I asked if he had fun and he did; he wasn’t sad just happy to see me and said he was ready to go again. So we waited for the second round. Mind you we are out in the cold as there is no inside waiting area for parents. I snuck away during the first round and purchased a chair at CVS and thankfully had a Spiderman blanket in the trunk of my car.
Round two and after about 25 minutes Alexander came out with a big smile on his faced and proudly exclaimed “I got checkmated again!” Yay for the smile. We went to lunch; it was a rather quiet lunch, anytime I’d try to engage him in conversation he’d tell me “I don’t know what to say.” I told him no need to say anything we’d just enjoy our food. We made it back early so to keep warm we engaged in a friendly game of chess. The room he was in had 40 chessboards setup so we had our pick. We chose an end spot and he chose white. About ten minutes later, with a few helpful moves on my part, he had me checkmated.
The third round was the marathon round. I thought he certainly fell asleep in the room and outside had it not been as cold I’d have nodded off. Finally after 45 minutes he comes up and tells me that the round ended in a draw. Fantastic, Alexander score 1/2 of a point! We killed about 20 minutes talking to other parents and then the pairings for his last round were posted. He was up against a boy who’s parents were the other ones there with a Spiderman blanket. The parents and I chatted a bit as we had many things in common aside from the last-minute use of a fantastic Spidey blanket. Their son was 0-3 for the day, he was also six, this was his first tournament, and he was also shy.
About 30 minutes later the parents and I peeked in and noticed that the majority of the board was cleared. The chess coach for Alexander’s school is the same for their school so he went in to give us an update. He came out to explain that Alexander had a King and two Queens (thanks to a promoted pawn) and the other boy had a King but was on the run. The coach explained that he would be surprised if it didn’t end in a draw as it is hard for beginner players to corner their opponent. About five minutes later the other little boy came out with a dejected look and his face and Alexander was right behind with a smile - he ended up cornering his opponent and came away with a win. One and a half points to Alex!
There is another tournament next week and then after that the state qualifiers begin. The qualifiers are five game tournaments and as long as a child earns two points in a single tournament (there are five different ones) then they qualify for state. I have added a new category to my blog - Chess.
It is official, I am now a chess mom.
