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More than 50 Atlanta Public Schools chess club members from five elementary schools competed for the “travelling trophy” during a chess tournament yesterday hosted by M. Agnes Jones Elementary on Monday. Sponsored by the Kappa Boule of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity and the America’s Foundation for Chess First Move Program, levels II and III players K-5 from Fain, West Manor, Usher-Collier Heights, Humphries, and Jones elementary schools participated in the tournament. The First Move program employs chess as a learning tool to teach higher level thinking skills, advance math and reading skills, and to build self-esteem in students. 

In an age when niche sports such as darts and poker have managed to attract a mainstream following, chess fans are wondering why there has been so little attention devoted to the London Chess Classic, which begins today and has been billed as the strongest tournament in the U.K. in 25 years...Read More

by Tim Hanke and Beatriz Marinello

In The Morals of Chess, Benjamin Franklin wrote:

The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it.

On National Chess Day, October 9th, 2009 Chess Lady Wendi Fischer was honored with an excellence in education award from Notre Dame University. Fischer received the honor for her outstanding work as the Chess Lady and her advocacy in education. The Chess Lady and First Move is recognized among many Catholic Schools across the nation, where Wendi teaches virtually each week.

Wendi was previously awarded the Great Teacher award from Phi Delta Kappa at the Washington Annual Membership and Awards Luncheon on April 18th, 2009.

America's Foundation for Chess held the first annual Microsoft Chess Festival. The festival was sponsored by Microsoft’s Giving Campaign and featured International US Chess Champion Hikaru Nakamura, FIDE Master Marcel Milat, and Women's Grand Master and Olympic Bronze Medalist Katerina Rohonyan. The festival was a platform to raise money for the organization and create awareness about the First Move program. Read More.

Despite the economic woes that have troubled the non-profit and education sectors, the First Move Chess program is seeing much growth. First Move is happy to report that 88 new schools signed on for the chess program this year...Read More