News

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

Many students in big-city school dis­tricts participate in after-school chess clubs, but for some elementary students in St. Louis chess is now a part of the daily curriculum.

First Move is a chess program which was recently introduced to second- and third-grade students at five elementary schools in St. Louis...Read More

All second and third graders have been involved in the First Move program all year long.

Once a week the student’s are introduced to a new lesson by video from the “Chess Lady”. The students practice, review, and play the game.

Getting a group of third, fourth and fifth graders to sit quietly is considered by some to be an impossible task. But all Ross Pancoast has to do to get his class of about 20 students at Beverly Farms Elementary School in Potomac, Md., to focus is set up a few chess boards.

Teenage kids who very much already appreciate what chess has to offer were busy downstairs at the Chess and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, enjoying the incredible U.S. Chess School camp at the club this week. At the same time upstairs, a group of teachers who know very little about chess were being taught how to bring its benefits to their schools and their students...

The students are part of First Move, a new program at the school that teaches chess to elementary students. Educators and chess advocates say the game teaches skills that extend beyond the corners of a chess board. For Idaho schools, First Move is a project the State Department of Education funded last year as a pilot program in 100 classrooms.