July 29, 2005

ESD NEWS BRIEFS

Tran wins Chaboya’s second annual chess tournament

Once school begins, you’ll soon find a bunch of students abandoning their iPods, computers and video games every Tuesday to participate in an after-school chess program at Chaboya Middle School.

Chaboya Chess Tournament champion Alex Tran faces Son Nguyen, who took third place.

“A lot of studies have shown how chess improves critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and levels of concentration,” says George “Mr. G” Gemellos, a seventh grade pre-algebra teacher who teaches chess throughout the school year.

But this is no casual chess club where kids just hang around and play chess. Gemellos spends about the first 50 minutes of each session actually teaching chess. Thousands of dollars worth of chess books and resources are there at the students’ disposal. Then the students play for the second half.

Students learn various openings such as the French Defense, Kings Indian Defense, Ruy Lopez and Sicilian Defense.

They also explore in detail middle game strategies like the e5-d4 center pawn formation, open lines, weak pawns and attacking the king.

The class thoroughly discusses the diverse playing styles of former world champions, including Capablanca, Alekhine, Petrosian, Fischer, and Mr. G’s favorite, Mikhail Tal. Gemellos had the privilege of watching Tal compete in San Francisco in 1990 and was just blown away by “The Magician of Riga,” who died two years later.

“The pieces just came to life,” notes Gemellos of Tal’s aggressive, risky and sacrificial style of chess.

Year-end tournament
“The second annual Chaboya Middle School Chess Tournament at the end of the school year featured 11 participants who all displayed exceptional fighting spirit, as not a single game ended in a draw,” says Gemellos.

Eighth-grader Alex Tran won the tournament with a record of 9-1. “I was so proud of Alex,” says Gemellos. He really worked hard and absolutely deserved to win. He had to win six games in a row to take the title.”

Second-place winner Lichen Han (middle) watches fellow Chaboya students Alan Chow and Kyle Shih square off during the second annual Chaboya Middle School Chess Tournament.

Seventh grader Lichen Han took second place. He also finished with a 9-1 record, but Alex defeated Lichen in their individual game. Son Nguyen’s 8-2 mark earned a worthy third place. Each participant received a chess book from such varied titles as “My Great Predecessors,” by Garry Kasparov and “Chess Endings—Essential Knowledge,” by Yuri Averbakh.

For Gemellos, who spent the first 20 years of his career in sales, teaching chess is a labor of love. He entered the Evergreen School District at LeyVa Middle School as a long-term substitute teacher in 2000 and realized how much he loved teaching. “I wish I would have started sooner,” he admits.

During lunch at LeyVa, he noticed the students hanging out in one of the classrooms playing “bad chess” and vowed to step up their game. It worked. In a school vs. school match, LeyVa beat Sunnyvale Middle School, who at the time was ranked third in Northern California.

With this noteworthy track record, Gemellos carried forward his chess expertise to Chaboya, where he received a permanent teaching job two years ago.

4.0 student additions

Shelly Chopra and Allison Chan, both fourth graders at Silver Oak Elementary School, earned a 4.0 in the last trimester of the 2004-05 school year. The Evergreen School District regrets the omission of their names in the list of ESD students earning a 4.0 GPA submitted to the Evergreen Times.