Chess Love In The 'City Of Brotherly Love'

Editors note: In some cities and towns, chess teachers and programs are competitive on and off the board. But ChessKid encourages you to start 2019 in a more cooperative way. Here's a great story of a city's chess programs banding together for the good of all kids.

The Philadelphia Chess Society (PCS) started off as an idea and turned into a movement within the scholastic chess community. The focus is less on winning and competition and more on empowerment and character development. But winning, as an extension, happens, and it happens because coaches, tournament directors, and players are working together to improve the community.

The Mission: ? Facilitate trips for Philadelphia scholastic chess players to National Chess Championships. ? ? Provide opportunities for scholastic chess groups in Philadelphia to create a larger community. ? ? Encourage personal growth through the game of chess.

Everyone loves a success story, the underdog team overcoming all odds, doing it without help and in the face of everyone else who didn’t think they could: "Rocky"; "Hoosiers"; "Remember the Titians"; "Cool Runnings"; etc. But what if the story was different? What if the story was the underdogs overcoming all odds and making to the top with the help of everyone else --including their opponents and their opponents’ coaches?

 Who Is PCS?

PCS is a group of scholastic chess coaches who partner together to take large groups of chess players to national championships -- players who otherwise would never be there.

Vice President Jason Bui says, “There are five of us on the board who do all of the planning and fundraising. Four of us have our own clubs and/or teams. We regularly compete against each other, but our kids also work together. In fact, since we became an official 501c3 in 2016, we’ve taken 80 Philadelphia kids to SuperNationals, 45 to High School Nationals, and 17 to All-Girls Nationals.”

SuperNationals V - Nashville, TN, 2013

How It Got Started

In the winter of 2012, Mikyeil El-Mekki, coach of the Paul Robeson Chess Club, called a group of scholastic chess coaches together at a Saturday chess tournament. He told everyone that they should work together to charter a bus to Nashville for SuperNationals V. The idea was revolutionary and, like most great ideas, no one was sure why it hadn’t been thought of earlier.

Douglass Cox, coach of the Dark Knights Chess Club, came up with the name, Philadelphia Chess Society. 

That year the group fundraised together, planned together, and occasionally even practiced together. In April, they traveled with forty kids and twelve adults from six different teams to SuperNationals V. That trip, as well as the trips to SuperNationals VI, 2018 High School Nationals, and 2018 All-Girls Nationals, were all huge successes. And not just because kids brought home trophies. Listen to what one PCS kid had to say about his experience at the 2018 High School Nationals. 

“During this tournament I have not just played amazing chess with my peers but I learned that my teammates have become a big part of my life including my two coaches. They gave me hope in my confidence, self-passion, and motivation to pursue whatever I want to do. This tournament showed me that my happiness comes from the people around me, that winning and losing doesn’t matter unless I actually try. The amount of effort my teammates and coaches have put me in not only a chess player but as a human being still makes me emotional. They gave me an escape from my problems and hardships and let me sit down, move pieces on a board and fall in love with the game of Chess. I thank everyone who let this become a great moment in my life, I thank everyone who let me just play the beautiful game of Chess.” -- Giovanni Cortez

 

Academy at Plaumbo - 2018 High School Nationals

 What It Means To Be A Coach

Coaching is before, during, and after. Coaching involves diet, rest, attitude, emotion. It involves words of encouragement, making sure they know you believe in them, making sure they are physically and mentally ready as possible. 

Coaching involves keeping the kids motivated to play, and to learn, and then to do it all over again. It’s helping them recover from a loss (or a win) and making sure they are ready to go back for the next round. 

After the tournament it’s “looking at the tape.” In chess that’s going over games, seeing where they did well and where they need work. 

It’s putting things into a phrasing that they will remember. Where teaching is finding a way for kids to understand content, coaching is that, and everything else. Oh yeah, and it’s creating a sense of team.” 

PCS Board Member and Coach, Jason Bui, a teacher by profession, does not get paid by the parents for teaching chess lessons. He spends many days after school giving chess lessons. Many weekend days are spent taking kids to tournaments. Last year, he was with his kids for 29 weekend days. 

None of the families he works with can afford the full cost of attending all of these chess tournaments. He raises money for entry fees, hotel rooms, transportation, and food. Often he spends money out of his own pocket for all of it. 

It is not uncommon for him to be responsible for 10 kids at a Saturday tournament; that includes getting them there, feeding them, keeping them safe, going over their games, and then, getting them home.

Why Do This?

Bui says, “To me chess is the medium. I often use a Maurice Ashley quote to describe why I coach chess like I do":

"Chess develops logical thinking, sharpens problem-solving skills, improves concentration and focus, enhances imagination and creativity, develops the capacity to focus on the consequences of one’s actions, promotes independence and a sense of responsibility, hones memory, heightens self-esteem, and reinforces the concept of deferred gratification and much more!"

Bui adds: “If chess does all of that, and I believe that it does, then the most at risk students need to be playing chess.”

 

S. Weir Mitchell - 2018 All-Girl Nationals

“It is our hope that chess will help the kids develop into capable and confident young people who are unafraid to pursue their dreams.”

The Vision: To plan, organize, and fundraise for trips to National Chess Championships for students across Philadelphia. Trips to Nationals will allow chess players the opportunity to learn just as much about themselves and the world, as about the game of chess.  Well planned trips will result in players being part of a larger world.  They will compete with people from across the country and experience many “firsts” in their lives.  Players will be encouraged to do their best, look out for each other, compete; win with humility, loose with grace and do both with dignity.  Strategic planning, and problem solving – regardless of the final outcome of the match – will also be celebrated. By being part of a team and through their encounters with other teams, students will also learn about people from other walks of life and strengthen their relationship-building skills. These experiences will all serve to encourage them, resulting in increased confidence and the motivation to imagine a world of bigger dreams and possibilities.

  

Why Don’t We Work Together?

This story is different. Philadelphia scholastic chess coaches are working together. And, PCS wants to know if you’re like us –- if you believe in the benefits of chess; if you root for underdogs; and if you believe it takes a village who can be an army, who can transform a society. If that’s you, or if you want it to be you, let us know what you’re doing and how. Let’s work together! 

This year the Philadelphia Chess Society is planning trips to High School Nationals in Schaumberg, IL and All-Girls Nationals in Chicago, IL. We already have the bus for High School Nationals filled and are working on filling a bus for All-Girls Nationals. It’s hard work and it takes a community to raise money to pay for the buses and hopefully the kids’ entry fees as well. Hopefully you will agree with us that all the effort is well worth it.

 Each year we hope to grow and include more players and coaches on trips and in the community. If you would like to help or would like more information about the Philadelphia Chess Society, email Jason Bui at [email protected].

 

2018 All-Girls Nationals

“Nationals for me is where you prove to yourself that all the hard work you put into learning chess was worth it. Nationals is not the end of the road of a person’s chess, it is the start. You meet players from other places and compete and talk about chess. . . Losing a game isn’t such a big deal, because everyone learns from their mistakes. You can even lose all of your games, and it is fine, because there is a big chess world for you to perform in. Going to Nationals is just the start. . . Nationals let me know that I still have a long way to go to improve myself.” - Ivan Zhu