November Chess News | Director's Report

November Report from the Director:

- November's Top USCF Rated Players (Whitney & Elliott) face off at Saturday Quads -

Greetings Chess Families,

We now have one full month of our Club & Team Programs in the books including our October Team Tournament, where we welcomed nearly 250 players across our Manhattan & Brooklyn locations.

Over the board ratings are once again being updated, helping our players establish short, medium and long term goals.

Playing in rated events gives kids an official USCF rating, an official metric for tracking their growth and improvement, and our monthly Team Tournaments & Saturday Quads provide opportunities for all our kids to challenge themselves and make maximum use of the tools they get from their coaches.

Here is our November list of the Top 50 rated kids across all of ICN:

https://impactcoachingnetwork.org/icntop50

We are able to begin updating our ratings lists again, and we are excited to see almost 20 players topping the 1000 USCF mark - - we expect MANY to follow soon, as we host a number of in-person rated events in the coming month plus.

My favorite lists are the Top 20 per Grades lists, to be found here:

https://impactcoachingnetwork.org/icntoppergrade

Tracking the changes to this list is particularly rewarding, especially when I see kids in their clubs and they tell me directly about their goals, and then to see their names pop up here is one of my favorite features of the competitive landscape.

We have a number of meaningful opportunities coming up soon for kids to get moving in the tournament circuit. If you have any questions about whether your child would thrive in the competitive environment, feel free to reach out. Here are some excellent options for play & practice:

ICN November Team Tournament - Sunday, November 21st

Saturday Quads - every Saturday at PS 111

We're also pleased to provide a camp training opportunity for all levels of upcoming tournament players, whether they are preparing for their first ever in-person tournament, or preparing for the Grade National Championship in December:

Veterans' Day Chess Camp @ St Luke's

Our kids have been working so hard on ChessKid, and we've seen over 60% percent of all club & team kids have started using their gold memberships to grow their skills and learn new tricks & ideas to take into tournament play.

Take for instance Colette Elkind-Maron, a 1st grader from PS 230 in Brooklyn. She joined her team last year in kindergarten, following her brother Nikolai, during the shutdown. Now that she is with our after-school team, she also insists on leading ALL players in Puzzles Solved in the Last 7 Days! She's been at the top of this list for several weeks now.

I look forward to seeing how well Colette will fare once she pounces on the tournament scene later this month at K280!

Here is where we track ChessKid work:

  • https://impactcoachingnetwork.org/icntop50chesskidpast7days

Lastly but certainly not least, many of our most eager chess learners have found an additional easy to access training resource, our Daily League - - FREE to all Club & Team kids from all our programs, any weekday they're not in club!

Grade Nationals is coming quickly, and then the City & State Championships will be right on the horizon in January and February. Then our teams will be preparing for the Elementary National Championship in May! So let's not delay, let's get started on our return to Championship form now!

Thanks,

IW.

Russ Makofsky