On Saturday, April 21st, 2024, Bay Area Chess, a nonprofit organization, partnered with the MHHS Chess Club to create a successful chess event. This free event aimed to introduce chess to the growing community. It consisted of a short quad-formatted chess tournament along with a Parent Seminar led by coach Matt Benson. In a quad chess tournament, participants are split into groups of four (quads), and they play a round-robin format against the other members of their quad, facing each opponent once.The tournament had 44 entries and took 4 hours to complete. Each participant was awarded a medal regardless of their record. The free chess event took place because of the Bay Area Chess team of Mr. Guadulupe Galindo, Vrishank Peddireddi, Ikshit Gupta, Jordan Langland, and Matt Benson led by James Bethany, the executive director of Bay Area Chess Enrichment. With their combined efforts, the event was able to run smoothly.
Coach Matt Benson organized a parent seminar. The parent seminar taught the following:
- Explanation of the benefits of chess to your child... it goes way beyond the chessboard.
- Introduction to tournaments and Explanation of the various tournament formats to explore (quads vs. Swiss)
- Navigating the USCF (United States Chess Federation) website. Explanation of the membership options and how to look up your child.
- Explanation of the USCF rating system
- Tools to aid the process of learning chess