Wednesday, April 18, 2012

middle-school chess team wins national high-school championship



NYTimes | The chess team at Intermediate School 318 Eugenia Maria de Hostos in Williamsburg, a perennial powerhouse that has won so many championships that its coach can’t remember the number, managed to top its already-impressive record on Sunday by winning the National High School Championships.

The team’s victory is the chess-world equivalent of a scenario that was frequently tossed around by college basketball pundits several weeks ago: that the University of Kentucky Wildcats might be so good they could beat the Toronto Raptors or another of the worst N.B.A. teams. If anything, I.S. 318’s victory is even more impressive: they beat the best high school teams in the country.

“This is the greatest achievement we’ve ever had, and probably ever will have,” John Galvin, one of the coaches, said in a telephone interview from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The victory might be a first for a middle school chess team.

Bill Hall, the executive director of the United States Chess Federation, which organized the championships, said he had never heard of a middle school winning the high school championships. “To my knowledge, it has never happened before,” he said.

Officially, I.S. 318 and Hunter College High School are co-champions. They tied for first place, but I.S. 318 was able to take home the first place trophy because its team had better tie-breaker scores.

To achieve the co-championship, I.S. 318 beat several other city chess teams this weekend, including Stuyvesant High School and Edward R. Murrow High School.

The I.S. 318 team has won at least two dozen national championships of various types in the last 12 years, Mr. Galvin said. Two team members — Justus Williams and James Black, both 13 — are rated as masters. And the team is the subject of a new documentary, “Brooklyn Castle,” which had its debut last month at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, where it won the audience award.

29 comments:

Ed Dunn said...

Ok, something is up. I did a similar story about a "documentary" where some brown colored kid did something and it was produced as a short film by a White male who was "amazed" at what the child did.

Now you telling me this is another video of some White filmmakers featuring Black kids who are good at chess? Is it me or is there a pattern here of these specific filmmakers finding (or even manufacturing) these types of stories?

If so, what is the big picture of this propaganda because it is clearly a pattern. One of the things I want to extract is these documentaries are developed for the "tech sector" where they heavily discriminates against Blacks. Could these short film propaganda be a diversion where these tech bigots claim they "care about non-Whites" but still do not invest in Black tech talent?

Look at the KONY 2012 video..now White people are automatically concerned and conscious about African warlords who fighting his own people. That's another short film by some up and coming White guy. So the pattern is there....

CNu said...

Lol and smdh...,

Uh, these kids have been at this for a minute, this school has been at this for a minute - the fact that they're garnering accolades is a goodness.

Mebbe you could convince sandrarose and worldstar hiphop to cover this instead of covering disgusting and disgraceful antics.

Tom said...

Maybe they don't write in to the central committee & tell all of you folks they're playing chess, but I see 'em.

CNu said...

Anytime, anywhere, anybody showcases a scholastic culture of competency, I'm with it. I couldn't give half a dayyum about whether the Ku Klux Illuminati organized the piece, so long as what the piece shows is a group of kids for whom skill and excellence are the primary arbiters of "cool".  In my estimation, this is exemplary and the leader of that school is to be praised for having implemented SUPERB people-centric leadership and having forged a durable model for excellence. Everything else is merely conversation....,

Gee Chee Vision said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiQoVv0FSKQ

Gee Chee Vision said...

Wrong one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Z5TxBgwGY

ed said...

CNu what you see isn't new. No one is disputing these kids and their talent. What I've seen is a rash of these "hoop dreams" films and the ulterior motive. Do you know what happened to the hoop dreams character everybody fell in love with?

CNu said...

Before you even go there, you realize that I only follow women's tennis and mixed martial arts - so from the word "Go" anything "hoops" related is already relegated to the competency, culture, people, and self-failure file.

STEM or bust....,

Tom said...

That one actually works for me.  I don't understand hiphop, but I feel like it has a punk influence I can relate to?

Big Don said...

Chess is a totally useless game, a waste of cognition - better to use those talents curing cancer and solving fusion power.  OTOH, at least VideoGameGrandmasters have valuable utility (great hand-eye coordination), they make outstanding drone pilots...

Tom said...

Well, that's no surprise.   The world champion is a brown guy & has been for eons.  If Carlsen (good Nordic boy) finally takes the title from Anand, you'll discover the game's hidden cognitive value.

Truth is, BD, IQ isn't what you care about.  When I whacked at Kerry & Bush, you didn't join in with me.  Surprisingly, you whacked back at me (or you gave it your best try--you lashed out at Obama appointees).  (You did know better than to engage on the subject of Double-O/Lord Vader's own IQ, I'll grant you that.)

What is there about D-minus students who were utter wastes of a Yale education--& in at least one case plainly IQ-85--what is there in these LOOZERZ that you defend, BD?   What could it be that's trumping education and responsible use of irreplaceable opportunities, in your mind?

Tom said...

(I pretty much agree with you on adults giving their lives to chess, and so did Einstein.  Nevertheless.)

Big Don said...

Point is, high schools should not be emphasizing chess as  a big deal.  Waste of time.
Better something like Math Olympics or Robot Competitions,
 e.g., ----> http://www.freep.com/article/20120414/NEWS06/120414030/FIRST-robotics-Michigan?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

Tom said...

I tend to mostly agree.

CNu said...

As much as I would love to suspend all disbelief to extend you the benefit of the doubt - I can't bring myself to do it and your objection to chess smells to high-heaven.

Here's the deal, robotics and Math Olympics - which would at a minimum require a math instructional coach and math competition coach (and we can just forget about the robotics) - are decidedly NOT everyday people skillsets reliably and predictably available to just any school or just any kid. (I guess nobody noticed that the chess program is thriving DESPITE budge cuts.)

Best case, these are one-to-many educational constructs where lack of instructor and coach resource and an overwhelming ration of kids to instructor would make it entirely infeasible - kind of like why you don't see tennis courts everywhere and lacrosse fields where the kids could be acquiring these arcane skills just as well. Chess, OTOH, is cheap, popular, universal, international, and broadly accessible and collaborative. THERE ARE NO BARRIERS TO ENTRY!!!

I could give a rats ass whether they were playing chess, bridge, chinese checkers or forensics - whatever they can do that is broadly ACCESSIBLE and HIGHLY AVAILABLE to the broadest cross-section of everyday people, and, which makes being competitively knowledge-able COOL and the THING TO BE - IS VERY, VERY GOOD INDEED!

Shiiiiitttt......, I wish they had biofabrication printers and advanced professional studies instructors available from Merck or Glaxo - but that's not reality and that's not gonna happen without significant planning, cooperation, broad based support and investment.

All the objections you've raised on this thread are ignorant, naive, and malingering. Very obviously it's been MUCH too long since you've personally raised children, else the very last thing in the world you'd be advocating is access to gawdayyumed tweek and doink video games which are the godawful electronic equivalent of crack cocaine.

Sometimes it's just not enough to have opinions and be quick to blurt these out. Sometimes it would actually be helpful/useful if you had some kind of grounded and well-informed knowledge of the subject whereof you presume to speak, or, at the very least made an attempt to think through what you've spoken to with a mind to interests of the children or constituents being served by this activity.

Tom said...

Well I let myself be led off the trail as usual.  This isn't just some story about some smart kids.  This is the national freaking championship, beating Hunter.   To do that, the level they're playing at is basically superhuman.

Big Don said...

"
video games which are the godawful electronic equivalent of crack cocaine."

....If you are going to waste your time playing games in school, it might as well be something that has a chance of producing some income down the road (drone pilot).  In fact given the proliferation of drones beyond the military to police and industrial uses (e.g., real estate viewing), drone pilot could be a near-term growth profession...

John Kurman said...

Drones already fly themselves, Martini.

http://youtu.be/Rwaz5H7C1bs

Gee Chee Vision said...

Marvel calls those feelings of your's Spidey-senses.

"She Watch Channel Zero" or "Don't Believe the Hype" is essentially the same as "This is Radio Clash."

In Jeff Chang's "Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop"

"A young art school-trained photographer from London who devoted the period between 1977 & 1983 to the documentation of English punk-rock, Janette [Beckman] first encountered hip-hop in London in November 1982 in the form of the New York City Rap Tour...Janette loved the show & immediately saw a connection between hip-hop & punk-rock: both were animated by a spirit of rebellion, and both were street cultures."-105

..."And as for the Beastie Boys, three young white kids who'd started out in hardcore bands, they perfectly embodied Glen's [E. Friedman] notion that rap was 'a natural progression' from punk.'"-107

http://books.google.com/books?id=hpTnex1JIJgC&pg=PA106&dq=total+chaos+janette+beckman+Glen+E.+Friedman&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ckePT6_5I4Gi2AWxspnvCw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Russell Simmons was originally turned off by the rock sound of Public Enemy and didn't want to sign them Def Jam records. That was all Rick Rubin's doing.

Gee Chee Vision said...

I believe in addition to pork Muslims don't eat video games either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V88-W7UNTso#t=00m30s

Gee Chee Vision said...

"Very obviously it's been MUCH too long since you've personally raised
children, else the very last thing in the world you'd be advocating is
access to gawdayyumed tweek and doink video games which are the godawful
electronic equivalent of crack cocaine."

"Sometimes it's just not enough to have opinions and be quick to blurt these out."

I can't imagine that not making sense to him.

As I read Don's comment I thought it odd for someone his age to give his blessings to video games. I think rather he's trying to make some point how he is willing to sacrifice entire generations of children if it means only a handful surviving that can operate drone strikes from the Wizard's Emerald City control room.

Uglyblackjohn said...

dayum... Look at Gee Chee sounding like Mills.

CNu said...

Somebody's gotta be our resident magus magister of the arts and popular culture...,

Big Don said...

"...
odd for someone his age to give his blessings to video games"


BD did not bless video games.  Merely ranked them, for folks who want to waste time playing games, as a notch more useful than chess in the hierarchy of useless activities.  Raising kids here at BD, we would have never condoned the kids squandering endless hours playing chess.  We did play a lot of Scrabble, a worthwhile educational activity that promotes literacy...  

Gee Chee Vision said...

The honest truth, it took me a while to get back to this thread because I actually thought about Mills as I was prepared to drop my son off. I came in too late to get to know him.

Gee Chee Vison said...

LOL...Not me, I got forged papers.
Coming in contact with the whole Cnu, DV, Mills, Ugly, DMG, Konwoman, Smith, M. Bradley mob, conceptually I've been cutt'n & paste'n ever since.

Big Don said...

Dude was simply concerned that video games would disrupt the intense Fuzzlim focus required to develop kids into successful suicide bombers...and did you notice the cameraman scanning the audience zero-ing in on Honor Killing babe fodder...??  Anyway, his comments on Fuzzlim physical fitness lacked substance, longevity is about minus ten years when compared with civilized countries ---->
http://www.pewforum.org/future-of-the-global-muslim-population-main-factors-life-expectancy.aspx

Gee Chee Vison said...

Successful suicide bombers? The beneficiaries of an oil rich country have no reason to reenact the good ol' boys of the 1921 Tulsa massacre. He's definitely in the wrong place for recruitment.
If Islamic extremists are going to beef up enough support congruent with media sensationalism--http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/not-all-terrorists-are-muslims/--they'll have to seek foreign aid. http://www.maurer.ca/USBombing.html

I did however notice the audience was fidgety which actually elucidates his point.

But back to your early point (by Don's early blight) on video games, as the speaker points out in the following video, that the harm outweighs the benefit.

Two cops shot w/ their patrol car stolen was the mimicking of Grand Theft Auto III not a horse head making L-shape jump moves.

"...godawful electronic equivalent of crack cocaine."

I have witness Chess turn ritalin candidates into a group of kids able to sit still and hold a mature convo. Eight shots killing eight children is the result of a disconnected kid living a virtual reality which to a degree is exemplified in your corporate media zoom lens.

No, it's better to waste time in human interaction than to waste time receiving virtual programing.

Gee Chee Vison said...

^^^To the link that doesn't come up.

http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/01/not-all-terrorists-are-muslims/

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