Beloit to Host School Chess Tournament

McNeel Intermediate
New Chess Tournament Host

An Emerging Passion for Chess

It began 6 years ago, when McNeel educator Eric Jubeck began teaching in the School District of Beloit. He had about a dozen chess sets in his classroom and began using days before long breaks to teach his students how the pieces move and basic strategies. Within a couple years, the school began a center stage (after-school programming) class in which 15-20 students played and increased their skills.

During the 2014-15 school year, interest had increased further, leading to students using some of their daily lunchtime to play chess. This year, Jubeck’s 7th grade advanced math class helped increase the amount of kids playing at lunch to 25-30 each day. The students even have a system set up for ranking and keeping track of stats. “Many of them are borderline obsessed with the game,” laughs Jubeck. Students have apps that teach them opening moves, play online non-stop and know their chess rating.

Entering Tournament Play

When asked how many would attend if a trip were scheduled to a tournament, almost all of them said they would.  Jubeck had 25 students travel to Waukesha in December, including several 4th-6th graders, with the majority of them being 7th-8th graders. McNeel’s team took 4th out 7 teams, which Jubeck considered, “pretty spectacular considering most of them just started playing within the year and chess is a game that takes a long time to get good at.”

The team’s next competition will be this Saturday, February 6, at Golda Meir School in downtown Milwaukee.  Approximately 25 McNeel students will be attending.

New Tournament Host

While registration for that tournament was going on, Jubeck was contacted by the Wisconsin Chess Federation to request McNeel as a tournament host site. The school will hold their tournament on Saturday, February 27, 2016. For a small fee of $10 per player, Jubeck feels the experience is worth it. “It’s a good chance to get students from other schools in Beloit to play and other area communities a chance to play closer to Home.”

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