Kids Check Mates, ‘exercise minds' in YMCA program
Colin Steele
Gloucester Daily Times
Saturday, December 18, 2004

ESSEX – Jack Haskell, 8, sits across a chess board from 7-year-old Brandon Bartlett and moves a pawn directly in front of Bartlett's queen.

"Go, take it," Haskell suggests.

Bartlett captures the pawn with his queen, but Haskell then swoops in and takes the queen with a Bishop.

"Oh, you tricked me!" Bartlett bemoans.

The Essex Elementary School students aren't grand masters just yet, but they're getting plenty of practice at a new after-school chess program run by the Ipswich YMCA.

A group of 10 children meets every Thursday afternoon to exercise their minds.

"It gets them to think, and they start to strategize," YMCA instructor Brendan Makein said. "It's when they start realizing they have to think ahead."

Haskell plays chess all the time either with his younger sister or on the computer, he said. His favorite piece is the knight.

"The horses can jump over people," he said.

Bartlett favors the bishop because of its diagonal movements and Will Dechenes, 6, prefers the queen.

"She's the most powerful," said Dechenes, who has been playing chess since he was 4. "She can attack anybody."

Makein spends most of the class playing against the children – and sometimes losing to them. He doesn't have to do much teaching because the children all started the course with at least some basic chess knowledge.

"I was really surprised," said the instructor, who has been playing chess for as long as he can remember. "I would hold up the pieces, and they would know the names and everything."

The chess program is one of the most successful of several afternoon programs the YMCA hosts in Essex.

More than half the school's kindergarteners participated in the YMCA's swimming class last year, and other new offerings this year include yoga, art, dancing and acting.

The after-school programs run Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4 p.m., and there is a bus to the YMCA after that for parents who want their children to have more structured activity time.

The new combined middle school in Manchester has allowed Essex Elementary to organize more programs that target younger children, Principal Eric Gordon said.

"Now that we're an elementary school, we kind of wanted to build a relationship with (the YMCA)," he said