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Chess Life Online 2012 August Best of CLO '11 #2- US Chess School Comes to Los Angeles by Elizabeth Vicary
Chess Life Online 2012 August Best of CLO '11 #2- US Chess School Comes to Los Angeles by Elizabeth Vicary | Best of CLO '11 #2- US Chess School Comes to Los Angeles by Elizabeth Vicary |
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| February 1, 2012 | |
 The #2 article in Best of CLO 2012 is The US Chess School Comes to Los Angeles by Elizabeth Vicary. Elizabeth Vicary is a coach, chess expert and writer from Brooklyn, New York. Her popular blog is at http://lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com/. She is the coach of the Junior High School Championship team, IS 318, which you can find at http://is318chessteam.com/. IS 318 is featured in the upcoming documentary Brooklyn Castle, which will premiere in March at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas. Elizabeth has placed highly in every Best of CLO competition so far, placing #2 for the past four years. US Chess School Comes to Dallas in 2010, US Chess School Comes to Arizona in Best of CLO 2009 and the US Chess School Comes to New Jersey for Best of CLO 2008. In the inaugural Best of CLO 2007 competition, her Top Ten Teaching Books was article #4 while Jennifer Shahade's interview with Elizabeth placed 5th. This year, Elizabeth edited a series of articles by IS 318 students on bughouse. Find Part I on Openings, Part II on Attacking and Part III on Defensive Ideas. The US Chess School is a program founded by IM Greg Shahade and funded by Jim Roberts of the American Foundation for Chess. The Judges Sound Off Read more about the judges here. A total of 17 training sessions have taken place since the event's inception. GM Melikset Khachiyan led the training for the Los Angeles session while GM Yasser Seirawan was the featured GM instructor in US Chess School Comes to Saint Louis by Victory Shen, which earned an honorable mention in this year's Best of CLO competition. Always a coach, I look out for instructional content to use for lessons or homework. I voted this article [highly] for three reasons: (1) well annotated games plus exercises with hidden solution; (2) short biographies and camp stories show a bit of each student's personality; (3) subtle motivation for other juniors eager to reach the level of these campers (2150-2300). After reading the story and carefully studying the examples, the reader may feel like the proverbial fly on the wall that watched the entire camp.–Michael Aigner I really liked this article because the author spoke about each of the players in the event. She talked about who they are, where they are from and why they play chess. I thought that the article was well-written and the videos were fun.—Galen Pyle This is a good example of the power of online reporting. It is a multimedia presentation that includes video clips, photos, good written descriptions of the backgrounds of the participants, and plenty of game analysis. The video clips are available on You Tube and a link is provided to watch them on You Tube. This is an important point because when the video is watched on You Tube there will be a number of other videos that are related to it that can also be watched.—Myron Lieberman I really enjoyed this. It has human interest, descriptions of what was going on, annotated games, and videos that make the reader feel like he or she is sharing the experience. Watching the blitz games on video feels like being a spectator to the game in person and conveys the atmosphere and excitement of the event.—Rachel Lieberman Vicary understands pacing, being a teacher and writer. I enjoyed that there was exposition, narrative, puzzles, side notes, and interaction in her article. I imagine a lot of people would think this was a fun article that also secretly helped them improve and become more motivated- Jessica Era Prescott I love reading about young people and chess so this article resonated with me. I found myself smiling while reading it.—Erik Murrah Best of CLO 2011 Countdown #2- US Chess School Comes to Los Angeles by Elizabeth Vicary #3- Kostya Kavutskiy on Breaking 2366 by Kostya Kavutskiy #4- Tale of a Winter Rating Spike by Jennifer Shahade (Judging article) #5-Shankland on Making the Most of Luck by GM Sam Shankland (Judging article) #6- Hilton on Chess Cosmopolitanism by Jonathan Hilton (Judging article) #7- Dreams and Local Heroes by Chad Schneider (Judging article) #8- An Amateur Invades the World Amateur Team by the US Chess Scoop (Judging article) #9- Keep the Draw--Fix the Flaw by Tom Braunlich (Judging article) #10- Nakamura in Brazil: From Fighting Anand to Miss USA by GM Ian Rogers (Judging article) |