History
of the Winchester Chess Club:
The Winchester Chess Club was
formed in the Spring of 1992. Connie Stolow, an educational consultant
to gifted students, had several parents who wanted to know if there
was a chess club in the area where their children could learn chess.
Connie contacted Harold Dondis, the chess correspondent to the Boston
Globe who put her in touch with Dr. Michael Charney. Dr. Charney started
The Games Project/Chess Makes Kids Smart. Connie and Dr. Charney came
up with some ideas on how to start up a chess club in Winchester. Connie
approached the Winchester Library about using one of the basement rooms
and posted chess board notices around town inviting people to an organizational
meeting. Although Connie did not play chess herself, the notices attracted
several experienced chess players who began holding chess games and
lessons.
The Games Project/Chess Makes Kids
Smart established many neighborhood chess programs and distributed chess
sets. It also started a program to design and construct giant chess sets.
With a grant from Enka, the Winchester Chess Club participated in building
a giant chess set that is still available for play on Town Day in the
Winchester Chess Club area.
The club met on Saturday mornings
at the library until January 1993. But, due
to sports, many students could not play chess on Saturdays. The library
could not provide space late enough in the evenings. So Connie found out
that the Town Hall was available to the Chess Club at no charge on Friday
evenings.
Vernon Shoup was the first president..(Vernon
died at age 61 on October 6, 2009). Tom
Richardson (currently Tournament Director) was vice president and John
Shawcross (currently Treasurer and Secretary) were members from the
first year. Neil Akiyama was also active in membership and and publicity
during the early day of the club. David Plantamura (currently President)
joined a few years later. Steve Frymer of Lexington who was MACA President
also came by the club from time to time to encourage it to develop and
include more tournaments. In the early days, Tom Richardson and
sometimes Steve Frymer would do a simultaneous exhibition playing up to
20 players.
On January 8, 1993 the club
moved to the Winchester Town Hall. Initially using the
Winchester Room and expanding to a second basement level room
as membership grew. Since the Town Hall
was free, the club was a low cost operation. No membership dues were
charged although small entry fees were charged for tournaments in order
to provide prizes and to purchase trophies. A coffee can was available
for donations and gradually chess sets and boards were purchased.
Some parents started bringing soda and selling it and this enabled the
club to buy chess clocks. Later on the ENKA society provided a
grant to buy digital clocks, which are still in use in 2008.
In
the fall of 2004, after more than 11 years, the Town decided that the
club could no longer play free of charge at the Town Hall. It
would require the Chess Club to pay for the janitor who would be on
overtime. The club could not afford that, so we looked at several alternatives,
finally settling on the Parish of the Epiphany at 70 Church Street Winchester.
We played there for the first time on October 8, 2004. The church charged
the club to recover the costs of heating the church so it became necessary
to charge a $25 fee per player each half season. The members loved the
new location with its gothic charm. The parents also enjoyed having
an area with couches and soft chairs, where they could relax and socialize,
while their children played chess.
In late
2007, Jim Herbert heard that the Griffin Museum at 67 Shore Road Winchester
would host the Winchester Chess Club at no cost. The club moved
on February 1, 2008. This is a beautiful well lit location with the added
benefit of providing chess club members an opportunity to view the various
exhibits at the Museum.
In 2009 IM Vivek Rao (2497)
began to bring his son Venkat to the club and in 2009 and again in 2010
conducted a simultaneous exhibition. In the first winning all games (28)
and in the second on April 16 with tougher opposition and a 30 minute
clock he scored 8.5 out of 10.
Tom Richardson in April 2009
provided the following information regarding the club ratings list: "The
first game in my ratings database was posted March 13, 1994 (probably
played March 11) and was a win by Zakhar Frumes over Ryan Flanagan.
The database now has a total of 6011 games played by 497 members.
Matthew Chau played the most games, a total of 496 between 1998 and 2004.
David Plantamura has played a total of 307 games, which is the second
most." John Shawcross adds that prior to the computerized
data base Tom had constructed a physical game pyramid with hooks and name
tags; it was not used much but was a start.
Tournaments and Events:
The club holds tournaments
at various times throughout the season. These tournaments offer time
controls from five minutes for the one week speed tournament to seventy-five
minutes for the five week annual club tournament. There is also a bughouse
tournament where teams of two players battle it out. In bughouse, teams
are chosen by pairing the best players with junior players which means
any team has a chance of winning the event. We also hold a Herbert Handicap
where based on club ratings the better players remove some of their
pieces at the start of the game to equalize the games. The event is
named after Jim Herbert who donated an antique
silver cocktail shaker which had been a trophy at the Boston Chess Club
in 1932 (the Boston Chess Club played Bridge!).
Above
history compiled in early 2008 by David Plantamura (President), and
reviewed by John Shawcross (Treasurer and Webmaster), Tom Richardson
(Tournament Director) and Connie Stolow (Founder of the Chess Club).
Details were updated April 2008 after Tom Richardson found a copy of
the first Winchester Chess Club Newsletter (Volume 1, Number 1 dated
January 1993 announcing the scheduele and the move to the Town Hall).
( As time permits we may expand this history. if anyone wants to suggest
some detail or correct errors please let me know. John Shawcross)
Any
person wishing to take an organizational role in the club should please
advise Tom, David or John who will be happy to help you get involved.
