Brothers make chess a family strategy
Three young Nelson brothers are stealing knights, promoting pawns and capturing castles as they prepare for a national junior chess tournament.
Kelso brothers, Troy 7, Dallas 9 and Jordan 11 have all qualified for the Chess Power Champions Trophy 2017, a competition to find the best junior player in New Zealand.
Their checkered past back to a very young age.
The boys’ mum, Keryn Kelso, said they all started the game stems about 5 years old, learning from their dad and granddad.
While Kelso calls herself ‘‘hopeless’’ at the game, chess runs through the men in the family with their dad’s twin brother and older brother also enjoying a touch of checkmate.
The three brothers aren’t oneeyed chess players though. Kelso said she was amazed that they were all involved in team sports including soccer, hockey and cricket.
‘‘They’re active, out-there kids ... who enjoy chess as well as other things. It’s pretty cool.’’
Kelso said Troy beat his poppa the other day, ‘‘which is no mean feat’’, and recently won a game against James Hebberd in four moves.
Hebberd runs the Clifton Terrace chess club, overseeing chess games during lunch breaks, class and before school. He said the kids ‘‘love it’’. ‘‘Instead of going on the ipads before school, they’d rather play chess.’’
With a ‘‘fairly even’’ participation from both sexes he said the stigma of chess being nerdy and bookish was unwarranted.
Hebberd said it was ‘‘more and more important’’ to include some- thing like chess in a curriculum ‘‘which is quite digital’’.
‘‘It requires kids to think and plan and sequence and all these sorts of things ... to be able to sit and plan something out like a game of chess it has lots of transferable skills.’’
‘‘Some children have just got the ability to see in advance all the moves, it’s a skill, it’s a gift, and those Kelso kids have it,’’ Hebberd said.
The Chess Power competitions will see more than 100 junior players between the age of 5 and 17 converge in Hamilton on October 22.