Chess champion Gioia hosts tourney

A Sunnyside elementary school cafeteria, and, for a few hours, its front foyer as well, were converted into a tournament hall on Saturday, January 10 as 450 city students participated in the second annual Eric Gioia Chess Championship.
Students in grades K-12 from 30 mostly public schools in all five boroughs descended on P.S. 150 for the competition, the signature event on this year’s Chess-in-the-Schools Scholastic Tournament calendar and the first event of the new year.
Gioia, who learned to play chess as a student at P.S. 11 in Woodside, is a champion of chess - “Playing chess teaches students how to think strategically, critically and analytically,” he said in a statement - if not a chess champion himself; the Councilmember played a nine-year-old to a stalemate at the event.
“Thousands of students are gaining the skills they need to succeed in school because of Eric Gioia,” Chess-in-the-Schools CEO Marley Kaplan said in a statement, adding that Gioia understands the mission of the free non-profit program.
Gioia will host another Chess-in-the-Schools event on February 28, with registration open to any student in the city until February 25. For more information and to register, visit chessintheschools.org.