Hello Chess club parents & players,

Welcome to the new year!!  As students return to class, I want to let you know what we've been working on for you in order to continue with the chess club, but in a safe way.  While many players may prefer to learn and play face-to-face, that just isn't possible right now, but luckily we can still do this online and have a lot of fun at the same time!

The basics:

• Lessons will take place on Wednesdays, from 6:30-8pm as usual.  First lesson would be Wed Oct 7.
• Players will need to sign on to Zoom, using a link that will be provided
• We will start with the usual announcements & questions.  After that, players  will be put into "breakout room" groups, which will have been decided ahead of time based on players abilities.  Each breakout room will have a coach, who will go over a lesson for 15 or 20 minutes.
• The more advanced players will be coached by IAC coaches Chris and Ryan.
• Beginners will be coached by me and Ryan O'Leary.  
• After the lesson, players will then go to lichess.org,  sign into the MSCC club, and play "Arena" style games with other players from the club, much as we would in class.  "Arena" style just means that a player is paired with someone relatively close in rating.  After the game is over, the players are then paired with someone new, depending on rating and who's available.  The Arena style games would end around 8, but a player would always have the choice to leave early or stay later.

The process:

• Sign up on the website as usual - at muskegochess.com   (available now)
• Annual fee of $50 remains the same, and includes chesskid.com gold membership for those who want it.
• Fee can be mailed or paid through PayPal (details TBD, I will send out information when it's set up).
• Each player must have a lichess.org account and a device to join the Zoom lesson and lichess.org.  A link will be sent for the player to join the MSCC club, and also the IAC club if he/she chooses.
• Players will be provided account information for chesskid.com, if they are new to it.  For current players (2019/2020 season), the log in information will remain the same.

Trial Run

In order to help the club and IAC get everything organized, we are looking for 5-10 volunteers to have a practice lesson over Zoom on Wed Sept 9th.  We will have a shortened lesson to test the breakout rooms, and then everyone can go to lichess.org to play, so anyone volunteering needs to have a lichess account by then.  If you are interested in volunteering, please email me as soon as possible.  Limited to the first 10.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.  We're looking forward to getting started and will have other announcements about tournaments soon!

Thanks

Coach Dan