As the clock ticks down to game time, Pawn Wise: The Atlantic All-Ages Chess Festival is making all the right moves.
The Festival runs at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, July 29 to August 2. With the recent addition of Canadian GM Aman Hambleton to the playing roster, Festival organizers are creating excitement around the event and making it attractive to chess players and the public alike. Pawn Wise will feature two tournaments – the Canadian Senior Chess Championships and the inaugural Nova Scotia Mayflower Open – and a keynote address by P.h.D. Candidate Shruti Patelia, York University, on the topic of healthy aging.
Hambleton, 29, was born in Halifax and has lived in P.E.I. and Newfoundland. He currently lives in Toronto and is co-host of ChessBrah, one of the most popular Twitch and YouTube chess channels. He has been a member of the PRO Chess League team, the ChessBrahs, since 2017 and has represented Canada in two Chess Olympiads. Hambleton’s current FIDE rating is 2454. His games from the Mayflower Open will be video-streamed on Twitch and YouTube.
Chess Nova Scotia is the organization hosting Pawn Wise. It is a registered non-profit society whose mandate is to support learning, competition, and enjoyment of the game of chess through programs, clubs, tournaments, and special projects. The Festival is envisioned as a bold first move in a long-term plan to promote chess throughout the province in schools and community centres and to put Nova Scotia on the map as a place for major chess events, not only in 2022 but in the years to come.
Pawn Wise will be a unique all-ages experience, according to Festival Coordinator, Roger Langen. He says the event will be the first time that a chess festival has been built around the theme that chess is an all-ages sport.
“Perhaps I myself am an example,” says Langen. “I learned chess as a university student in Newfoundland and was so enthralled that I founded the Newfoundland Chess Association in 1969, and a year later organized the only Canadian Chess Open Championship held in Newfoundland, won by GM Bent Larsen. More than 50 years later, still enthralled with the game, I came up with the idea of Pawn Wise to celebrate a game for the ages, for all ages.”
The Festival has raised over $5,000 from Chess Nova Scotia members and has received a significant corporate sponsorship from an Ontario logistics firm as well as generous grants from the Halifax Regional Municipality and the Nova Scotia Department of Seniors.
Over 80 people are registered so far, including players from Israel, India, the UK, and Bangladesh. Organizers expect the Festival to appeal to chess enthusiasts from across the country and throughout Atlantic Canada.
Langen says Pawn Wise will also have something for the general public and people who may not play chess, but who are interested in the health benefits of games and activities like chess. In the keynote address, Shruti Patelia, a doctoral student at the School of Kinesiology & Health Science, York University, will explain how the stereotypes of aging play a crucial role in shaping how older people perceive aging as well as their choice of leisure pursuits.
“It will be a terrific experience,” says Langen, “for chess players and connoisseurs of healthy living alike.”
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