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Esperanza Chess Team Successful at Home and Away

#EsperanzaNews

The Esperanza Academy Charter School Chess Team just had two big weekends in a row, competing at and winning both the Checkmate Violence Marathon Chess Tournament on Jan. 27-28, and the Masterminds Winter Open Chess Tournament on Feb. 3-4 .

The Team traveled to Temple University for the Checkmate Violence Tournament. Hosted in partnership with the Police Commissioner, the tournament is designed to provide a safe alternative for kids in Philadelphia and help end violence in the city. Esperanza divided its fourteen students into two teams, one that played in the rated division for experienced players, and one that competed in the unrated division for new players who have never attended a tournament. Both teams took first place in their division.

Notable individual performances came from Mateo Ruiz (9th grade), who took home a fifth-place medal after winning all five of his matches at the high school level, Giovanni Cortez (8th grader) who took a silver medal for winning three out of five middle school matches, and Angelo Martinez (8th grader) and Ivonne Garcia-Almanzar (8th grader), both of whom tied with bronze medals at the middle school level. Additionally, Mr. David Bronstein of the high school represented Esperanza in the annual coaches’ tournament, taking home the second-place trophy after losing only one of his five matches.

The Masterminds Winter Open last weekend was hosted at Esperanza, and the chess team again took home the first-place trophy with a team of mostly high school students.

The Chess Team will be competing in the city playoffs in the upcoming weeks in preparation for the State Championships in Gettysburg in March. As always, congratulations to the Chess Team!

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