This month host Dan Lucas, the Senior Director of Strategic Communication at US Chess, talks to high school students at the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon Seth Talyansky (18) and Avi Gupta (17) about how they are leveraging their state championship team's success to promote chess and support underserved communities.  For example, the club hand-delivered chess sets to children in Chajul, Guatemala; donated chess clocks to a chess club in Ohrid, Macedonia; organized an online match with a high school chess club in Jackson, Mississippi; and traveled to Equatorial Guinea in western Africa to organize that nation’s first open chess tournament. 

 

Talyansky  is a US Chess National Master who has been the number-one ranked player in high school in Oregon since 2016 and was just named a U.S. Presidential Scholar.  Gupta is the two-time Utah state champion in his age group and currently ranked number five in Oregon. He will be appearing on Teen Jeopardy the week of June 17.