| Saudin Robovic
Our founder, Saudin Robovic, was born in Bosnia and is an international chess master.
He moved to New York City in 1996 and immediately became involved in scholastic chess. When Saudin realized the need for a program like NyChessKids he developed it in 1999.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >> |
| Gary Ryan
Gary is Harvard-educated in theology, and moved to New York City about 12 years ago from Mississippi. He taught chess for Chess-in-the-Schools for many years, and he has taught other chess programs in Manhattan and Brooklyn. This will be Gary’s third year with the NYChessKids family, and we have been lucky to have him.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ Chess Camp >>
|
| Gregory Cesar
Gregory has been with NyChessKids since the start and has become one of our most sought after teachers. He hails from Haiti and has been in the city for more then 10 years. He is a student at Queens College and is studying music education. Besides his gift for music he is also extremely brilliant in chess, which is rare combination. He is a US National Chess Master and currently uses his gift to teach in several schools in the area.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ Chess Camp >>
|
| Joseph "Shep" Shepard
This New York City native has worked with NyChessKids since its conception and is beloved by everyone here. He is one of our first chess teachers and is also responsible for the sport activities during our camps. He is a chess book expert and is always researching new ones. During the camps, Shep will analyze famous games that chess masters have played in the past. The students love to sit around and listen to his unique interpretation of these games.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >>
|
|
William Lombardy
William Lombardy was the first American to win the
World Junior Championship in 1957 with a perfect score
of 11/11! He drew a two-game match with World Chess
Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. William Lombardy played
first board for the US Team that won the 1960 World Student
Team Championship in Leningrad, USSR, the first
time the US Team won that event. He defeated future
World Chess Champion Boris Spassky in their individual
game. He won a gold medal for best result on his board
in that event. William Lombardy was clear second in the
US championship behind Bobby Fischer in 1960. He is
better known to many for being Bobby Fischer’s second during the 1972 world championship match in Reykjavik.
William Lombardy is an excellent chess teacher, one of the best and most knowledgeable chess teachers in the world. He teaches our most advanced chess students including all of our chess teachers!
|
|
Anatoly Trubman
Anatoly is an extremely famous chess teacher, who teaches at Hunter, Dalton, Riverdale Country and PS 41 schools. He has long since supported NyChessKids, but has just recently joined our team as a teacher. Anatoly is running our chess teams when they travel to compete in National tournaments. We are glad to have him on our team.
|
|
Chris Chanin
Chris has been teaching for 17 years in both the public and private schools, including the Bronx High School of Science, The Calhoun School and P. S. 75. He is the former Director of Teacher Training at Chess-in-the-Schools and has been actively involved with NYChessKids since its inception. A chess player all his life, Chris loves teaching the royal game to all students from kindergarten to adult. Chris is working for NYChessKids at the chess camps and teaches our kids privately as well. His unique way of teaching kids is an invaluable addition to NYChessKids. He comes to our chess tournaments on a regular basis where he reviews the games of many kids who participate in the tournament. |
| Chris Maksymowicz
Chris has been teaching chess with NYChessKids since 2003. He currently teaches chess classes to K-5 at PS 116 and PS 163 in Manhattan and also teaches the Competitive Chess Class at Saint David’s School, also in Manhattan.
He got his start teaching chess with Chess-in-the-Schools where he started as a teacher...
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS163 >> |
| Milos Scekic
Milos was born in Serbia; he started to play chess in kindergarten, and has played it since then. He is the youngest national chess master in Yugoslavia chess history; he achieved that title in 1991 at age 14. He achievied the title of International Chess Mater in 1998. In mid the 90s, he started with couching young chess stars, and this culminated by achieving the title of FIDE chess trainer in 2007. Now he is in the top 100 active chess players list and the top 10 chess trainers list of US.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >>
|
| Alexander Kure
Alex has been a professional software development engineer for more than 12 years. He is also part of the Chessbase Fritz team where he works on the chess program's openings book. When Alex relocated to New York City in the summer of 2008 he joined NYChessKids to assist Saudin to expand the chess program.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >>
|
|
Danilo Nenezic
Danilo is a chess master, who came to the USA in the mid 90s from Montenegro. He has been with NYChessKids since 2004. He is working with NYChessKids at PS 116 and he acts as tournament director at the NYChessKids tournaments. Danilo also runs his own chess program at PS 130.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >>
|
|
Alex Beltre
Alex worked for many years at the Chess in Schools organization before he joined NYChessKids two years ago. He is teaching at PS 116 school. But his most important role is that of the main tournament director at the NYChessKids tournaments. Alex lives with his family in Long Island from where he can easily work with kids from the same area.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >>
|
|
Rashad Babaev
Rashad just joined us recently. He is an International Grandmaster with a rating of ELO 2535. Originally from Azerbaijan, he moved to New York in 2009. Rashad has worked for 10 years as a chess coach for the Azerbaijan chess youth team. He has many years of experience as a chess tutor and many of his students became very strong players, such as Mamedov (ELO 2623), or Bajarani Ulvi (ELO 2420). Rashad assisted Super GM Vugar Gashimov (2740) and many other strong chess players. Rashad's best accomplishment so far has been becoming chess champion of Azerbaijan in 2009.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ Chess Camp >>
|
|
Lily Faerman
Lily grew up in New York City and got involved with chess very early. She taught chess for Chess-in-the-Schools for many years and is currently teaching chess at PS 9 school. She works at our chess camps and helps us at our chess tournaments. Lily is very good with very young kids.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ Chess Camp >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oscar Santana
Originally, Oscar was one of our chess kids. Recently he started to assist our teachers in our chess classes at PS 116. Since Oscar is very young he can connect very easily to our young chess students. Oscar also helps us at our chess tournaments and chess camps.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ PS116 >>
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kassa Korley
Kassa is one of our young assistant teachers. He has recently started working at our chess camps. Kassa received a scholarship from the Dalton School which is well-known for their excellent chess program. Kassa plays regularly in our chess tournaments at PS 116 and the Lower Lab School in the Championship section. His USCF rating is above 2300. Kassa has become a role model for our young chess students. He can very naturally connect to them and he mainly supports us teaching advanced chess kids.
Read more about him and watch a video of him teaching @ Chess Camp >>
|
|
Raven Sturt
Raven goes to Bronx High School of Science. He is a former student of PS 116 and was one of the team members of the PS 116 chess team to win the National Scholastic Championship. He plays regularly in our chess tournaments at PS 116 and the Lower Lab School in the Championship section. His USCF rating is above 2300. He is an assistant chess teacher and works at our chess camps.
|
|
Nitai Leve
Nitai also goes to Bronx High School of Science. Like Raven, he also is a former student of PS 116 and was Raven's team mate of the PS 116 chess team to win the National Scholastic Championship. He plays regularly in our chess tournaments at PS 116 and the Lower Lab School in the Championship section. His USCF rating is above 2150. He is an assistant chess teacher and works at our chess camps.
|
| Frank Fan Wu
Frank is our head webmaster for nychesskids.com. He has been working with us since 2002. Originally from China, he has lived in New York City for more than a decade. Frank has a Bachelor’s degree in Commmunication Design. He has been doing Web design when he was still a college student. He also is a great photographer and covers most of our NYChessKids events.
|
