Over one hundred people aged between 7 and 70 years participated in the second annual New East Manchester chess tournament that took place on Sunday (1st March 2009).
This year's national event, held again at the City of Manchester stadium at Sportcity, was organised by Sport 4 Life and the Eagle Chess Club. The event was in association with Manchester Chess Federation and supported by New East Manchester.
Sean McGonigle, Director of Regeneration at New East Manchester said: "Last year's inaugural event was extremely successful and this year's has been even bigger and better with 112 players participating. We helped local l primary schools set up chess clubs at lunchtimes which have been very popular and some of the children showed off their skills at the tournament."
Tournament organiser, John Dwan, Director of Sport 4 Life said: "This year we have participants from several countries including Portugal, Kosova, Greece and Poland and a wide range of ages with 30 players under 16 years old. Chess is becoming trendy again and children seem to really love it. It can dramatically improve concentration as well as being a fun way to exercise the mind."
The rapid chess rules, adjudicated by the Manchester Chess Federation, required players to complete all their moves within a 30 minute time-frame.
Anyone interested in entering next year's tournament should contact Sport 4 Life on: Tel: 0845 1300849, E-mail: info@mysport4life.co.uk
or Web: http://www.mysport4life.co.uk/
Tournament media contact: Adam Smith 07748 981525 or asmith@mysport4life.co.uk