I found a chess park! Regrade Park is a tiny, off-leash dog park in Seattle. Sadly no dogs wanted to play

What brought you to chess?

My older brother taught me to play when I was 9 yrs old. After he taught me the fundamentals, he and I’d go to chess club on Friday nights, and I learned so many things from those experiences — both in chess and in life. To this day I think of him and the gift of chess that he gave me and how it helped shape me into who I am today. I needed that support when I was a kid, and I’m grateful that I had it. Now I try to be that person for others.

What keeps you going?

When jumping into something new I subscribe to the “rule of threes” to help me keep my priorities straight: if there’s a good reason to do something, I might do it; if there are two good reasons, I’ll probably do it; and, if there are three good reasons to do something then I’ll definitely do it.

There are so many good reasons for me to dedicate myself to chess and the chess club that very little can keep me away, from my love of the game and how scholastic chess became a natural evolution of my youth work to my desire to continually learn and improve. I love organizing and creating spaces for people to meet each other, have fun, and discover something new. I get a lot of joy out of seeing so many smiling faces over the chess boards during club meetings.

Teaching a chess lesson during Cruising McMinnville 2025

For me, a fun venue is also the key to what brings me (and hopefully others) back again and again, and the club is incredibly fortunate to have the venue partners it does. Our venues have a lot to offer that go way beyond just being “a space” to meet. They have great food options, the chance to do some shopping, and a strong and supportive relationship for our club to in turn support them for all they give us. There’s that “rule of threes” again.

What kinds of chess do you either play or enjoy the most, and why?

I love Blitz chess and playing 5-minute games. I first got into Blitz when playing at Harvard Square, in Cambridge across the river from Boston, where everyone plays speed chess. The McMinnville Chess Club is actually the first club I’ve been a part of where timed play is the exception rather than the rule, and that’s helped me slow down my chess and practice more deep thinking.

I enjoy the pressure of playing speed chess a lot, though, and it’s helped me get to the idea of losing, resetting the board, and playing again. It’s also a really good way to get a lot of games in, practice specific openings, and — if I’m losing a game — switch my thinking from “How do I efficiently win this game?” to “How can I make my opponent work really hard here,” and maybe I’ll win on time.

Hopefully we’ll get our Friday Night Chess meetings going at Roth’s again, but we have 2 meetings a week already and I’m often out of town on Friday nights, so I can’t consistently host another regular club meeting. This would be a great volunteer opportunity if someone else wants to host!

What’s your favorite thing about the chess club? What would you like more people to know about?

Our regulars go out of their way to teach and mentor attendees who are looking for support, especially our younger players, and the kindness, patience, and expertise I’ve seen has been tremendously moving for me.

We also have a lot of fun at our events. If anyone in the club has an idea for an event, the main requirement is we just need two event hosts to make it happen.

Christefano Reyes (right) and club attendee extraordinaire Raul Ramirez (left) enjoying Blacklight Chess at our Holiday Party in 2023.

What’s your favorite chess opening at the moment? 

That’s a tough one, but I think I can answer that. For White, I enjoy the King’s Gambit and for Black I’ve been playing the Rousseau Gambit, which is kind of like a King’s Gambit for Black. Both are risky “razor’s edge” openings with a fun sense of danger, precision, and big payoff if played correctly. I’m writing a book about the Rousseau Gambit, and I recently finished the first draft. If you know any publishers I should reach out to, please let me know.

If you could give your younger self one piece of chess wisdom and advice, what would it be?

Don’t give up, and find a mentor or someone to play regularly with.

When I was 11, I entered my first chess tournament and got 2nd place. I can still recall the game I played in the final round and the feeling of terror when I realized I’d left a piece hanging. I was pretty upset with myself and went to maybe just one or two tournaments after that, and I wish I’d stayed with it. I needed a chess tutor or mentor, not just for improving my chess skills but also for the psychology of the game, dealing with “tilting” and burnout, and how to keep my head on straight.

Christefano Reyes (right) teaching a chess lesson at Mac Market

Has chess made you into a better person?

Absolutely. From a young age, chess has taught me skills essential for life, like problem solving, staying calm under pressure, and how to both win and lose gracefully. Chess has also helped me build a strong sense of identity and self-confidence and taught me how to manage my emotions and recover from failure. Chess has made me more resilient as a person as a whole.

Running the chess club has introduced me to countless wonderful people and the local business community, and I even started Chess Zendō, my private tutoring and coaching practice. Chess Zendō came about because I saw how many people came to chess club looking for one-on-one mentoring, and as much as I wanted I just wasn’t able to host club meetings, teach, and play, too, all at the same time. It’s a lot, and I’m glad I was able to find a way to teach outside of chess club.

Photo courtesy of the News-Register

Chess has always been a part of my personal life, but now it’s become so much more. If you’d told me a few years ago that one day I’d restart the chess club at McMinnville High School, be working as a successful chess tutor, getting certified as a Tournament Director, and organizing large tournaments and go on to build a full-blown tournament management system, I probably wouldn’t have believed it.

Anything else you’d like our readers to know? Do you have any passions or pasttimes outside of chess you want to tell us about?

I’m pretty excited about Chess Bingō, a variant of Bingo I created and use as a teaching tool with my students. I was thrilled that NW Chess magazine recently picked up my article about it and ran it in the March, 2026 issue. It’s important to me that learning chess is fun — and if it’s fun, it doesn’t feel like learning!

Chess Bingō scorecards, combining chess and Bingo. Fun for the whole family!

It’s probably not a big surprise that I enjoy analyzing problems, setting goals, and creating solutions, and something people probably don’t know about me is that my day job is in tech as a consultant, virtual CTO, and certified project manager. I’ve been in the tech industry for over 30 years, and I’ve worked with many companies and nonprofits you’ve heard of and countless others. My favorite client and one of my biggest engineering challenges was probably Digital Dollhouse, which was the project that originally brought me out to the West Coast.

I’m also very into rock climbing and particularly bouldering. I’m a V8 climber, a volunteer judge with USA Climbing’s Youth Series, and I run ClimbPDX, the largest community of rock climbers in Oregon and SW Washington. For a while I curated the local events calendar, wrote climbing product reviews, and did interviews with members of the climbing community. I want to get back into that some day and also get into sports photography.

If you’d like to learn more about our last tournament, including tournament results, photos, and sponsor details, check out our article, A Knight to Remember, which was also published in the July, 2025 issue of NW Chess magazine.

This time our tournament is Saturday, May 16th, from 9am-5pm at McMinnville High School, where we’ve reserved several rooms comfortably seat up to 100 players.

Tickets are $20, and there’s no fee at all to current McMinnville Chess Club members at any level (monthly, annual, lifetime, and family). We also have a scholarship program and a discount code for anyone who asks. No one will ever be turned away.

Thanks so much, and we look forward to seeing you at our event!

– The McMinnville Chess Tournament organizing team:

• Christefano Reyes, Tournament Director
• Scott Christensen, Assistant Tournament Director
• John Burroughs
• Chris Starr
• Mike Terrill
• Roger Mitchell

What brought you to chess?

My dad taught me how to play when I around 6 years old.

What keeps you going?

The game fits with my personality, so it’s hard to stay away from it!

What kinds of chess do you either play or enjoy the most, and why?

Now I mostly play over-the-board, though I have played a lot of online chess over the years. I prefer playing actual humans instead of bots.

What’s your favorite chess opening at the moment?

Scotch Gambit. There are a lot of different move orders to get it after 1.e4 e5. There are also a lot of traps and tactical ideas in the opening.

If you could give your younger self one piece of chess wisdom and advice, what would it be?

I would tell my twenty-year old self to avoid extremes in my play and not to let my emotions get the best of me.

Has chess made you into a better person?

That is a tough question to answer, since it’s been a part of me for the vast majority of my life.

Anything else you’d like our readers to know? Do you have any projects outside of chess that you’re working on?

I was a scholastic chess coach in the Portland Metro area for twelve and a half years before moving to McMinnville in 2020. Along with being one of the founding members of the McMinnville Chess Club, I’m also a member of McMinnville Community Media‘s Saturday Film Club and am planning a series of shows about chess to be filmed at MCM.

Details:

• Swiss format, with 3 rounds and a G/15 time control
• If we get more than 8 players, we’ll go to 4 rounds of G/10
• No entry fee, won’t be rated
• There will be a prize!  

Games will start promptly at 5:45pm on Wednesday night. We will start on time so we can finish up before Mac Market closes. BYOB (bring your own board!) and clocks. The “Chess Clock by Chess.com” app is good to use in a pinch.

To foster our youth members’ immediate sense of ease and excitement when they arrive at our club events, we now have a McMinnville Chess Club Parents group chat — a new way for parents and families to let other parents know when they and their kids will be at chess club. It’s also a great way for parents to meet and get to know one another!

Our older members go out of their way to greet and play youth attendees. In the words of one of our club parents’ testimonials, “You will often find the older members coaching and guiding the younger ones, and it is truly something special.” This dynamic is in our club’s DNA and will continue, and our hope is that youth players can take the tips and tricks they learn and put them to practice with their friends and other players who are close to the same age.

McMinnville Chess Club Parents is mostly parents of preteens (ages 9 to 12) and potentially younger as more parents join. If there’s interest, we might help our teen attendees create their own group chat if they want one. (Our organizers have also started the McMinnville High School Chess Club that meets after school on Wednesdays! Follow @machighchess on Instagram to learn more.)

To be added to the group chat by SMS without needing to install yet another app, speak with an organizer at one of our events, or send a message to 501-468-2437 (501-GOT-CHESS). Unlike SMS group chats, however, get GroupMe for iOS or GroupMe for Android to fine-tune your notification settings — and even leave and rejoin — and you can also access this group chat on the web.

What brought you to chess?

I always say that I learned to play it by mistake. My mom signed me up for the elementary after-school chess program in Cuenca, Ecuador, when I was 8. As I continued learning about chess, I fell in love with it, and suddenly I realized that I could play and create things on the board.      

What keeps you going?

In chess, like in life, you never stop learning; therefore, I’d like to keep improving my game at the same time I have fun, regardless of the tournament results I get. Also, it is a lot of fun to connect with people through a chess game, even if no words are spoken during a game!

What does the chess club mean for you? What would you like more people to know about?

The McMinnville Chess Club means to me a safe space where people from any culture, language, religion, gender preference, political views, generation, etc. can connect through a chess game and share ideas, chess anecdotes, and their passion for this ancient game. 

I want people to know that chess is for anybody, regardless of their skill level and personality type. There’s a misconception that chess is only for introverted people, which is not accurate.

Additionally, chess can help people to improve their critical thinking skills, patience, perseverance, focus, and so on. Chess is a great workout for the brain, so the more you play and study it, the sharper your brain will be to tackle daily life situations!

What kinds of chess do you either play or enjoy the most, and why?

I love playing blitz (3min. + 2sec.) due to the adrenaline rush. However, in terms of improvement, it has been proven that longer time controls help with the quality of the game due to players have more time to think about their moves.

Additionally, I enjoy playing long games in official chess tournaments since it is not only a mental battle on the board but also a physical one. I’m currently training to play in the Oregon Open Chess tournament at the end of August in the 2000+ category.

What’s your favorite chess opening at the moment? 

ST: I love open games because they are wild, so any opening that would give me an open position fits well with me at the moment. I grew up playing closed and semi-open games, so it was about time for a change.    

If you could give your younger self one piece of chess wisdom and advice, what would it be?

This is a hypothetical question, so I’d say “believe in yourself despite disappointments and learn a lot from the games you lose”.  
 
Has chess made you into a better person?

Absolutely! Chess keeps your ego in check all the time, and it has helped me become a more patient, understanding, compassionate, humble, and better problem solver, among other things. 

Anything else you’d like our readers to know? Do you have any passions or pastimes outside of chess you want to tell us about?

I love playing soccer, tennis, doing trail running, and doing weight training in my spare time. Believe it or not, it is very important to be in good shape to keep up with the physical demands of tournament play. I have figured that in a two-day chess tournament (4 four-hour games), I burn more calories than if I had done trail running (10 km/6.2 miles) for about 70 minutes.

How chess teaches the skills for a successful life
by Christefano Reyes, Chess Zendō

I believe in the values of learning, playing, and improving in chess — and in the power that chess has to develop the skills for a successful life. Having been both a teacher and a life-long chess player, I was delighted to realize later in my life how many life skills chess has taught me, and these are the skills I teach my students.

This essay is based on a presentation I gave in February, 2024 at McMinnville Kiwanis, a nonprofit that’s dedicated to improving the lives of children everywhere, and it’s re-presented here to help share some of the benefits and values that I believe chess provides.

• Teaches players etiquette and how to win and lose 
• Can help develop focus
• An educational tool
• Helps players realize the consequences of their actions
• Develops creativity and creative thinking
• Builds confidence
• Develops problem-solving skills
• Helps players remain calm under pressure
• Exercises the brain and benefits the body
• Brings people together

Chess teaches players etiquette and how to win and lose

Chess teaches good sportsmanship and the virtues of both winning and losing, from shaking hands at the start of a game to gracefully accepting the outcome. 

The sense of excitement and achievement from winning makes learning fun, while losing can provide valuable lessons in the importance of learning from mistakes, humility, and resilience (my favorite).

Chess can help develop focus

Chess is a game that requires intense focus and concentration. Players need to analyze the board, make a plan, anticipate their opponent’s moves, and adapt accordingly in order to come up with a winning strategy. 
Maintaining this kind of focus for extended periods of time translates to the ability to concentrate both over-the-board and in everyday life.

Chess is an educational tool

Chess can be a valuable addition to any curriculum, and scholastic chess (chess programs for school-aged children) give students fun and challenging opportunities to become better learners and problem-solvers. 

There’s an enormous wealth of books, magazines, and videos on chess, and there’s always the chance to learn something new. With the right guidance and resources, players can enjoy and learn immensely not even realize that they are learning and improving.

Chess helps players realize the consequences of their actions

Chess requires players to think several moves ahead and consider how each decision impacts the overall game. Each and every move can lead to a cascade of outcomes, teaching players the importance of foresight and strategic planning. This awareness not only informs their gameplay but also translates into real life situations where it’s important to make decisions carefully.

Chess develops creativity and creative thinking

Chess encourages players to think about their thinking, which helps develop an awareness and regulation of one’s cognitive processes. This process, or metacognition, has untold benefits not only in chess but also in creative thinking in the real world away from the board.

Successful chess players practice reflective thinking and can assess their own thought processes, and this helps creativity and brilliance emerge. An example of this “thinking about thinking” that can lead to insights and innovation is when a player “sees the board,” identifies patterns, and draws connections between them.

Chess builds confidence

As players improve their skills and experience more victories and camaraderie, they gain a sense of accomplishment and self-identity that reinforces their confidence and self-esteem. Facing challenging situations head on and overcoming setbacks promotes resilience (my favorite), and this boosts confidence even further — both in chess and in everyday life.

Over the years, I’ve seen countless players become more confident and comfortable in themselves as they’ve developed not just their skills and familiarity with the game, but also a healthy sense of self-identity. The mental switch from thinking, “I can play chess” to “I am a chess player” is a powerful one, and it’s a joy for me to see every time.

Chess develops problem-solving skills

Chess teaches many mental models and problem-solving skills, including critical thinking, strategic planning, pattern recognition, adaptability, decision-making, creativity and ingenuity, and (my favorite) resilience and emotional regulation.

A important life skill learned through chess that’s especially helpful is inverted thinking. Instead of asking, “Why can’t I get what I want?” in a game, we can ask “What’s stopping me from getting what I want?” and thinking backwards from the desired solution and finding the right sequence of moves.

Chess helps players remain calm under pressure

Chess creates a high-stakes environment where critical decisions must be made during every game, and often under time constraints. 

Players practice managing their emotions and maintaining their focus, and each and each and every game is an opportunity for both deep concentration and clear thought, even when situations become tense. Over time, this type of repeatable experience translates into real life scenarios, enabling individuals to handle stress and pressure with greater confidence and composure.

Chess exercises the brain and benefits the body

Positive mental stress (eustress) can contribute to a motivation to improve, such as climbing the chess ladder with a nationally-recognized rating or beating a beloved family member.

It’s not just the brain, however, Chess can also be a good way to burn calories through the positive physical stress of the game. It’s been reported in several studies that playing chess can burn the same amount of calories as other sports such as tennis and running.

NPR reported in 2019 that due to accelerated heart rates that over the course of a 10-day tournament, high level players lose 10-12 pounds on average.

Chess brings people together

Chess is a platform for friendly competition, social interaction, and collaboration, and it encourage bonding, sharing experiences, and celebrating each other’s successes regardless of differences in age, sex, and even culture and language.

This social aspect helps players cultivate an identity as part of a community and a sense of belonging, and many players join clubs, participate in tournaments, and find other ways to connect with others who share their passion.

Before starting Chess Zendō, I founded the McMinnville Chess Club in 2023, and our local chess club has continually created opportunities for players to meet, make new friends, and learn from one another. If you’re in the Portland and McMinnville area, I invite you to come visit us!

• The results
• Thanks to Evergreen Museum
• Thanks to our sponsors
• To the future

At the Evergreen Museum this month, our rated and unrated tournament attracted 23 participants and 45 total attendees (including family, parents, and spouses). It was a remarkable event made better by everyone’s presence and participation, and the excitement and intensity of an organized tournament was palpable. After the tournament, many participants and their families from the area enjoyed the various attractions that McMinnville has to offer, and many later visited the businesses who sponsored our event and contributed to the tournament’s prizes.

The tournament featured 4 sections: Adult Rated, Adult Unrated, Youth Rated, and Youth Unrated. By far, our most popular section was Youth Unrated, and we had youth participants from McMinnville and surrounding cities, including Amity, Eugene, Hillsboro, Salem, and Tigard. This was a solid sign for us that McMinnville Chess Club is fulfilling our mission of supporting and promoting youth chess.

Of note, however, was that our Youth Rated section was our smallest section, which is a good indication of where to focus our ongoing efforts. The future of chess is in our young players, and we hope our Youth Unrated players continue on to become rated players.

To that end, our tournament directors, Mike Terrill and Christefano Reyes respectively organize the Duniway Middle School chess club, and the McMinnville High School and Memorial Elementary School chess clubs. We also published an article last year on How to get a free US Chess membership to help get more players into rated tournaments.

In the Adult Rated section, we were pleased to host rated players ranging from the 1500s to the 2000s — including a National Master, Faris Gabbara, who traveled from out of state (Michigan) and a Candidate Master, Preston Polasek (former winner of the Oregon Open) — and who all in the best way modeled proper etiquette and chess professionalism to our younger and less experienced players.

Regardless of everyone’s rating, tournaments like this one uniquely provided all our participants with fun and exciting opportunities to make new friends, challenge old rivals, and play others with different backgrounds, ages, chess skill, and tournament experience levels.

The results

Ben Crane, another McMinnville Chess Club member, played strongly and won 1st Place in the Adult Unrated section.

Tyson Woodward, a very promising youth player from Amity, Oregon, enjoyed 1st Place in the Youth Unrated section.

This wasn’t the first tournament we’ve held, but it was our first rated tournament with US Chess. We enlisted help from Dave Murray, fellow tournament director and the president of the Portland Chess Club, and he was as gracious as he was helpful. In less than an hour, our tournament results processed successfully and players began receiving emails that their recent tournament performances had been rated.

Thanks to Evergreen Museum

We’ve found an ideal venue and partnership with Evergreen Museum, and we’re grateful for the excellent facilities and much appreciated on-site support on the day of our event. We especially want to thank Evergreen’s Stephanie Upmeyer and Lee Ngo for their help making our event a resounding success. We’re already planning our next tournament at Evergreen Museum, where we’ll be building on the success of this May, 2025 tournament.

Our tournament was larger than expected, and we used the 301 + 302 classrooms used by the Museum’s STEAM program and expanded into an additional “Skills Room” (also known as a “Skittles Room”) in room 300 for players to decompress during rounds, study their games, and have the space to talk and play away from the tournament area.

Of course, we also brought the McMinnville Chess Library, a curated collection of books, chess sets, and other equipment, and accepted several new donations of books and chess sets from a few of our club members. Items in this chess library are available to members to check out, and we bring this mobile library to all of our official events for both members and guests alike to browse and enjoy.

We had water, coffee, and tea from Flag & Wire at the event and a sponsored lunch at Stickmen Brewing Company after the tournament, but we didn’t offer snacks or food (next time!). Evergreen Museum came to the rescue once again with their full-service Aviator Cafe, which opened later in the morning and provided hungry players with wraps, salads, cookies, and other treats.

Our attendees were also delighted to find that May 10th was the Star Wars Day celebration at Evergreen Museum, and they enjoyed opportunities to meet, hang out with, and take photos with fans and characters from the Star Wars universe.

It was a visually stunning and interactive cultural phenomenon to be surrounded by Jedis, Jawas, Rebel Alliance Pilots, Mandalorians, and even Darth Vader himself — and it was understandably a challenge getting some of our youth players back into the tournament on time for each round!

Thanks to our sponsors

We are immensely grateful to our sponsors who contributed to our prize pool and for making this tournament a lot more fun

Jason from Noble Knights Chocolate Company arrived at the tournament with dozens of milk chocolate and dark chocolate chess pieces for our winners and youth players. Brehan from Crawford Wellness provided valuable volunteer support, and Jocela provided yoga class passes as prizes.

Flag & Wire was our generous coffee and tea sponsor, and a group of us met at the coffee shop in the early morning to fuel up and get ready for the day, and then Joseph from Knight Shuttle picked us up in their luxury van (emblazoned with a Knight on the side!) to take us to the Museum.

After the tournament, Knight Shuttle picked us up and took us to Stickmen Brewing Company for a sponsored lunch, and after Sandy took great care of us with amazing salads, drinks, and wood-fired pizzas, several of us stayed and played blitz chess for a few more hours, which finally gave our weary but happy tournament directors a chance to play.

• EMPWR Nutrition – Venue Sponsor
• Stickmen Brewing Company – After Party Sponsor
• Flag & Wire – Coffee & Tea Sponsor
• Knight Shuttle – Transportation Sponsor
• Noble Knights Chocolate Company – Chocolate Sponsor
• Crawford Wellness – Wellness Sponsor
• Oregon Stationers – Print Sponsor
• J&W CARSTAR – Prize Sponsor
• Hopscotch Toys – Prize Sponsor
• good food mac – Prize Sponsor
• Vortex Records – Prize Sponsor
• The Velvet Monkey Tea Shop – Prize Sponsor
• Troon Vineyard – Prize Sponsor
• Chess Zendo – Prize Sponsor

It’s impossible to express how much our sponsors showed their support and enthusiasm. While it’s certainly possible to put on a fun, successful event without many (if any) sponsors, our attendees could feel the momentous support and positive encouragement from our local business community. With their continuous help, McMinnville has quickly become a center of chess activity, rated play, and scholastic chess in the Willamette Valley.

To the future

With this tournament just behind us, we’ve made new friends, learned valuable lessons, and already plan two more tournaments at Evergreen Museum in 2025 alone. To join us and to hear about upcoming events before anyone else, subscribe to our email and SMS newsletter below.

Of course, we also have numerous monthly club meetings (every Wednesday night at Mac Market and Saturday afternoons at Harvest Fresh Grocery & Deli), occasional chess popups around town (including this month’s popups at Troon Vineyard and Mac Plaza), and World Chess Day on Sunday, July 20th. 

To help our club continue to grow and fulfill our mission to bring more chess to more youth players and adult players alike, check out our Donate page to learn how to volunteer your time, contribute to the McMinnville Chess Library, and become a sponsor of the club — or better yet, become a member today.

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“One of the perks of McMinnville Chess Club membership is the weekly meetup location. ‘It’s the best-smelling chess club ever,’ said Christefano Reyes, one of the local club’s founders, about their Wednesday get-togethers at Mac Market, upstairs above Honey Pie Pizza, from 5:30 to 8:30pm.”

This game was a short game — just 14 moves! — and yet it demonstrates how an unexpected sacrifice by White, played by our club member, cleverly accomplished a mate in two. Read on.

Black’s first mistake in this Closed Sicilian game was 6. … d5 and opening the center without being castled.