Chess champs hail from Sunset Park

There’s a new team of kings and queens in town – the P.S. 503 ChessMates, who won first place at the United States Chess Federation’s National Elementary Championship on Sunday, May 13 – Mother’s Day – making many mothers and fathers proud.

The newly crowned champions returned to their Sunset Park school on Monday triumphant, carting back a three-tiered purple-and-gold trophy that is as tall as some of the fifth-graders themselves, as well as several plaques and smaller trophies.

As a team, the 14 students – in second through fifth grade – won first place in the intermediate level “K-6 Under 1,000” category. They earned 22 points – half a point higher than the second place team from Miami, Florida.

It has only been a year since the students began competing in tournaments organized through Chess in the Schools. Their relative inexperience made the victory over 49 other schools – including middle schools – even sweeter and more exciting for the kids and their teachers and coaches Carlos Graupera, Matthew Silverman and Rachel Hsieh, who said that the team’s skills grew so quickly because of the students’ hard work and passion for the game.

Chancellor Dennis Walcott from the city’s Department of Education congratulated the students during a visit, during which the kids bested him in a game filled with laughs and intense stares of concentration.

P.S. 503: The School of Discovery is an elementary school comprised mostly of students from Sunset Park’s Asian, Hispanic and Middle Eastern immigrant communities.