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By Olga Inglis,  Manager of Business Development, Premier Chess

Photo Credit: Alexandra Vainshtein

 “What we make of the future is defined by how well we understand and make sense of the past.” 

– Garry Kasparov

In May of 2019, I wanted “to make sense of the past.”  When my dear friend Sabina Veksler suggested that both of us attended Steve Eisenberg’s Monday Torah class, I was all for it.

Sabina is a personification of Tikkun Olam.  She can jump-start Jewish Philanthropy, structure a sustainability bond, and hand-deliver a hot Passover Seder Dinner to a friend and her children in the eye of pandemic (it was delicious).

I heard that Steve’s boundless passion and enthusiasm captivated every student in the room.  I got to experience it myself.  In addition to teaching, Steve did and does his best to help people.  His desire to improve people’s lives is genuine and thus far-reaching.

Authenticity is a beautiful, magnetic thing.  By meeting Steve, I met amazing people who opened their doors as well as their hearts to me.  Remarkable Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald was one of them. He taught me that love is so powerful that it opens up new dimensions in our minds and our hearts, and that the real source of power is in interdependence, not independence.  Rabbi Buchwald’s words came straight from the heart.  And as we know, “words from the heart enter the heart.”

I met Jeff Koblenz, CPA, a kind and vibrant Real Estate and Insurance Professional, gifted educator, who upon finding out about my chess passion, introduced me to Evan Rabin, National Master and CEO of Premier Chess.

Evan is a go-getter. He is self-motivated, energetic, and his enthusiasm is contagious.   Evan’s life is a simultaneous exhibition ranging from school programs, corporate classes, private lessons, camps, podcast, and everything in between. I don’t know where he finds the energy or the time.  Somehow he does.

Evan’s custom tailors his chess program for all walks of life and age ranges.  My daughter’s first formal introduction to chess was through the Premier Chess Winter Camp.  She fell in love with the game.  His 144th podcast episode features Israeli Grandmaster Victor Mikhalevski.  Victor says that love for the game is vital to success in chess.  This is where I find Premier Chess both special and unique.  Evan’s approach is both rational and emotional.  Premier Chess’s ability to infuse the game with passion is extraordinary.

Tomorrow will be a new day, a new set of questions and uncertainties.  Some things will be within my control and many will not.   My chessboard will be in the usual spot, on the shelf to the right of my piano.  And what a joy it will be to see both of my children,  staring intently at the chessboard, choosing which piece to advance, which to sacrifice, and most importantly, having fun.

By Marty Katz, Founder of Connectors 360

Evan Rabin, is the Founder of Premier Chess, which teaches chess to professionals as well as families.

His problem: during the doldrums of the pandemic and recession, his sales were flat. Not many people were interested in this diversion.

He met Marty Katz, Founder of Connectors 360. Marty is a marketing consultant and specializes in brand messaging.

Marty suggested that instead of framing his business strictly as a place to learn or play chess, Evan should address business leaders to show them that chess has a role that could benefit them:

Business leaders have many employees who are reluctant to try new things. They are afraid of being judged by their managers and colleagues if their ideas aren’t successful. This makes innovation –- the lifeblood of growth – the responsibility of only a few top-level execs.

Knowing this,  Evan positioned chess as a way for people to learn how to develop strategies, manage risk and generate creativity in their approach to solving problems and finding new opportunities. Managers and employees would all benefit.

Evan began communicating this new use of chess and its value to business leaders. They saw how chess could improve their employees’ performance and signed up for his programs.

Out of a low point, Evan found his own innovation to get the outcomes he wanted.

By Janie Teller, Founder of The Study Shack

There is a lot to be said about how chess provides many life skills that young students need as they grow and develop. Playing chess results in better brain function, improved memory and cognitive abilities, strategic thinking, and attention improvement. All of these benefits are directly related to the practice of chess, both in real-life and virtual environments, which means that chess could be the answer to how to help your child both in and out of the classroom.

By allowing them to flex their brain functions and cognitive skills, children are better prepared when it comes time to get ready for school assignments, statewide assessment, and college preparation. Especially as students struggle to focus during remote schooling, the skills that chess develops  – improving critical thinking, problem-solving, and concentration – can especially beat down any obstacles that remote schooling incurs.

By National Master Evan Rabin 

***This post was adapted from a presentation I did as part of Dr. Adena Blickstein‘s Cosmic Dragon Conference“. ***

For preschool, I went to the Jewish Board’s Child Development Center (CDC) and for elementary and middle school I went to the Churchill School and Center to overcome my so called ‘learning disability’. Until this day I have had difficulty explaining my learning disability as it was obvious that I had one but it was not exactly specified what it was. I had difficulty focusing and had issues with my speech and motor skills. At one my point my parents and grandparents thought I was deaf when I would not speak. While my learning disability diagnosis was unclear as to what it exactly it was, I know that CDC and Churchill had huge impacts on me transitioning to ‘mainstream’ school, when I went to the Dwight School for high school, where I ended up graduating with an International Baccalaureate diploma and getting into one of my top college choices, Brandeis University. While there, I graduated Cum Laude with a degree in Business and International Global Studies. However, without chess, who knows where I would be today. The game has helped me gain power by giving me community, critical thinking skills and confidence.

When I was in 2^nd grade, my father Keith and brother Alex taught me how to move the pieces on a rainy day at home. I instantly got hooked and few weeks later I joined Women’s International Master Shernaz Kennedy’s chess club at Churchill, where she still has a program today. There were 30+ enthusiastic children in the club and I started gaining confidence thanks to their support. For the first time, I had a lot of good friends at school; most of them were not in my class; they were on the chess team. One week Churchill’s Health Coordinator Pete Halleck, went up to Shernaz and asked “What did you do with Evan? All he talks about now is chess.” In art class, I would only want to make drawings and paintings of chess pieces. Chess instantly became a passion and was the first thing I was ever proud of.

Two months into the joining the program, I decided to play in a tournament and I ended up winning 1^st place in my Quad at Shernaz’ tournament at the Browning. A month after that my father faced a dilemma as I wanted to go to the nationals in Peoria, IL. On the one hand, he thought it was little crazy to dedicate a full weekend to chess and spend a lot of money on travel, considering I only started playing a few months ago; on the other, I was already fully dedicated to chess and he knew I would be upset if my fellow Churchill Hawks went and I did not. Sure enough we did go and from that day I have consistently played chess.

For the next several years I would travel with the Churchill team all around the country for the city, state and national championships. We went to places like Dallas, Kansas City, and Milwaukee. While we would focus on chess (one of my biggest claims to fame is being on the Churchill School 2^nd place U-900 team at the 2000 Nationals in Dallas, Texas😊), we would also bond and go on team outings. We had lots of fun hanging out in the team room, playing ball between rounds, going out for meals, etc.

It was 2000 when I met my coach National Master Alan Kantor, who has remained a close friend and national championship teammate; here we are on the cover of Chess Life after we were on the Championship team of the United States Amateur Team East in May 2007.

Ever since then, many of my best friends have been through the chess world. In all of the 25 countries I have been to, I have met people through chess; in 11 of them, I have played in tournaments.

Through studying and learning chess, I have drastically improved my critical thinking skills, as exhibited to the thought process we teach our students. When your opponent makes a move, the first thing you need to do is write it down and analyze why he chose the one he did. Just as one would never cross the street without looking both ways, a chess player should never make a move without knowing exactly what his opponent’s motives are. Likewise, when I was at Churchill, there were times I would not choose the proper course of action when I was upset. On many occasions I found myself in the principal’s office for misbehavior. Most often another student would do something I did not like. Rather than come up with candidate moves, like telling the teacher or letting the situation go and moving on and determining which one would be the best, I would let my animal instincts get the best of me and often do terrible actions like hitting anther kid. Over the years, the critical thinking skills I developed in chess has helped me with my behavior, academic work, business decisions and much more.

Most often, the highest rated player in a chess tournament one; it is the one who has the best mindset and is confident. Read about my tips for building confidence in this recent blog post. Since I began playing chess in 1997, I have played in over 950 tournaments, allowing me to get lots of intense competition and learn the elements of chess that you can not learn by reading a book. In doing so, I have learned how to win, lose or draw and constantly improve. When I left Churchill and went to Dwight, I remained enthusiastic about chess and would play 2-3 tournaments on average per week. I wrote my college essay about how organizing the 1^st place team at the United States Amateur Team East Championship was like running a business. At Brandeis, I was the co-president of the chess club with my good friend Elechi Kadete. Since then, chess has always been a passion of mine and in July 2017, I founded Premier Chess, which now has partnered with 80+ schools and companies like Kramer Levin and Google.

Not only has chess been a great source of confidence, but it has also been a great source of income. As people often say, if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. I am grateful to say that saying applies to me.