DENVER — The inaugural North American Chess Cup for Children with Disabilities will debut in Denver this summer, thanks to 17-year-old chess champ Griffin McConnell, his father Kevin McConnell and their new nonprofit organization.

The tournament, set for June 21 through 26 at a hotel in the Denver Tech Center, is open to players under 20 who live in the U.S., Canada or Mexico. Griffin, a state champion chess player with disabilities, and his father are hosting the tournament through their ChessAbilities Inc., which they started a few months ago.

“Anybody who has any type of disability, slight to major, is eligible to play in the tournament,” Kevin said. “The mission statement of the nonprofit is to raise money and awareness of and for chess opportunities for people with disabilities, with an emphasis on children with disabilities.”

Chess players of all skill levels are welcome to enter, Kevin said. There will be volunteers to notate all seven chess rounds and offer a post-game analysis with participants after each round to help them improve. Additionally, two grandmasters, Tatev Abrahamyan and Katerina Nemcova, will attend and offer free chess workshops.

College scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 will be among the awards for the winners of the middle school section, high school section and open section, Kevin said.

The tournament won’t just be focused on chess, Griffin said, but also having fun, feeling comfortable and meeting other people with disabilities.

“Because of this pandemic, there has been an upswing in chess — online chess,” Griffin said about wanting to connect people with disabilities to one another. “And we know there’s people out there that do play chess that have disabilities, but they’re online.”

Griffin is a state chess champion who was diagnosed at age 5 with epilepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by seizures. He’s undergone four brain surgeries to stop the seizures, including two hemispherectomy procedures, a surgery that disconnects the left and right sides of the brain and causes some paralysis.

Since his last surgery in February 2021, Griffin has been seizure-free, he said.

Chess helped Griffin through his brain surgeries, he said, and it is an activity in which his disability doesn’t really affect him.

“You can play chess no matter what disability you can have,” Griffin said.

However, people with disabilities have been overlooked at times during traditional chess tournaments, Kevin and Griffin said. For example, although Griffin communicates to tournament organizers that he needs the chess clock to be on his left side because he cannot use his right hand, Griffin and Kevin almost always have to remind tournament organizers about the accommodation, they said. It’s frustrating, Kevin said.

Kevin and Griffin want their tournament to be different. In addition to learning and meeting the accommodation needs of the tournament participants, they want to communicate those accommodation specificities to other tournament organizers to help make all tournaments more accessible, Kevin said.

“We want to get them to this separate but equal tournament so that we can give them the tools and the information to go back and be able to play chess regularly, as much as they want to, in regular over-the-board tournaments,” Kevin said.

The idea to start ChessAbilities came after Kevin asked members of the U.S. Chess Federation if they planned to host a chess championship for players with disabilities and was told the organization would not because it doesn’t believe in separate but equal tournaments, Kevin said.

“That’s when we decided to start the nonprofit. We said, ‘Then, we’ll just do it ourselves,'” Kevin said.

In addition to starting ChessAbilities, Griffin’s own chess career has continued to improve, as he recently earned first place in the high school division of the 2022 Colorado Scholastic Championship. It was his last year competing, as he is a senior in high school now, and he said his main focus was on having fun.

“This was my last year with my brother. It was kind of an emotional one just because it’s been our tradition — me and my brother and my dad coming,” Griffin said.

In the final round of the scholastic championship, Griffin faced his 15-year-old brother Sullivan, who is a five-time state champion, Griffin said. The round ended in a draw, but because Sullivan had drawn another game earlier, Griffin was named state champion.

“I was just so ecstatic,” he said.

Players interested in registering for the North American Chess Cup for Children with Disabilities can visit events4chess.com/events/?event_ID=1511&cat=1.

© 2022 The Denver Post
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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