Register for Stonebrae Golf TourneyThe Stonebrae Classic is to be held April 12-18, 2010, at the stunning TPC San Francisco Bay at Stonebrae. In just its second year, the Stonebrae Classic has a goal to generate more than $500,000 for Bay Area charities and non-profit organizations. Proceeds will be distributed to participating organizations. HYA asks for your contribution supporting the Hayward Chess and Scrabble Clubs, after school programming at Bowman Elementary. |
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Chess ScoresPosted on March 14th, 2010Hayward Youth Academy
Hayward Youth Academy
Scrabble ScoresPosted on March 14th, 2010
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Why Offer Chess in Schools? What are the Academic Benefits? Chess is a classic game of strategy, invented more than 1500 years ago in India. In the centuries since its invention, chess has spread to every country in the world. In the United States, it has received endorsement by many educators, ranging from Benjamin Franklin to former U.S. Secretary of Education, Terrell Bell. The word is out: Chess improves logical thinking skills. Studies demonstrate that math and reading scores improve when students learn chess. Thousands of children are involved in chess clubs, many local, state and national tournaments draw from 300 up to over 2000 children each year, and top scholastic players can earn both partial and full scholarships to many colleges and universities. |
We have brought chess to the schools because we believe it directly contributes to academic performance. Chess makes kids smarter. It does so by teaching the following skills:
The beauty of chess as a teaching tool is that it stimulates children’s minds and helps them to build these skills while enjoying themselves. As a result, children become more critical thinkers, better problem solvers, and more independent decision makers. |
In 1931, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Butts invented a game called Lexico. The game consisted simply of 100 tiles and no game board. The object of the game was to make words as long as possible while drawing and discarding from your hand (much like Rummy, only with words instead of melds).
After trying unsuccessfully to persuade any major game manufacturers to look at his game, Butts realized that he might need to modify it a bit. He added a game board and assigned each letter a specific point value. He added the blank tiles and the “premium squares”: the squares that multiply the values of words and letters. He called this modified version “Criss-Cross Words”. He manufactured them completely by hand and sold them for $2.
In 1947, a man named James Brunot contacted Butts, seeking the right to distribute the game. By this time, Butts had ceased production on the game. The two men struck a deal, paying Butts a royalty and letting Brunot deal with the distribution and manufacturing.
Brunot made the letter tiles himself, but ordered the game boards from a company called Selchow and Righter. He and his wife assembled the games in their living room and barely made any profits over the first few years of manufacture.
Suddenly, in the summer of 1952, Scrabble reached its tipping point and went from a cult favorite to a downright hit! No one’s sure quite why this happened, but the most common story is that an executive at Macy’s Department Store, in New York City, played the game while on vacation and ordered it onto the shelves at the store when he returned.
In any case, instead of making a few hundred sets a week, suddenly the Brunots were making upwards of 6,000, well beyond their means of manufacture, and sold the operation to Selchow and Righter. By fall, they had sold 37,000 Scrabble sets. In 1953, they sold 800,000. In 1954, 4,000,000.
In 1986, Selchow and Righter was bought out by a game company called Coleco, who were in turn bought out by Hasbro/Milton Bradley in 1989.
Alfred Mosher Butts passed away at age 94 in 1993.
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