About The Milwaukee Chess Foundation
We are a non-profit organization, dedicated to supporting chess. We believe chess is a lifelong activity of benefit to all ages. It can be used to teach important life lessons as well as critical thinking skills to children, and it keeps adult minds sharp and clear. As a consequence, we support chess education and play at all levels of society.
We work with MUSCLE (the Milwaukee United Scholastic Chess League) to promote chess in the schools, and to help find coaches for schools in need.
We sponsor lectures and exhibitions by noted players for the benefit of the local chess community.
We also sponsor tournaments every year. One such event is the Western Open, the longest running open tournament in the history of the state of Wisconsin. Past winners of this event include GM Pal Benko, GM Arturo Pomar, and IM William Martz. Another is the Cedric Thompson City Challenge, the official championship for the city of Milwaukee. Past winners of this event include Cedric Thompson, Bill Williams, and Charles Weldon. The purpose of these events is to raise money for our other activities.
Among our founders were Arpad Elo, creator of the rating system in use by FIDE today, and Scott Kittsley, long time Wisconsin chess patron. Our board members have included Fred Cramer and Marshall Rohland (past presidents of the USCF) along with Pearl Mann (first female International Arbiter in FIDE). Current board members are Arlen Walker, Larry Kress, Brian Brzezinski, Bill Williams and Jack Creed.
Among our recent accomplishments are bringing a Pan-Am Intercollegiate Chess Championship to Milwaukee (in 2000) as well as working on the National Junior HS Championship (in 2002) and the National HS Championship (2006). Our current activities include arranging coaching for high school chess, as well as a recent exhibition at a Pewaukee elementary school, the Chess Challenge series, giving local scholastic players a chance to compete against each other and hear from notable players.