Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer Greatest Chess Games Historically Re-enacted at the Grand Canyon in Arizona(June 17, 2014)
On June 15, 2014, a small team of American math teachers from Yamie Chess, the Harvard/MIT-supported math toy for elementary and middle school children, ventured through the Sonoran Desert, traveling 4.5 hours out of Phoenix to re-enact Garry Kasparovs Immortal Game, his greatest of all time, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
U.S. records show that this is the first time that the celebrated chess game between World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov, which made headlines around the world in 1999, has been officially performed in any part of the Grand Canyon National Park, deep in Arizonas wilderness.
Publishing photographic proof of the record at Yamie Chess blog; designed to bring more U.S. teachers attention to the impressive educational benefits of Yamie Chess for children the math team from the Nevada-headquartered company took the rare opportunity to also perform Bobby Fischers famous Game of the Century in the Grand Canyon, a game from 1956 that many American chess authorities consider to be the game that shook the world and one of the greatest of all time, when the 13-year-old Bobby Fischer stunned American Donald Byrne.
A powerful analogy to the inspiring vision of Arizonas Grand Canyon: Yamie Chess vision and educational mission is to fundamentally boost math success across all 50 states, by focusing on under achievers, and kids in Academic Intervention and Title 1 programs.
The ultimate educational goal of the Yamie Chess comic, however, is to enhance and strengthen childrens mathematical ability. Research has shown that, by itself, learning to play chess is tied to better logical reasoning and stronger performance in math. Yamie Chess adds to this by integrating both mathematical content and math puzzles into the text. The puzzles include both relatively standard textbook problems to reinforce what a child learns in school, and more interesting mindteasers that will help to extend that material. Most importantly there is a focus on explaining as well as just solving problems. For example, the book includes a discussion (again, integrated into the storyline) of why the area of a triangle is given by the familiar formula. This is in line with the current trend in school math toward asking why as much as asking how. The math content of Yamie Chess covers a range of areas of the elementary and middle school curriculum (mainly grades 2-8), providing reviews of basic arithmetic, number lines, decimals, fractions and some geometry.