Omar Hendricks Capstone

It has been a long ride for my all year but I feel all the hard work I put in has paid off. Especially the hard work I put in for my capstone. For my capstone I created a website about the game of chess and how to play it. I felt like this would be a great idea for my capstone I grew a huge interest for chess this year.


I chose to do my capstone on chess because I grew a  huge passion for it this year. Also being in Mr.Baird’s chess class was a huge factor of me doing my capstone about chess. Just being in that class learning how to play chess increased my passion for chess.  I owe a lot to Mr.Baird for helping me develop my skills. Before this year I didn’t really know how to play chess. After learning I feel like more people should be playing chess. So I wanted to use my capstone as an outlet to teach people about chess. I personally feel like chess should be bigger than what it is. It is a game that requires a lot of thinking and strategy. In my community chess is not something I see played a lot it doesn't get a lot of exposure. I feel like if it got the exposure that it deserves the benefits would be great.


Looking back on this year and the work I put in on this capstone I would say I am very proud. I am proud of this whole process and the time I put in doing my capstone. I had a great time doing this capstone it wasn't as hard as people made it out to be. I would say that this was the easiest part of my senior year. I say that because the capstone  didn't really stress me out. It was really the work from my regular classes that really stressed me out. During this process I learned how to manage time.




Capstone Bibliography

http://www.chess.com -Source #1

This website helped me out a lot with developing my skills in chess. I created an account for this website a while ago and I had it for months now. The cool thing about this website is that you can play people from all over the world any time you want. Also you can watch live chess tournaments from the greatest players in the world. Everyday I would go on this website to prep for upcoming tournaments that I had .


  • Short, Nigel. Nigel Shorts Chess Skills. 1989. 125. Print.


This  book helped me out a lot it was called ‘’Nigel Shorts  Chess Skills’’ it was released in 1989. Nigel Short is a chess grandmaster and chess commentator. He won the grandmaster title and the age of 19 and he is considered one of the greats. It’s crazy because Mr.Baird gave me this book. I think this was the first chess book I received since my grandfather gave when I was young. When I was younger I didn't have interest in chess. But since this year that has changed completely for me. Baird just told me to study this book because it would help me develop my skills. It did it taught me different openings and good defense tactics. I would take this book everywhere with me especially to tournaments.


  • Kurzdorfer, Peter. The Everything Chess Basics. 2003. Print.


This is another book that helped me a lot improve my skills in chess. This became a habit for me whenever I got any extra money I brought any chess book I can find. Overall this book helped me a lot improve my skills in chess and I took this to tournaments as well.

  • Staff, Listverse. "Top 10 Greatest Chess Players in History." Listverse. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2015.


This resource was important for me because this list the greatest chess players of all time. This was important to add in my capstone because these were the people that pioneered the game. In order to teach about the game you have to know these people. It’s like these guys are on the Mount Rushmore for chess players. So it was very vital that I included these players in my capstone.


  • Robertie, Bill. Winning Chess Tactics. New York: Cardozo  Pub, 1996. Print.


This was another book that helped me out a lot improve my chess skills. I purchased this book at Barnes and Noble it is a great book to teach about chess tactics. I took this book with me on chess tournaments as well and it was a great book.


  • Fischer, Bobby, Stuart Margulies, and Donn Mosenfelder. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. New York: Bantam, 1972. Web.

This book helped me out a lot it was written by arguably the greatest chess player of all time. The book was written by Bobby Fischer  it was called ‘’Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess’’.  It was released in 1972 when Fischer was in his prime. They called it the ‘’Bobby Fischer era’’ that period is the reasons why Americans play chess. He was like the Michael Jordan of chess and he was dominant in his era sort of like Jordan in the 90’s. Anyway this was the most helpful  book for me had everything in it. It had tactics,strategies, and different puzzles and it was written by the greatest. This was the first book I had before I went to a tournament.  



This was a documentary called ‘’Street Knights’’ and it was about people playing chess in New York. New York is a big chess town probably the best chess town in America. In this documentary they discuss the impacts of chess. I watched this documentary a lot it was very helpful.



This documentary is very similar to ‘’Street Knights’’ but it’s called ‘’Tompkins Park’’ it was made in 2003. It’s about a park in New York where people play chess. But this documentary goes a little deeper than ‘’Street Knights’’. It discussed more how people in that park play for money. I felt like this was a good documentary  but I didn’t watch it as much as ‘’Street Knights’’.


This documentary is called ‘’Men Who Would Be Kings ‘’ it was very similar to the previous documentaries as well. But the documentary takes place in the 1980s. It’s still New York in Washington Square Park. But this goes into more of the passion in chess. Also it talks about how legendary players such as Bobby Fischer played there before their careers took off. This was a good documentary as well it was very entertaining.



This resource just talked about the impacts of chess and how it develops your brain and can make you smarter. I talk about this a lot in my capstone chess has a lot of great benefits. This source basically explains most of that stuff it was very helpful.

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