About ICEA Chess Club

ICEA Chess Club was founded by Felix in 2020 for kids who love and have passions on chess and later extended for all friends and families who enjoy the chess. ICEA Chess helps kids grow and play competitive chess, 

• by learning chess knowledge, enhancing chess strategies and tactics from beginner to advanced;
• by playing chess, improving their concentration, memory skill and academic performance; 
• by organizing and teaching chess classes, improving their speaking and communication skill, self-confidence and leadership;   
• by organizing a regular basis USCF-rated chess tournament to level up;
• by having fun, harvesting friendship, success and happiness.

How can the Club achieve goals?

The Club provides chess classes from beginner to advanced players and host chess events and tournaments. The club host a monthly online or OTB USCF rated chess tournament for all the chess players to play competitive chess and help them level up. By joining the ICEA Chess club, you will get a chance to represent the Club to play competitive chess tournaments and receive the team training opportunity.

As a non-profit organization, the club also provides opportunities for club members to become a chess teacher or become a tournament director to help organizing tournaments or events. 

 Join ICEA Chess Club For Free

How to join us

• Fill this form.
• Join our ICEA Chess on chess.com (ICEA Chess is an official chess.com affiliate).
• Join our team on Lichess.org.
• Register any of our classes
• Participate our monthly USCF rated tournament.
• Subscribe our email list

Coach & President: Felix

Felix is the founder and president of ICEA Kids Chess Club. He is a rising 7th grader from Windward School. He was recommended to learn Chess by his piano teacher in order to keep him being focused when he was 8 years old. He started learning Chess from Coach Atousa (WGM) and is a student of Melikset Khachiyan (GM). He started to play USCF rated tournament online since pandemic in 2020. He started his first OTB tournament in International Youth Championship in 2021 Las Vegas Chess Festival. Felix got the 2nd place in 14-Under Section. Since then, he also won the 2nd place in the 2021 Las Vegas Open U1600 and won the 4th place in the 56th Annual American Open U1800. He is a USChess top 50 player of his age group. He is the admin of a club with over 120+ members (ICEA Kid’s Chess Club on Chess.com). He has a passion for teaching chess to other kids to share his learning experience. Besides teaching chess, he also teaches math and contributes his time to other ICEA programs (Check Here for more details). He is the co-founder of Global AirLearning program to train other kids to speak in public to share happiness and friendship as well as their knowledges. 

Coach & Team Captain: Alex Wang (NM)

Alex Wang is a 10th grader at Corona Del Mar high school and a National Master with a peak USCF rating of 2266. He achieved the title of co-champion at the 2023 Memorial Day Classic Chess Tournament. Other hobbies that he likes to do are ping-pong and reading. He enjoys sharing his understanding of chess with others. Alex is also the captain of ICEA Chess Team for 2023 SoCal. SuperStates Championship and lead the team won the 1st place of K-12 Championship. He is the coach of the ICEA Chess Group Lesson intermediate group.

Coach: Esther Jou

Esther Jou is a 10th grader at Acaciawood Prep in Anaheim and a USCF Expert with a peak rating of 2064. She is a competitive chess player and has many accomplishments, such as winning the 56th Annual American Open U1600, 2nd place in the 32nd Annual North American Open U2100, as well as having the privilege of being nominated to represent Southern California in the WIM Ruth Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions. She is USChess top list chess player (#3 for Top Girls Age 15, #57 for Top Age 15, and #59 Top Women in the US). She enjoys helping her friends with chess as well as playing volleyball and the guitar in her spare time.

Coach & Tournament Director: Farirai Gumbe (FA, NI)

• Mr. Fari is a Certified FIDE Arbiter and National Instructor. He attained both titles in 2014 and participated in a 3 day Online refresher course in 2020 lead by US Chess team captains IM Donaldson and GM Melikset.
• He has 10 years coaching experience as National Youth coach for Zimbabwe from 2009- 2015.
• As a player, he has played chess in 4 different countries, participated in the World OPEN July 2019 in Philadelphia.
• His students have attained chess titles in International Youth Championships and at the World Chess Olympiad in the Women’s category.
• He has a passion for teaching chess and developing young players.

Coach: Melikset Khachiyan (GM)

Melikset, a Grand Master, has been coaching since 1990, and holds the lifelong license of FIDE Senior Trainer. He started playing chess since the age of eight, and won the Baku Junior Championship and achieved a First Category in Chess at the age of 10. He competed at the Chess Olympiad of 1996, at the World Team Chess Championship of 1997, where the Armenia national chess team won bronze, their first World Team Championship medal, and at the European Chess Club Cup of 1997. Besides his achievement as a chess player, he was the first coach of Levon Aronian. Currently, he is the coach of Samuel Sevian and of the American women national chess team. He is currently the US Women Team Captain/Coach.

Following are some of the highlights of his chess coaching career,

• Raised many talented kids in Armenia, who eventually became known on chess world. Among them, GM A.Pashikian, GM T.Petrosian, GM T.Gharamian. All of them had reach NM level under my trainings;
• Helped as well to WGM E.Danielian and WIM N.Aghinian for some period of time;
• From 2001 to current I have been coaching in US;
• Most honorable students are: GM S.Zierk (World Champion U18 in 2010), GM K.Troff (helped for 2 years to reach strong 2300 level, winning Silver and Gold in World Youth Championships, IM C.Hilby, WIM S.Liao;
• Current students: IM A.Wang and WIM A.Eswaran;
• Head Coach of US Women Olympic Team since 2010, and Team Captain since 2017;
• Invited to become a counselor for TRG in 2018.

Coach: Atousa Pourkashiyan (WGM)

Atousa, a Women Grand Master and a world champion, has been teaching Chess for ICEA Chess Club for more than 2 years, and more than 60 students in ICEA Chess Club has learnt Chess from Atousa.

• She began playing chess at the age of 8.
• In 1999, she won the Asian youth championship in India.
• In 2000, she got gold medal in world youth championship in Spain.
• She became a woman international master (Slovenia-2000) at the age of 14.
• She won a bronze medal in Asian Games (Qatar 2006) at the age of 18,.
• She became a Woman Grand Master in chess Olympiad (Germany-2008).
• In 2010, she won Asian Championship in Philippines and qualified for world cup in Russia.
• In 2014, she became the second in Asian Championship in Emirates.
• In 2016, she got a bronze medal in Asian Championship (Blitz).