Month: June 2019

With very fond childhood memories of playing the game, Alyssa is thrilled to be returning to the world of chess in her capacity as President/Secretary where she hopes her past experiences coordinating Debate Tournaments will be of service to the club. Alyssa has been the Tournament Director of a number of events, each of which brought together over 200 competitors from across the province. Apart from chess and debating, her hobbies include the study of political and art history, and literature; she also enjoys playing tennis and piano, and skating.

Alyssa is a third-year student and UofT National Scholar pursuing a joint degree in economics and mathematics, along with a minor in history. She had the honour of serving as HHCC’s Director of Communications in 2019-20 and is delighted to again be a part of the Hart House Chess Club this year!

Elly is a fourth-year student double majoring in Human Biology and Sociology. She strongly believes that the greater good of the society can only come from the dynamic interaction of people who strive to be better selves to better be themselves, much like chess players who strive to achieve self excellence and full potentials through constant game analysis and self improvement.

Other than her love for chess, HHCC being the unique organization within Hart House has made her feel safe, welcomed and supported. She wants to contribute back to HHCC as much as she can before graduation, and was inspired by last year’s execs, particularly the former president/secretary who made initiatives to include women in chess and encouraged her even more. She’s happy to serve on the committee as the president/secretary for this upcoming year, and she looks forward to learning from and growing with everyone within and outside HHCC.

Jennifer Xueyan Jiang is the Fundraising Representative at HHCC, who is in charge of hosting a series of events at HHCC including Fundraising Open Tournaments and kids’ favorite Junior Tournaments. She is flattered to work with other brilliant executives and the Fundraising Committee at HHCC. Jennifer is at the beginner level of chess and is deeply fascinated by a character in the TV show Person of Interest, who was teaching an artificial intelligence that ‘anyone who looks on the world as if it was a game of chess deserves to lose’.

Before her interest in chess, she became a second-dan player at Go, an ancient Asian board game. Jennifer also enjoys her academic life as a third-year international student at Rotman Commerce at UofT and wants to pursue a career in the accounting industry. Jennifer shows her great enthusiasm in reading economics magazines and watching suspense movies.

Sean Lei is a second-year Rotman student at the University of Toronto who is planning to major in accounting. He is an independent, free-willed, and strong spirit and is willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. Beginning his chess career in 2012, he quickly climbed the rating ladder and achieved the National Master title in 2015. Since then, he’s taken a break from professional chess tournaments and has since then become a coach and instructor for various chess institutions around Toronto. Currently, he aspires to become a National Chess Arbiter in order to assist in the creation of chess tournaments that currently bring around so much joy to everyone who participate.

Sean is happy to serve as the 2019-2020 Hart House Chess Club treasurer and hopes to bring in his experiences and knowledge to the table and help bring out the best in everyone in the team.

Tanner is beginning his second year studying behavioural neuroscience at the Scarborough campus in the Psychology PhD program. He is focused on finding out what happens when we let rats drink alcohol, but he still finds time to enjoy chess. Tanner has played chess since the age of seven, after learning from his dad. Following mild success growing up in Maryland as a three-time state champion (Pre-Teen, Middle School, and High School), he went off to study at Carleton College. There he became President of the Chess Club and took a team to the Pan-American Intercollegiate Championship for the first time in school history in 2014. Despite earning awards for Biggest Team Upset and Top Small School, as well as an individual prize for Top Alternate, that team lost badly to a team from the University of Toronto.

Four years later, Tanner moved up north and switched sides, and now has represented the UofT at PanAms twice, as well as in other competitions, memorably at the World Prestigious University Invitational held in Tianjin, China in 2019. He is excited now to be starting his second consecutive term on the Executive Board serving as Events Coordinator. He is happy to give back to the Club that has treated him so well and to continue working with the game that has brought him so much joy over the years.