Welcome to the February 2022 edition of “One Move at a Time,” the US Chess podcast in which Dan Lucas, the Senior Director of Strategic Communication, talks to people who are advancing the US Chess mission statement to “Empower people, enrich lives, and enhance communities through chess.”
Our guests today represent the Manasota Chess Center in Sarasota, Florida. Nicholas Lewis (photo, left) is the Executive Director and Grandmaster Pascal Charbaneau (photo, right) supports the coaching and advisory team. Nicholas is a graduate of Florida State University with a Bachelor of Music Education degree. He has held diverse professional roles since graduation, which included professional violinist and conductor, software developer, copyright coordinator, Wikipedia administrator, product lead for Minds.com and, most recently, founder and executive director of the Manasota Chess Center.
Nicholas discovered chess during his freshman year at college, when he began playing with his college piano instructor, which led to his piano lessons ending and morphing into weekly chess lessons instead. Nick later joined the college chess club and eventually became the president. Under his leadership, the club held numerous tournaments, and grew from just eight to over 30 members.
After graduation, Nicholas moved to Sarasota, Florida. He worked in the technology field for three years, before reinvigorating his passion for playing and teaching chess. During this time, he began pursuing the launch of a local community chess center in Sarasota. The result of his efforts culminated with the formation in June 2021 of the Manasota Chess Center. Today the Manasota Chess Center has grown to more than 50 members, and it now delivers a wide range of chess programs and activities that include monthly US Chess tournaments, chess study groups, and private and group chess lessons from US Chess certified coaches. Additionally, the coaching/advisory team includes two GMs, Pascal Charbonneau and Akshayraj Kore.
One of those GMs is joining us today. Pascal Charbonneau has twice been the Canadian Champion and he won over a dozen national championships as a junior. Pascal attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County on a scholarship when the chess team won the national championship four years in a row. He graduated in 2006 magna cum laude with a degree in financial economics and a secondary focus in Russian. After 2006, Pascal aimed his attention to the financial world. From 2008 to 2019 he worked at a multi-billion-dollar hedge fund as a key member of a small investment team. He is currently senior portfolio manager with Vazirani Asset Management, an event-driven hedge fund.
NEW! Watch the raw video of this podcast on our US Chess YouTube channel (as usual, the fully edited audio podcast can be found further down or on your favorite podcast platform):
https://youtu.be/LJ-ELyn24yg
Links
Make sure to subscribe to our family of podcasts on Google Podcasts, iTunes, or Spotify! .
Categories
Archives
- December 2024 (20)
- November 2024 (18)
- October 2024 (35)
- September 2024 (23)
- August 2024 (27)
- July 2024 (44)
- June 2024 (27)
- May 2024 (32)
- April 2024 (51)
- March 2024 (34)
- February 2024 (25)
- January 2024 (26)
- December 2023 (29)
- November 2023 (26)
- October 2023 (37)
- September 2023 (27)
- August 2023 (37)
- July 2023 (47)
- June 2023 (33)
- May 2023 (37)
- April 2023 (45)
- March 2023 (37)
- February 2023 (28)
- January 2023 (31)
- December 2022 (23)
- November 2022 (32)
- October 2022 (31)
- September 2022 (19)
- August 2022 (39)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (35)
- May 2022 (21)
- April 2022 (31)
- March 2022 (33)
- February 2022 (21)
- January 2022 (27)
- December 2021 (36)
- November 2021 (34)
- October 2021 (25)
- September 2021 (25)
- August 2021 (41)
- July 2021 (36)
- June 2021 (29)
- May 2021 (29)
- April 2021 (31)
- March 2021 (33)
- February 2021 (28)
- January 2021 (29)
- December 2020 (38)
- November 2020 (40)
- October 2020 (41)
- September 2020 (35)
- August 2020 (38)
- July 2020 (36)
- June 2020 (46)
- May 2020 (42)
- April 2020 (37)
- March 2020 (60)
- February 2020 (38)
- January 2020 (45)
- December 2019 (35)
- November 2019 (35)
- October 2019 (42)
- September 2019 (45)
- August 2019 (56)
- July 2019 (44)
- June 2019 (35)
- May 2019 (40)
- April 2019 (48)
- March 2019 (61)
- February 2019 (39)
- January 2019 (30)
- December 2018 (29)
- November 2018 (51)
- October 2018 (45)
- September 2018 (29)
- August 2018 (49)
- July 2018 (35)
- June 2018 (31)
- May 2018 (39)
- April 2018 (31)
- March 2018 (26)
- February 2018 (33)
- January 2018 (30)
- December 2017 (26)
- November 2017 (24)
- October 2017 (30)
- September 2017 (30)
- August 2017 (31)
- July 2017 (28)
- June 2017 (32)
- May 2017 (26)
- April 2017 (37)
- March 2017 (28)
- February 2017 (30)
- January 2017 (27)
- December 2016 (29)
- November 2016 (24)
- October 2016 (32)
- September 2016 (31)
- August 2016 (27)
- July 2016 (24)
- June 2016 (26)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (30)
- March 2016 (36)
- February 2016 (28)
- January 2016 (32)
- December 2015 (26)
- November 2015 (23)
- October 2015 (16)
- September 2015 (28)
- August 2015 (28)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (1)
- May 2015 (2)
- April 2015 (1)
- February 2015 (3)
- January 2015 (1)
- December 2014 (1)
- July 2010 (1)
- October 1991 (1)
- August 1989 (1)
- January 1988 (1)
- December 1983 (1)