Founded in the Spring of 2010, and reincorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit organization in 2012, Learners Chess is an educational program with the mission to enhance child development by using the game of chess to promote and stimulate intellectual maturity, social skills, and leadership development. Our vision is a world where all kids have the opportunity to grow through learning the game of chess.
We do not just teach kids chess, we teach them to learn by compassionately leading them through the process of paying attention and drawing on their experiences. Furthermore, we teach mindfulness and leadership development skills to encourage players to communicate and to teach each others what they know and how they learn.

Our coaches are educators, activists, farmers, chess education enthusiasts, parents, students, and leaders.
We recruit coaches who are passionate about the ways that chess improves kids’ lives.

Coach Victor founded Learners Chess in 2010 as a summer job and side project. It has since grown into a large and beloved non-profit organization. 

Having taught chess since he was 12 years old, Victor has cultivated a passion for teaching and coaching chess, mindfulness, reasoning, life, success, and leadership skills while working with kids and young adults.

Starting in 1998, with the help of his previous elementary school Principal, Nikki Dennis, and his mother, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, he started the Bandelier Elementary School Chess Club. He was in 7th grade at the time. As he and his mom continued to lead the Bandelier Chess Club through high school, his Bandelier chess team won the Albuquerque elementary Schools Chess League Championship Championship in 2002.

After High School, he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, where he co-founded the college chess club, played NCAA Division III college football and rugby, and graduated with degree in Urban and Environmental Policy in 2008. For the next two years Victor worked as a community organizer while working to increase civic engagement for underrepresented constituencies in Portland, Oregon, Iowa City, Iowa and Gainesville, Florida.

In November 2009, Victor returned to Albuquerque to pursue his MBA in social entrepreneurship and work on some start-up non profit ideas. He also became a substitute teacher and started coaching the Monte Vista Chess Club. As he rediscovered his love for working with children and coaching chess, he started Learners Chess. He has since built Learners into a successful non-profit organization committed to the mission to improve child literacy in New Mexico by spreading the learning of chess in ways that develop intellect, social skills, mindfulness skills, life skills, and leadership. Coach Victor has been recognized for his work with Learners as an Obama White House Champion of Change in February of 2016 and by the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce as a Spirit of New Mexico Award Recipient. These awards were among many other great recognitions that Victor and Learners Chess earned in 2016. 

He also had the honor to give two separate presentations at the 2024 Saint Louis Chess in Education Conference. He presented on the topics of:

• Using and teaching Mindfulness as a Chess Coach
• Chess Education Service Trips Abroad