Alex Rice ’14:
Thanks to the reduced stress of the spring semester, the seniors have declared “checkmate” on working in frees. Rather, they have taken to playing heated matches of chess. Whenever one walks by the senior lounge, there are always games going on. The sheer number of students who wish to play chess has created an ultra-competitive atmosphere among the members of every free period. With this sweeping movement in mind, Scholium took a closer look at what caused this newfound obsession.
Chess is a head-to-head game of strategy played with 16 pieces per player. The goal is to trap the opponent’s king piece so that he cannot move out of danger. This is called “checkmate,” a phrase heard ringing out often from the senior lounge. The chess fad began before Christmas break when several seniors, namely Connor Boyle ’13 and Daniel Schlaff ’13, discovered a pair of chessboards in the library. They brought the boards back to the lounge and scraped together enough pieces for both boards. When asked what prompted him to begin playing chess, Boyle noted, “It has always been an interesting game to me. When I heard that there were boards in the library, I jumped at the opportunity.” Schlaff similarly replied, “I’ve always loved to play chess – ever since I was in my middle school. I was very excited to have the opportunity to play again.” As more students noticed the chessboards in the lounge, they began to play. Little more than a month later, it is rare to see the lounge without chess games underway. On this explosion of popularity, Boyle said, “I never thought it would take off like this. I just wanted to play chess, and apparently so does everybody else.”
It is common to see at least five others standing and sitting around the board watching the game and often giving tips to the players. During particularly busy times of day, such as Activity Block, the games are very crowded and many are forced to reserve their spots to play prior to the matches. “It must look really good for visiting parents to see a bunch of kids playing chess in the lounge,” remarked senior Key Club captain Megan Kilcullen ’13. In fact, several students have said that teachers and parents alike have commented on the chess games when walking by the lounge.
In part due to the fun of the game and in part due to the competitive atmosphere that surrounds the matches, chess has become popular in the upper school. Boyle noted, “It’s a great game that forces players to think. It also allows us students to have something fun to do in free periods.”