Chess is a game of strategy, getting into a position where all the player’s pieces could get the other person’s king in a “checkmate” position. Checkmate is when a player cannot move their king anywhere without getting eaten by the other person’s pieces. Chess is commonly suspected to have been created in South Asia around the thirteenth century.
Every Thursday, both A and B lunch, Athens Drive High School runs their own Chess Club in room 1616. The club’s supervisor is Emili Hall, Athen Drive’s fellow biologist and forensics teacher.
“This is my second year teaching and my first year hosting Chess,” Hall said.
There are chess pieces of all colors and tarp-like chess boards. Each chess board has letters and numbers to locate each square on the board like a Battleship board. Some people even bring in one of those chess clocks where after the player finisher his or her move, they slam the button on their side so the timer will stop on their side and continue on the other person’s side where it has previously left off. It goes on like this until one player either gets the other player in a checkmate position or the timer runs out for one person and will therefore end the game.
There is more than one way to play chess than the traditional one-on-one method. A popular thing the people in chess club are doing is something called “Blind Chess” where two players sit at two different tables with their backs facing each other using their own chess sets moving their pieces without looking at the other person’s board. A third person looks at both boards and determines whether the move is legal or not. The players then have to figure out where the other player’s pieces are.
“Is this legal? Is this legal?” Pieter Westerbeek, junior, repeatedly kept asking the coach if he could move his piece somewhere when playing blind chess.
The players’ experience range from beginner to intense expertism. The actual game length can range from an entire lunch session to both lunch sessions. Players can even bring their lunch to the room to eat if they are going to be there both lunches.
