Silver Chess Chippers train and compete in a beginner chess tournament

from eight chess players had little to no chess knowledge before the training period and were randomly seeded into a bracket to begin the games.

As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down everything and most of the world was confined in their homes, many took the time to find new hobbies and something to do to occupy their minds while stuck at home. People started to realize that chess was an accessible and intellectually stimulating game that could be played either over the board or behind a computer screen.

The most popular way to play chess online is through Chess. com. Before March 2020, Chess. com had around 30 million members. That number increased to about 57 million over the span of one year. As of now, Chess.com membership totals to 130 million, with over 5 million active daily users. The best players right now, like Grandmasters Hikaru Nakamaru and Magnus Carlsen, can be found streaming casual gameplay on Chess.com through Twitch, a popular live streaming service. In June 2020, Chess.com officiated the crossover between the two platforms by hosting the chess tournament PogChamps on their account on Twitch, with Nakamura and Woman FIDE Master and fellow streamer Alexandra Botez from BotezLive commentating.

Around the same time lockdown kicked off, “The Queen’s Gambit” aired its first season in October 2020. According to Forbes, The Queen’s Gambit was the second most popular Netflix series in 2020. The well known series tells the story of a orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon that deals with addiction while trying to be the world’s best chess player. After the show’s release, classic board sales increased 87 percent and chess books sales increased 603 percent.

First round

The tournament’s opener took place on March 23, a match over the board between junior staff writer Dyan Nguyen and senior Editorin-chief Sean Li. Before the match started, Dyan felt very unprepared and was dreading going up against interesting experience… It has reinvigorated my love for playing chess because now I wanna learn more [and] become a higher level player now,” she says. onto the offensive, eventually winning against Lucia on time.

On Chess.com, the openings from both sides were solid. Without the players knowing it, they opened into the Vienna Game which naturally transposed into a variation of the King’s Gambit, which are very common opening tactics. Mistakes started early in the game with weak defense moves, like when Estefany moved the pawns in front of her king away, which left the king undefended.

Both sides developed all of their pieces to active squares which finished the opening stage of the match. The middlegame was rocky with missed opportunities to get up in material from both sides, but eventually Christy was able to capture Estefany’s queen, giving her a nine point advantage. In the endgame, Christy cut off Estefany’s king with her rook and finally secured a checkmate with the queen.

Estefany leaves the tournament gracefully and with a newfound appreciation for the game. “ I like the feeling of what the game comes with… You want to win, but you also [want to feel like you applied yourself],” she says.

Due to technological difficulties and misaligning schedules, senior writer Sachini Adikari was not able to play junior staff writer Pari Shrestha, leading to Sachini’s forfeit. Pari continued on in the tournament.

Final game

The last two standing players, Christy Li and Pari Shrestha, played the final Silver Chess tournament match over the board in the courtyard on March 29. Playing with white, Christy felt she had an

Silver Chess tournament

From March 23–29, eight Silver Chips staffers gathered to compete against each other in chess games online and in person. Two weeks in advance, each staffer was paired with a student coach from one of the two chess clubs at Blair. The

Sean. Unlike Dyan, Sean was positive that he could win the game based on Dyan’s lack of confidence. Sean’s superior experience and knowledge of chess allowed him to get an easy advantage over Dyan during the game. Despite offensive dominance beginning from the early game, Sean’s amateurism shone through missed checkmates. Dyan consistently hung her pieces, or left them undefended, overlooking Sean’s attacks. The game persisted until Dyan lost all of her pieces sending the match into an endgame. Sean’s massive material advantage allowed him to easily checkmate Dyan, knocking her out

The third and final game of the first round was between senior Design Lead Lucía Santoro-Vélez and senior Culture Columnist Syd Tiruneh. Before the match, Lucía and Syd both had contrasting views on how the game would go. Lucía felt she lacked chess skills compared to Syd. “I was not feeling very good. I am not a good chess player, and so I was not confident in my abilities at all,” she remarks.

For Syd, a background in chess through playing at school bolstered her confidence. “I was feeling pretty okay honestly… I had experience playing chess in school and for other clubs and social things, so I felt kind of prepared going into it, so I wasn’t super nervous,” she says, despite only having one training session with her coach.

On Chess.com, Syd on black used a defense she calls the “Italian Stallion”, more formally known as Alekhine’s Defense. Lucia’s responses are based on pure instinct rather than planning ahead. “Throughout the game, I really was just looking at the next move,” she recalls.

Semi-finals

Despite not being the final championship winner deciding game, the semi-finals match between the Li’s, also known as the EICs, was a highly anticipated game. The match started with wellbalanced play from both sides. But as Christy started to get more comfortable, she began attacking Sean’s pieces. Sean was blinded by Christy’s attacks, allowing her to control the tempo and dominate the game. Even though Christy had a significant material advantage, an end game blunder concluded the match in a stalemate. However, both players agreed on Christy moving onto the final round, acknowledging she had played a better game.

advantage as she practiced with the London System, a white side opener. “I feel like starting with white and having a plan makes me a little bit more calm… and I think the London is generally solid because it’s good for development,” Li says.

At the beginning of the match, both participants were laser focused and determined to win the game and the tournament. However, Pari soon lost confidence when she blundered a pawn in her opening as she had not been used to playing chess over the board as opposed to online.

of the first round.

The following matchup was between senior Editors-in-Chief Estefany Benitez Gonzalez and Christy Li. Even though Estefany admitted to only getting one coaching session in, she was able to understand the fundamentals of the first moves.

“For your first two moves, instead of defending your king… just move into the middle,” she says.

Both players understood that taking control of the center is an important asset to a win, but both failed to strongly maintain it. In the second half of the game, Lucia took the offensive and captured most of Syd’s pieces, leaving Syd with only her king and three pawns remaining. In the last moves of the game, Lucia stalemated by taking two pawns and rendering the last pawn useless with no squares left to go. By the duo’s wishes to not play another game against each other, they agreed that Lucia should advance in the tournament due to her obvious material advantage at the end of the game.

Syd hopes to play more chess in the future after competing in the Silver Chess Tournament. “I’ve never played in a super competitive way… so, that was definitely a new,

The second match was between semi-finalists Lucia and Pari. Exacerbated by her last match, Lucia was certain that she would take the win against Pari. “I’m feeling great. My opponent does not seem too confident,” she remarked. Meanwhile, Pari was feeling overly anxious over the set up of the tournament rather than playing against Lucia.

On Chess.com Pari on white plays the King’s Pawn Opening in order to gain control of the center of the board. As Pari played, she recognized that Lucia did not have as much of a concrete opening compared to her, which also rectifies her center control. Early into the game, Lucia blunders her queen, the strongest and most versatile piece, due to a technical error. “There was a little circle around a piece and I was just like, ‘oh, I’ll just click on that and see what happens,’ and it moved my queen into a place where it was just immediately gonna get taken… that was a little upsetting,” she says. For the rest of the game, Pari moves

In a final effort, Pari tried to take the offensive, but failed to keep her pieces protected and ended up with just a king and a couple of pawns to make it through the endgame. Each move leading up to checkmate took a long analysis by Christy. After finally figuring out the optimal position to checkmate Pari, she did so with just three seconds left on the clock!

Despite the wins, losses, complications, and difficulties, the tournament was an enjoyable and challenging learning experience for all who participated. “I feel like at the beginning, chess was kind of like this black box because [I just knew the different pieces and how they moved]. But then after training and playing games, I feel like I started to get a little bit comfortable,” Li says. “I would say I’m definitely proud of my improvement, but I still have… a long way to go.”

The Silver Chess team would like to give a shout-out to the volunteer coaches Peter Kogen, Henry Viechnicki, Tyler Le, Zach Williamson, Andie Allison, Alexei Kaloshin, Sameer Mehta, and Sophia Van Praagh for training the tournament competitors.