By Peter Bernardino
Perhaps we shouldn’t give up on Gen Z/Gen Alpha’s attention span. Consider the popularity of the (now) annual chess tournament in the Vasser-Woolley library.
“It was so popular last year that we bought six chessboards just to keep up with the demand,” librarian Mr. Bowden stated.
Last fall, he noticed a significant number of people playing chess in the library, and he wanted to encourage more students to take advantage of the stress-relieving nature of the game.
Eventually, Mr. Bowden decided, “Well, it might be fun to have a tournament.” That’s how the chess tournament came to be.
After coming up to the high school and hearing about the tournament, I was skeptical that there could be such interest in the game. I was proven wrong.
To attract people to the tournament, Mr. Bowden created incentives for high-placing players. “Every semifinalist gets a small prize. Both finalists will get a slightly bigger prize, and then there’s a very silly trophy for the winner,” Mr. Bowden said.
Another way Mr. Bowden has attracted students is by giving everybody a guaranteed number of games to play. “So this year we’re kind of doing it World Cup style… Everybody plays everybody,” he said. “So everybody’s guaranteed at least two games. And then the winner of each group goes on to a single elimination bracket.”
This enables less experienced players to enjoy themselves for a longer period of time.
Speaking of inexperienced players, many kids haven’t touched a chess piece in their lives. Because of this tournament, these kids can learn more about chess in a fun atmosphere.
There are also many experienced players in this tournament, many of whom have an Elo rating. (The Elo rating system measures how good someone is at chess.) For example, freshman Lee Mahoney has a 450 Elo, and Senior Marcus Shih has a 1500 Elo.
Besides the wide range of skill levels in this tournament, perhaps the most unique part of the chess tournament is that teachers play in it.
“I wanted a way to get teachers and students to interact with each other completely outside of class,” Mr. Bowden stated. “No homework, no tests, no grades. Just getting to interact in a fun way as equals, because I think for both teachers and students, there’s not a lot of opportunity to do that.”
Mr. Bowden’s vision for teacher-student connections has proven to be a success. For example, Ms. Blake, a Science teacher, told me how it was “fun to interact with students by playing games. I also enjoyed seeing them outside of class.” Mr. Boswell also had fun playing against students, although he (sadly) lost every game.
Unfortunately, though, no teachers made it to the finals this year. Instead, there was an action packed showdown between the freshman Rhys Stieglitz and senior Marcus Shih.
Rhys and Marcus went back and forth, making aggressive moves. Eventually, Rhys came out victorious and won the grand prize of a nice trophy, cafe gift card, and the always enjoyable bragging rights.
For Marcus, this defeat felt similar to last year. “I made it here last year and I got demolished by Wolf [class of 2025] and, well, this is a post chess interview, so I made it here this year and got demolished by Rhys.” Still, Marcus feels that he put up a better fight than he did last year.
As for Rhys, victory is not uncommon for him in chess. Last year, he won the middle school chess tournament with ease. When I asked Rhys what made the game challenging for him, he said, “It’s a hundred percent a mental game. You have to be mentally ready to play.”
While he easily beat Marcus, he does believe that “Marcus played a really good game, and I respect him.” Despite the fact that Marcus and Rhys were chess enemies, they both said how they had a great time playing in the tournament, and they appreciate how Mr. Bowden organized this fun event.
Looking ahead, Mr. Bowden hopes to continue this great tournament for years to come. He has even said that the library may consider doing other tournaments for games such as checkers. Just remember, the next time you’re in the library, be sure to guard your king because there is no knowing who might try to checkmate you.
