Other LHS students who participated in the JV section were juniors Andrew Nichols, Ethan Bajwa, Roshni Bhavsar, Rahul Bhavsar, Alex Ramirez, Sophia Alvarez, and freshman Ryker Burns. Additional varsity players were sophomore Hannah Arnold, freshman Leighland Latosa, junior Marco Magana, and seniors Piheng Chen and Aidan Salinas. The other participating schools were Grow Academy, Shafter, Highland, South and Stockdale.
Math teacher Miles Van Kopp, the Chess Team advisor, said the club has increased in size this year: “We had a ton of new players in this tournament and have had a lot of club growth this year,” he said. “From Liberty, for nine of 17 students this was their first tournament at the high school level. This was the first tournament for all the JV winners.”
The Chess Club meets from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Thursdays in Mr. Van Kopp’s classroom, 707. The next tournament for the club will be on Dec. 7 at Highland High School.
Many Liberty students, including the club members, play chess online against strangers. When the game ends, the students get sent to a digital waiting room. Playing games with other students at club meetings or tournaments is beneficial in many ways, Mr. Van Kopp said.
“I think the biggest thing is it forces the students to interact with each other. At our tournament and club meetings, I can't enumerate how many times we see kids studying a certain move, talking through what to do against a particular set of openings, or lamenting together when they missed a checkmate opportunity,” he said. “Those kinds of discussions are crucial to becoming better students, much less better chess players, and none of them happen online.”
Mr. Van Kopp talked about the excitement about playing chess in person at the tournaments: “I am continually impressed by how enthusiastic and interested kids can be at these things. We always have some ties at our tournaments, so we end up doing blitz tie-breakers -- fast chess games, only five minutes -- decide tournament places. Without fail, when we run these tie break rounds, all the kids who are not in the running are magnetically drawn in to watch these games. They form a big circle around these one or two boards, and the atmosphere becomes thick with tension, every suspect move is met with gasps, every decisive capture with a cheer. They get legitimately excited about the game and each other. It’s always heartwarming to see.”