Alexander Mellis
If you like to think and have a very competitive mindset, you may consider joining the chess club. Chess has its very own school organization at HMSchool which was started by Preston Tong. He started it in 6th grade with his friend Sean Murphy. According to Preston himself, “I created the club because I like to play chess. Also, I wanted to recreate the chess club from five years ago but with my own spin on it.” Although Murphy left the club to pursue academic studies, Tong remains a present force in the chess community. Filling in the gaps of Murphy’s leave, Warren Zhang is the current vice president. Following his lead, Kyle Loh has taken the role as treasurer, while Ivan Yang is the acting secretary. The advising teacher of the club is Mrs. Moffat, a 6th grade English and Social Studies teacher.
The club consists of weekly Thursday meetings hosted during lunch. The meetings either take place at the library courtyard or occasionally inside the library itself. Members play on the provided chessboards which were purchased when the club began. Players decide their own opponents, so many friends come to the chess club to hangout during lunch and play amongst themselves. The games can get heated as players can become lost in their calculations and try their hardest for victory. They can be extremely short or last the entire period depending on how the competitors play.
So far, there has only been one tournament during the school year of 2021-2022. The type of tournament was doubles Bughouse. Bughouse is a variant of chess where when you capture a piece, your partner on another board is able to spawn it in and use it themselves. However, captured pawns cannot be placed on the first or last rank of the board which means that there is no funny business when it comes to creating new queens. Also, none of the spawned pieces can be placed onto other pieces of either color. The winners of the cup were Adelynne and Anderson Yang who beat two other players to win the cup. Anderson said of the event, “I was excited to win the game and continue to move on.”
On December 8th, HMS will be having its first inter-school match this year. According to the flyer that was sent out, the games will begin at 2:55 p.m, and the opposing school from Orange County, Columbus Middle School, will come to Huntington. The tournament is in a 10 minute rapid format which means the players will have to play and think quickly. Speaking of the tournament, Ethan Chow, a member of the club, states, “I look forward to going to the tournament and seeing how everyone plays.” Chess club is open to all, so if you want to come play at the upcoming match, email Preston Tong at ptong@student.smusd.us.
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