PEA Chess Club Places 5th at Nationals

Phillips Exeter’s historic rivalry against Phillips Academy Andover is most prevalent within the realm of sports. However, the competition between the two academies does not just end there. Each time the PEA Chess Club becomes interlocked in a tight match against the Andover chess club, the atmosphere is tense, and the rivalry between red and blue carries onto the chess board. Competitions for Chess Club do not end there, though—the club’s top nine members travelled to the National High School Chess Tournament on Apr. 10-12, and placed fifth out of 69 teams.

The Exeter Chess Club meets on Saturday nights from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the back table of the Music Building. All students are welcome to come and go throughout the three hours, and since most of meetings are relatively informal, the events are centered around a variety of games such as regular chess, blitz and bughouse. 

Prep Michael Chen described the club as “very energetic” and “almost borderline chaotic” in a positive way. The students in the club always enjoy themselves as there are no slow or boring parts of the meetings. He credited this feature to the work of the past co-heads and their innovative ideas.

“They always made chess club really fun and it was great when they created events and organized teams to compete at tournaments,” Chen said. “This year they organized a blitz and bughouse tournament, both of which were very entertaining.”

Senior and past co-head Ellen Xiang agreed with Chen. During her time at Exeter, Xiang  has noticed the high spirits of the club and this year’s significant increase in participation and events.

“I’ve kept coming back because of the warmth of the club and its members––from the constant presence of chess boards in the music building, the excitement of bughouse games, traveling to off-campus tournaments together, the smiles, laughs and even the rowdy antics,” she said.

Like previous years, this year has not been short of exciting. The members kept themselves busy with fun-filled events each term. In both the fall and winter terms, the club scheduled an E/a chess matchup. The club also hosted an Exeter Invitational for the past two years, in addition to the New Hampshire State Scholastic Individuals this year.

However, despite all the different events and jokes, the club also offers a great environment for very serious and competitive players. Xiang described the atmosphere each day as “warm and inclusive.” According to her, the co-heads this year made a strong effort to make sure everyone felt comfortable at the meetings.

On Apr. 10-12, nine members of the PEA chess club traveled with mathematics instructor and club adviser Kevin Bartkovich to the National High School Chess Tournament, sponsored by the U.S. Chess Federation, to compete against the toughest competition in the entire nation.

In their first outing ever at this tournament, Big Red tied for an impressive fifth place out of a total of 69 teams. This achievemnet did not come easily, however. The team met from lengths of two to three hours each week in preparation.

“Nationals was really an amazing experience to travel all the way to Ohio and to push ourselves to do our absolute best,” lower and new co-head Evan Xiang said. “I’ve never been on such a large team of nine, but it was honestly great to see all the support we had for each other. We were playing our own individual games, but [we played] together as a team.”

This sense of teamwork, which spurred Big Red’s triump, was an asset that senior and former co-head Margaret Zhu was proud of. Although she was not able to attend the tournament, she expressed her appreciation for those who did.

“As a two-year co-head of Chess Club, I am so proud of everyone who went to Nationals. They deserved the success, and hopefully the success, pure joy and passion for the game will be continued in the years to come,” Zhu said.

In response to the successful outing, PEA’s chess club is planning on sending another team next year to the national tournament. New co-head and upper Mandy Lu said that the team’s goal is to “match or beat [the team’s] performance this year.”

In an effort to achieve Lu’s goal, Evan Xiang hopes to maintain the current level of interest students have in chess club, in addition to joining forces with the several nationally-ranked students who have chosen to attend Exeter next year.

“Looking into the future, we want to continue going to Nationals and to get Exeter recognized as having a consistently powerful chess team throughout the years,” she said. “We’re getting interest from other nationally-ranked chess players in coming to Exeter, so I think it's great that our club is even bringing in prospective students.”

With all the club’s successes and its happy atmosphere, the players have given themselves the fitting motto: “Chess club, best club!”