Hurley Qui ’22

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The Student Council and the Chess Club are hosting the first ever Strake Jesuit online chess tournament. 

“The Student Council wanted to bring something fun to student life while following Covid-19 Restrictions,” Damien Morales’20, the student body president, said. “Chess became really popular, most likely because of ‘The Queen’s Gambit,’ so with those things came the idea for the Chess Tournament.”

The Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” helped to bring the game of chess to people’s attention. Many stores sold out all their chess sets, and chess grandmasters even contributed to the games played in the television series. Many students have created their own chess.com accounts in order to learn chess and play against each other. The popularity of chess is at an all time high. 

Because of the pandemic, the online chess tournament is the first major event hosted by the Student Council. Students and faculty members have been excited about the event and eagerly participated. The chess tournament, instead of Minecraft or Among Us, suddenly became the talk of the school. 

“A lot more people signed up than expected, which was a really good sign,” Damien said. “This was the tipping point also for following events whether it was in person or virtual, and a few more to come this year.” 

Mr. Damien’ 20 hopes that the Student Council will host a similar event next year. 

“Because of the popularity of Chess now, many more guys will know how to play, which will hopefully make future tournaments more exciting,” Damien said.  “I would hope that they would change the pace of the game and to finish up the entire tournament more efficiently.” 

The competitors of the tournament are currently (April 15) battling for the remaining spots in the semi-finals. The live results can be found here: https://challonge.com/n82c37hi.