From the moment the players reached across their chess boards to shake hands Saturday, the room on the Tempe campus descended into a tense silence interrupted only by creaking chairs, the gentle tap of pieces on a board and the beep of the game clock as the opponents traded turns.
Regardless of how they finished, players immediately began rehashing the game and their moves with other competitors, searching for the best strategy for the next round of the ASU Chess Challenge.
It was this side of the game that Chess Club @ ASU president and business management junior Jeff Green said was most appealing.
“Chess is all about fun,” Green said. “It seems really intense in there, but it is by nature a social game.”
In addition to hosting its monthly tournaments, the chess club holds weekly meetings with about 30 attendees each Thursday and hosts a smaller tournament for adult players most Sunday afternoons.
Several members, including Green, also compete with other college clubs as part of the Sun Devil Chess Team. They’re looking forward to a match with UA in a few weeks and recently competed in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship.
Members of the club have varying degrees of commitment, but the team members practice as much as they can, statistics and economics freshman Nick Thompson said.
Thompson said he tries to practice chess or study chess theory for at least three hours each day and attend all of the chess club events.
“I really like the strategy that goes into it,” Thompson said. “It’s really complex and it’s hard to learn everything, so it comes down to who’s going to take the time to learn it.”
Thompson said he enjoyed the logical aspect of the game but also the camaraderie that develops between players.
“It’s kind of like a war of the minds where you get to pit yourself against another person,” he said. “But it’s also not like some other activities where people are individualistic and don’t like sharing their ideas with others.”
The ASU chess club offers several learning opportunities for their members, ranging from teaching new members the basic rules to offering free game reviews after tournament matches.
During these game review sessions, experts reenact a match based on the notations the players took during the game and then demonstrate moves that would work better.
Saturday’s tournament featured game review from a visiting expert from Sacramento, Kevin Begley, who spoke at Thursday’s meeting.
Begley, 44, was awarded the title of National Master of Chess Composition for his chess problems, or depictions of efficient ways to reach the conclusion of a match. Players study these problems to develop more effective strategies.
“To learn math, you do math problems,” Begley said. “To learn chess, you play chess, but you also do chess problems.”
Begley began as a competitive chess player, but shifted to working on the problems as he grew older.
Club vice president and biochemistry junior Andrew Widener, who was ranked third in the nation in high school, said he has also become less competitive because his role as a leader in the club takes up more time.
Widener served as the director for Saturday’s tournament, pairing each of the 24 contestants with an opponent for each round and overseeing the games.
“Chess offers a lot of things, both in the social aspects and the game itself tests your mental capacities and challenges you to think in creative ways,” Widener said. “It’s obvious to me how being good at chess has helped me be good at other things.”
Reach the reporter at julia.shumway@asu.edu or follow @JMShumway on Twitter.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
