The Alaska Chess Club hosted its seventh tournament this week in Juneau. The club was started this year by players who wanted more opportunities for in-person competition.
Listen:
Audio PlayerThere were two chessboards per table set up in the Mendenhall Valley Public Library conference room on Thursday. Twenty people sat face-to-face at the tables, chatting about chess.
“I see a lot of new faces here today, which means you’ve all been breaking the first rule of Chess Club,” Maen Wolf, who ran the tournament, told the players before kicking things off.
Once the two-sided timers started, the room was silent, except for the sound of pieces landing on the chessboard.
Each player had up to 10 minutes total, limiting games to 20 minutes. Some games were over in six, others ran the timer down to a second on each side.
Wolf started the club this spring because he wanted to expand in-person playing beyond just him and some friends at a bar.
“I was like, ‘Okay, there should be something official here,’” he said.
Most of the players honed their games on Chess.com. But Kevin Gullufsen said in-person games are different and better.
“Most of us play on our phones a lot, but it’s a totally different thing, playing over the board, like OTB,” he said, whispering. On the other side of a glass wall, a serious game was in action.
“Also playing against a live person, there’s a whole kind of psychological aspect to it that’s a lot more fun, and it’s kind of the more real version of chess,” he said.
Players who finished their games earlier started to trickle into the hallway, and conversations about what went well and what could have been better filled the silence.
Kaia Mangaccat came to this tournament ready with a plan. And she said it went well.
“I did an opening, and it worked, and that got me off to a really good start,” she said.
Fourteen-year-old Ryan Beery was also proud of his first game.
“I felt pretty good,” he said. “I think I got maybe two brilliant moves.”
Matt Schiffner’s third game came down to the wire. Players who finished already watched through the glass. He said afterwards that he cinched the victory in the last few moves.
“When there were just a few pieces left, and he just put his rook on the square that my knight covered, and I was able to capture it. You know, at first I almost missed it,” he said. “I was about to play a different move, and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. And as soon as I saw that, it just clicked, and felt very satisfying.”
Schiffner won the tournament, undefeated through seven games.
But no matter how well the players scored, they were eager to play and learn from each other. At least, that’s what Elizabeth Giudice said.
“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s the pieces you move along the way,” she said.
And just in case seven games wasn’t enough, Wolf said people could play one more game after the tournament if they want to. The top three winners lingered, but everyone else headed for the door.
