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WILKES-BARRE — They are the area’s newest and probably least-heralded state champions, despite that fact they describe the three day competition as “grueling” and “incredibly difficult.”
The easiest part? “There are no easy parts,” Carson Kosloski insisted.
“Setting up the pieces is the only easy part,” Victoria Kwok decided.
That’s right, we’re talking the toughest three days of chess around, the state scholastic chess championship held last weekend. After years of coming close, Meyers High School won the team title in their division.
How a team wins is complicated, since this isn’t an elimination tournament. You can win without ever facing the runner-up. Suffice it to say that 45 schools brought as many students as they wanted to, with the best scores of the top four from each school determining the title.
Each player has a total of 90 minutes to complete their moves, and Victoria said “We use it all.” That means hours of tense chess for two days. So when Carson says the tournament means “You play until it hurts,” he means it.
The rules of the competition can sound simple but be very tough to follow, sort of like making an antsy toddler stand perfectly still.
“You can’t make eye contact with anyone from your team,” Elias said.
There’s no trash talking, but you can subtly try to intimidate.
“You do it with your eyes,” Carson said.
Even when you win, “You silently cheer,” Victoria added “until you leave the room.” And if you want to gloat a bit over the person you’ve just mated, well, Rai-Shawn Rinaldi suggested “you do it with your handshake.”
And while it may be one of the most inactive-looking competitions in the world, this level of chess sounds like a weight loss plan. “We ate breakfast at 7 in the morning,” Victoria said.
“And supper at midnight,” Elias added.
And lunch?
They laugh.
“We pretty much ate out of vending machines,” Victoria confessed.
“I brought five boxes of Girl Scout Cookies,” Rai-Shawn added.
“And Pringles!” Victoria remembered.
Most of the seniors in this championship group have been playing since the chess team was reborn five years ago. “I remember it clearly,” Rai-Shawn said “They made the announcement that Mr. Elias was starting a chess club. It took me a few minutes to find his room. Now it’s a second home.”
Some had been playing before then. “I started in sixth grade,” Victoria said. “I learned with SpongeBob chess” on line. They laugh. You will too, if you go to nick.com and find Bikini Bottom Chess to see how a seahorse takes a jelly fish.
“My uncle taught me,” Rai-Shawn said. And, no, the elder man never let the little kid win.
“Do you beat him now?” Elias asked.
“Oh, yes,” Rai-Shawn replied with hint of vengeful satisfaction.
While the four seniors won’t be around to defend the title, Elias expressed serious confidence in the younger players on the rise, including a new infusion from Coughlin High School. He predicted they will crack the top five in next year’s state competition.
And those who are leaving promised to keep playing — coming back for any alumni games, and joining a chess club in their chosen institutions of higher education.
“If they don’t have one, I’m making one,” Rai-Shawn promised. Proving his love of the game, the nattily dressed senior — grey vest, button shirt and dark necktie — conceded “I have a chess club shirt on!”
Elias concedes it’s not much to look at, and a bit nerdy. “We have no money,” he said, “so we put a QR code on it,” referring to those square blocks of black ink blotches that, when scanned with a smart phone, direct you to a website.
So in this case, you scan the code to see what they would like to print on the shirts.
Along with Victoria, Carson and Rai-Shawn, others who did well in individual competition included Stanley Kwok, James Patience, and Reynaldo Perez. The team title is determined by the scores of the team’s four best performers.
They got no parade, no championship rally in the gym. They do other things besides chess, Victoria insists, but when she starts rattling off how she squeezes chess practice in between Advanced Placement courses, and noted how two of the group went to a math competition right after the chess tournament, she realized the impression.
“We really are nerds,” she laughed.
They are also, lest we forget, state champions.
