Kunal Roy’s king was in duress.
A junior and the fifth member of Interlake Chess’ A team, he had choices: Block with the queen? Move his chess monarch? To which space?
Understandably, he began to play out the possibilities, and his hand crept towards his queen. He brushed it, ever so slightly. Just like that, everything was over.
On Feb. 11-12, the cream of the Washington state crop competed at the 2011 High School Team Chess Championship. In the final round of a speed chess tiebreaker between Interlake and Lakeside for first place, the “touch move” rule – where players have to move a piece if they touch it – forced Kunal to sacrifice his queen, the advantage, and the match.
“It felt like pulling up short right before the finish line. Too frustrating for words,” said Kunal.
Nevertheless, Interlake took second place after tying with Lakeside at 21 points from 25 matches (in chess, a win nets one point, a draw half a point, and a loss zero). Newport High School’s team took 7th with 14 points, followed by Interlake’s B team and Bellevue High School at 14th and 15th, respectively, out of 23 teams.
“I’m totally proud of how they did,” said Interlake’s coach, physics teacher Michael O’Byrne. “We were the underdogs the entire time – everyone there was rooting for us to beat them.”
At the tournament, Interlake was without master-ranked local legend Michael Lee, and the year’s reigning champion, David Golub. Chess players are assigned ratings, with the world’s best players at 2400 or above, elite players above 2000, and the average being from 800-1200. Interlake’s A team was at a disadvantage, with an average rating of 1850 compared to 2019 for Lakeside.
However, both teams were ranked some 400 points higher than the other teams at the tournament, and it showed. Lakeside and Interlake blew out the rest of the competition; the closest competitor, Seattle Prep, earned only 15.5 points from 25 matches, compared to Interlake and Lakeside’s tie at 21.
That’s not to say other schools didn’t have strong showings. In their first year as a chess club, Newport followed a second place finish in Kingco with its strong seventh place finish at state.
“We’re really happy – the boys performed very well,” said Martin Bantle, a first year mathematics teacher at Newport.
Bantle was quick to laud his students, particularly their captain, Aviv Caspi. Students “spearheaded” the revival of the club, he said. “All of the players on the team could whip me at chess.”
Likewise, Bellevue High School’s chess adviser Patrick Van Dyke, a math teacher, said that his “guys fought hard and competed really well,” although he admits that he was “secretly hoping for a bit better.”
Van Dyke was full of praise for chess and the state tournament.
“It’s pretty quiet for a good 2.5 to 3 hours. Then you see people, who were basically battling each other for hours, looking at the game and going over it together. It’s a great shared experience.”
For Kingco’s chess teams, the season is over; for the players, as individuals, chess continues, in the form of informal practice, rated games, and other tournaments.
