Eatonville Chess Club competes at state tournament

The expansive gymnasium was set with more than 150 chess boards, but the participants were clustered by one wall opposite the tables which was expectantly blank. They were awaiting the posting of team pairings for the 6th and final round of the State Chess Tournament.

With a cluster of teams essentially tied at 12 to 13 points going into the final round, a single win (one point) could mean up to 10 places in the standings.

The Eatonville High School Chess team was in the middle of that cluster on March 1 as they competed in the 59th annual Washington State High School Chess Team Championship. As the tournament title suggests chess has a long history at the scholastic level in Washington and most of the teams at the tournament have decades of experience. Eatonville’s team is still in its infancy, but the early years have yielded some promising results. 

“I started the EHS Chess Club at the end of 2022,” said former student Brynden Olson. “I talked to our ASB advisors about the process of creating an official ASB club, and took the steps needed to be recognized as such. I wrote a constitution, we elected positions and prepared fundraising all to make the opportunities of competitive chess more accessible at EHS.” 

Olson recognized the hard work of fellow students like Joey Callon and Hans Amon in getting the club started. Teacher Mathew Burns volunteered as advisor and the club recruited 6 members, one more than the minimum needed to compete as a team. In the post-covid landscape, however, most chess communities were struggling to revive in-person events and there weren’t very many teams to play. With minimal experience the team found themselves driving all the way to Vancouver, Washington to play in a state-qualifying tournament. 

Strong performances all around sent them through to the state tournament where they placed 28th out of 34 teams in March of 2023. Last year, again led by Olson, they hosted and won the Pierce County Regional tournament to qualify for State, and went on to take 16th out of 35 teams. That team, however, graduated 3 seniors including Olsen. The gap in both members and leadership left a lot of holes to fill.

Fortunately those who remained have been up to the challenge. Hans Amon and Titus Lowe from last year’s state team filled in as president and treasurer, and Carson Jones stepped in as vice president. Recruiting anyone willing to play, the team fielded a club-high 11 players at the Pierce County Regional Championship this year and took second place. For 5 of the players it was their first chess tournament, including junior Corey Dempsey who found himself playing his way onto the state team.

“I was introduced to chess when I was pretty young, but I never really started playing until my freshman year,” said Dempsey. “I never went to Chess Club, but Burns introduced me. They taught me to notate [my moves] the day before Regionals and it went pretty well.”

This fertile ground for recruiting is a reflection of a larger trend in chess playing for the U.S. and around the world. While in person tournaments were virtually non-existent during the Covid-19 Pandemic the online chess community saw substantial growth. Chess apps and sites like Chess.com saw their membership double and digital chess became an increasingly mainstream activity among high school students. 

The Washington High School Chess Association (WHSCA) saw the number of teams competing in their state tournament drop significantly during the pandemic, but they have been able to rebuild participation through regional qualifying tournaments. These tournaments have been subsidized by the WHSCA, offered to high school teams free of charge, and the response has been significant. This year the State Team Chess Championship saw an all-time record high in participation at 48 teams. 

Dempsey’s performance at the regional tournament, winning 2 of his 5 games, was enough to earn him 5th board on Eatonville’s state team, with Carson Jones on 4th board, Dominic Bennet-Warner on 3rd board, Hans Amon on 2nd board, and Titus Lowe on 1st board. Unlike the regional tournaments where all players compete as individuals and combine points to find their team score, the state tournament pairs entire teams against each other. 

When round one began the 5 Eatonville players were sitting across from the 5 players from Lincoln High School. In this format players are matched in board order, with the top player from each team at 1st board and so on down the table. Each game is worth 1 point for the winner. If neither player is able to win (a draw) both players are awarded a half point. Seeded 35th out of the 48 teams based on average player ratings, Eatonville expected to be playing strong opponents. The first round only saw a win from Corey Dempsey.

“Their top player was very accurate and strategic,” said Titus Lowe after the loss.

The sum of a team’s points for the first round (maximum of 5) is used to determine their second round opponent in what is referred to as ‘Swiss Pairings.’ This means teams are paired with other teams who have earned the same number of points. One advantage of this type of tournament is that teams are not eliminated. Every team gets to play in all 6 rounds, with successful teams working their way up the rankings and playing other successful teams, while weaker teams are also pitted against teams that have had similar success.

In Round 2 against Orcas Island High School, Eatonville saw a win from Hans Amon and a draw from Titus Lowe. In Round 3 Eatonville broke through against Forks High School with wins from Lowe, Amon, Bennet-Warner, and Dempsey. This jump in points matched them up against Sehome High School’s B team in Round 4, which proved challenging. 

Bennet-Warner and Dempsey both won. A final surge in Round 5 with 4 wins against New Life Christian School from Amon, Bennet-Warner, Jones, and Dempsey gave Eatonville a total of 12.5 points going into the final round. 12 other teams were within a point of Eatonville so a strong performance in the final round could yield big results in the standings. 

Unfortunately, when pairings for the final round were posted Eatonville found themselves facing Olympia High School. This pairing would undoubtedly raise some eyebrows among local sports fans as Olympia is classified by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) as 4A (1,201+ students). Eatonville recently made the jump from 1A (225-449 students) to 2A (450-899 students). 

The tournament, however, is not governed by the WIAA and accepts schools from all classifications. All teams compete and are ranked in the same division and the grand champion is awarded possession of the LaFreniere Cup. For the first time this year the WIAA classifications were recognized during awards, and the top team from each classification was invited to take a picture with the cup before it was awarded to the grand champion. 

All of this was of little importance to Eatonville as they found themselves out ranked at every board for the 3rd time in the tournament, and this time it proved to be too much. Some games were closer than others, but in the end Olympia won all five, catapulting them to 12th place and a trophy, while Eatoville finished 34th.

The final round was certainly disappointing to the team, but their overall experience at the tournament seemed positive. A surprise visit from club founder Bryden Olsen (now attending Western Washington University) and the camaraderie formed at the two day event were evidence of the community forming around chess at Eatonville High School. 

The promising performance of newcomers like Dempsey, who won 4 of his 6 games, are an indicator of good things to come. Next year Eatonville has been selected to host the Pierce County Regional tournament and the team has their sights set on a fourth straight trip to the state tournament.