By Wilson Hibbs
Sandia’s chess team earned third place in the New Mexico State Chess Tournament on Friday, Feb. 24. The team competed over the course of two days, Thursday and Friday, in order to achieve their third place win. First place went to Albuquerque Academy, and second place went to La Cueva High School. Sandia’s team was proud of their win, and hope to get even better next year.
At the tournament, students played evenly matched games against other students of similar skill levels. Waylon Lowe, Sophomore and first board on the chess team, explained “Depending on how well you do in each round, you play teams that perform similarly. [You play] four rounds total. Depending on how [many] games you won and how well you did against other schools, that’s how you determine your place.” Sean Jagodzinski, a Sophomore on the chess team, described what being at the tournament was like on Friday. “We got 55 minute sides, so… each person got 55 minutes to play, and most of the games were over pretty quickly, but some people took a really long time… There were two games in the morning, and then there were two games in the afternoon.”
Most members of the team were proud of their own performances. Lowe described the experience as “10 out of 10, because I won all my games.” Jagodzinski said “I think I did great, with… three wins and one loss.” Dustin Dole, a Junior, said “I won all four of my games and lost none, so I’d say that I did pretty good.” Jadon Giron, a Junior, was generally happy with his performance, but said “I choked in the third and fourth rounds.” Ryan Olona, a Junior who won two out of his four games, jokingly rated the experience “negative four [out of 10]. I should have won all my games.”
Most team members were also proud of how the team did as a whole. “Considering [that we competed against] 16 high schools, [third place] is pretty solid,” said Giron. Both members and coaches agreed that this third place win was impressive, but that they hope to do even better next year. “I think some people could have pushed themselves further… but I think we did good, placing third,” said Jagodzinski. Wesley Viers, one of the team’s coaches, said that third place was “Excellent… an improvement over last year. I think that we probably could have beat La Cueva, but… there were just a few mistakes made, and that’s okay. It’s part of the game.”
This third place win was the culmination of months of practice and fun from the chess team. Thomas Franich, the team’s second coach, said that a regular chess club meeting “looks like a bunch of young people coming together after school [and] having fun, lighthearted… matches with one another, mostly just for entertainment, but… they do have their little competition to try and see who’s best.” Viers said that “we generally just get together and we play various games, chess based games, and we prepare for a number of tournaments.” Franich described some of those tournaments, saying “We invite other schools to a tournament once a year called the Sandia Invitational, and our students have taken first place both years that we posted the Sandia Invitational. Other schools have invited our students to their tournaments, and our students are generally doing very well. We’ve won second place in a tournament, first place in another tournament, so it’s just a whole bunch of winning. [The team is] very good.”
Both Franich and Viers look forward to the future of Sandia’s chess team, and hope that more people will join the team next year. “We’re always hoping to… get more people to come and be a part of the chess club… I see people playing chess all the time, but they don’t want to come to the club,” said Viers. Franich added, “We’re always looking to have more members. Every club is, right? But chess is a little different… because there are people who feel like [they’re] not good enough to do it in a club, as a team. And I want to dispel that myth. Everyone of every skill level is welcome here. None of our top players got that way overnight. They all started at a low rank and worked their way up… Anyone and everyone is welcome to come and do that with us. We’ve got plenty of sets. We’ve got plenty of time. We’d love to have as many students as we can fit in the room.”
It took a lot of hard work for the Sandia chess team to secure their third place win, but they are happy with the result. If you’re interested in chess, it might be a good idea to join the team. Maybe you could help Sandia do even better at the State tournament next year.
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