I first started playing Chess at 9 years old. When I was
10 I joined the chess club to harness my skills
and play with other people.
There is strategy behind it – you have to learn three
parts of the game:
Opening, midgame, and endgame
Opening
Chess is an interesting puzzle where you lead an army
of pieces to victory in a strategy based game.
Each piece has something unique about them. The pawn,
who sits on the lawn of the king, is
worth 1 point and is the weakest of the pieces;
the pawn moves one space but on its first
move can race two spaces.
The pawn captures diagonally and will not care
to capture all your pieces.
When it reaches the end of the board it becomes a Queen, a Bishop, Knight or Rook.
Like you—if you reach the top you can be anything.
Midgame
The pawns are us, friends and family.
The rooks are the government.
The bishops are like your parents.
King and queen are the president and first lady.
Knights are the people who work, have jobs.
Chess used to be used to show different people’s
classes in the 7th Century
The Pawn takes so long to get to the end of the board
Knights might jump over you if you’re not careful
Bishops do big hops on the diagonal
Rooks look on the horizontal and vertical
Queens lead the fleet into the heat of battle
The King flings himself to safety
Endgame
In 2022 I played my first online tournament, and got
second place.
Then in the summer I played in another tournament
and this time I was ready to win and actually
won it!
Winning that was my best achievement yet and I
played up until school started where I couldn’t
play as much.
It felt amazing, I accomplished what I wanted to
accomplish.
I celebrated of course, but my parents didn’t know I
won the tournament until I told them. No
prizes.
I celebrated by eating cereal with chocolate milk.
Now in 2023 I have 2 tournament wins and 3 semi finals.
In my eyes Chess represents my life as when I
promote my Pawn I have achieved my goal.