Aliso Niguel’s Chess Club offers students a new way of meeting fellow chess players and honing their skills.
Aliso Niguel offers a plethora of clubs for students to choose from. The Club Rush event provides a chance for many of the students to make and join clubs they are interested in. The Chess Club was one such club.
With around 50 official members in the club, most of their members are from last year, but the club also found new members with this year’s Club Rush Event.
Aliso’s Chess Club meets every Wednesday in room S201. Per meeting, around 20-30 concurrent members show up to play against one another or watch their friend’s games.
Despite the seemingly sharp learning curve to the game, Oliver Luu (10), the Vice President of the Chess Club, explained that the group has no requirements to join. Oliver says, “we welcome all skill levels.”
The members play chess with one another both analog and digitally. While the club was supplied last year with physical chess sets, they members explained that the task of bringing the sets to and from school takes up time and space or they may just simply forget the sets.
Instead of the traditional chess set, the members opt to play online chess. The website they use is called Chess.com, where the club members can play online with one another almost like they could in person.
Currently, the club’s activities are limited to only playing the game with one another. The members try to learn from each other to enhance their own abilities with the hopes that next meeting they may play better than the last.
In the future, the club intends to expand its activities. One such event is the teaching of openings.
An opening in chess is a player’s preliminary choice of moving their pieces. In the early stages of the game, where and when pieces are placed create a great effect on the later parts of the match. This crucial information is something that Aliso’s Chess Club hopes to teach and guide its members through, bolstering their chess skills.
Most beginners struggle with chess because they don’t understand key concepts of the game such as openings. Job Lim(12) believes that chess is not that hard. Job(12) said, “Learning how the pieces move pretty much gives you a good starting point.”
Attending the club helps teach new players important skills in order to master the game of chess.
Even though the club has no official skill level, higher level players can still find enjoyment in the club as it highlights the competitive side of players.
Another event that higher leveled club members can look forward to is the inclusion of bracket formatted tournaments. This would place individuals against each other, eventually leading to a finale where the best players, who have never lost, get to play against one another.
This competitive atmosphere will definitely enhance the abilities of all who participate as it allows even those who are eliminated to watch the best play at the highest level.
Chess is not just a fun recreational game. Oliver Luu explains that the game, “teaches you to think ahead and deeply in situations you are in.”
In Chess, one move changes the entire outcome of your game, so it is important that actions are deliberate and careful, which are lessons that translate into real life.
While not a college oriented club, Aliso Niguel’s Chess Club offers students the opportunity to further their skills at Chess and learn important life skills.
