Gallery • 3 Photos

By Amy Hill

Junior Isaac Steiner makes his move while Senior Colin Keltner watches, thinking about his strategy

Junior Isaac Steiner founded the chess club in hopes to create a fun environment where people could play one of his favorite games. 

Steiner has been playing chess from a young age when his father began teaching him how to play the game at the age of nine.

The club meets from 3:00 to around 4:00 depending on how long each game lasts, accepts anyone eager to join and is held in Mr. Walden’s room.

 Steiner said that chess can act as a “constant. Even if your life is going wild, you at least have some constant in the 64 squares.” 

Steiner’s passion for the club is easily seen by those around him. In fact, most members of the club said that Steiner was the person who recommended that they join the club. And for members like junior Gabe Martin, Steiner even taught some of them most of what they know about the game.

“Isaac finally was like, “you should try it” so I played with him a couple of times and he kicked my butt over and over again,” Martin said. “I played for a while and I got pretty decent, so when he came up with the idea to do a chess club, I was totally into it.”

Both Steiner and Martin found that one of their favorite aspects of the game was the ability to learn about their opponent’s moves to try to anticipate what they might do next.

“There’s so many cool moves in this game,” Martin said. “Because everyone has a certain set of moves that they use. And playing other people, and learning their moves and how they play is interesting.”

Steiner wants to continue the club well into the future and hopes that the club carries on after he graduates. He also hopes to be able to get more people to join the club in the future to help carry on the legacy of the Chess Club.