16 | April 11, 2019 | The Northbrook tower news northbrooktower.com Glenbrook North chess team wins national tournament Chris Pullam Freelance Reporter Glenbrook North’s chess team is one-for-one in the “winning national tournaments” department. The Spartans competed in the U.S. National Tournament, their first such tournament in the chess team’s six-year history, in Schaumburg from March 15-17, and won the U1600 National Championship after seven four-hour matches. Siva Muthupalaniappan tied as the individual national champion and Zach Malen took sixth place. Jeremy Livshots, Gil Axelrod and Henry Ding rounded out GBN’s U1600 team. In the unrated section, Benson Misevich took second and Enrique Villalon tied for eighth while leading the Spartans to a third-place finish, with Daniel Kim, Isaac Cho, Jennine Eng and DeeDee Van Treek also competing. Diego Morales also took 15th in the U1800 division. “I think this really showed the kids who we are, who they are,” said head coach Michael Campbell, a math teacher at GBN. “We aren’t necessarily a win-at-all costs program, but they all love being together and supporting each other and winning for each other. To me, these kids are all offthe-charts smart and fun and social, but this shows them that it’s okay to still laugh and enjoy yourself, and that you can do those things and still excel.” Campbell and assistant coach Adam Levy have run the program since its inception six years ago, when a group of thenstudents asked the pair Glenbrook North’s chess team poses for a group photo after winning the U1600 National Championship at the U.S. National Tournament. Photos Submitted GBN’s (left to right) Gil Axelrod, Jeremy Livshots, Siva Muthupalaniappan and Zach Malen celebrate. to sponsor the first team. Since then, the Spartans have traveled as far south as Peoria and Champaign to compete with their peers from across Illinois. Former Spartans are currently playing chess at colleges like the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Berkley, and others, according to Campbell, have won thousands of dollars in tournaments. This year, the Spartans couldn’t resist a shot at the national stage once the tournament was scheduled so close to home; usually, the national championship is hosted in cities like Orland, Nashville or Columbus. “The main difference was in the overall setup,” Campbell said. “State is a more team-orientated event where it’s basically just eight vs. eight, but at the national tournament, the coaches and parents weren’t even allowed in the room where they were playing, so it’s just a bunch of individual matches that are then added together for an accumulative score.” At the high school level, all sanctioned matches are timed, and they can last anywhere from 15 minutes to almost five hours. But each player’s rating – which determines if they compete in U1600, U1800 or any of the other divisions – begins accumulating whenever they play their first sanctioned match, whether that happens in high school or middle school. According to Campbell, the high school chess season starts around the beginning of the school year and usually ends with the State Tournament in February, but he expects his players to continue practicing, and competing, between now and then. “They would play every day [during practice] if I would let them, but even after we slow down, they’ll meet up at one of their houses and play amongst themselves or they’ll go to the library and practice on their own,” Campbell said. “It’s not just about getting better for them, it’s a social opportunity, as well. They just enjoy playing and being around each other.” During school-sanctioned practice, Campbell and Levy like to challenge the students with various chess “puzzles,” such as setting up a mid-game board and asking them to checkmate their opponent in three moves, or by going over opening and GBN senior Siva Muthupalaniappan tied as the individual national champion. closing moves. While fewer seniors competed in the 2019 State Tournament than in years past, according to Campbell, the team was relatively young, and he’s looking forward to an experienced group of sophomores and juniors returning in the fall. “Chess is really an outlet for a lot of kids that maybe sports isn’t their thing but they’re still competitive,” Campbell said. “You’ll see some of the most competitive kids in the world at these chess tournament. But what’s neat is the sportsmanship at the end, when they’ll go into the hall afterward and chat about their match and discuss what they were thinking at different points to help each other grow.”
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