On January 14th, a relaxing Saturday for most, ISB participated in an IASAS chess event against 5 other schools. The competition was held on Chess.com and the schools competed against each other online. ISB placed 5th out of the 6 schools. The event was organised by TAS this year. It consisted of 5 rounds each lasting 45 minutes. Teams were alternated white/black for each round. Each team ranked their players from 1-6 and during the round, you played a player from the opposing school with the same ranking.

Although ISB is unsatisfied with the result, instead of lingering on the performance, we are focusing on how to perform better in the next competition.

The reason for this result is that not many ISB students know about the existence of the chess club, and we do not have many members in our club. Since our club is small, we do not practice as often and only play against a small group of people.

A lot of people are unaware of the club, and most people did not know it was an official IASAS event. Upon asking the administrators, Mr. Albert stated that “IASAS Chess is very much a sanctioned IASAS event, but it falls under the category of exchange.  With that designation, there are no medals, trophies or plaques, and if the situation occurs whereby a school is unable to participate, [that is] okay. This event has been taking place for the past few years, and while I [would not] expect there to be any change in its status, I would say that it will definitely continue into the future.”

To participate in this IASAS event is additionally completely free of cost. The team captain, Jackson Carroll, says that “The team had a great time. [That is] the important part. Although the numbers may not have shown a total landslide victory, we all had a great time and enjoyed it nonetheless.”

The Chess club is looking for new members, we meet on day 2’s in Mr. Clement’s room if you are interested.

Adarsh Abbagani

Here is a video recap on what happened during the event!