The Chess Club hosted a Chess Tournament at GlenOak High School in the main commons at the end of February. There were 28 competitors at the tournament.

Chess club adviser Matthew Brown was asked to host the tournament this year.

“The coach of the chess club at McKinley approached me and asked if I wanted to host the tournament this year at the end of last year’s tournament and I said yes,” Brown said.

Students from around Stark County competed in the chess tournament, which lasted three hours. The winner was David Sondike from Jackson, and he received a trophy for first place.

In the first round of the tournament, it was set up at random. Organizers would pull two names and the competitors would go against each other.

After the first round, the winners and losers names were separated and they would go against other winners and other losers.

“We kind of kept pairing the winners together, and the losers together. So what happened was, the competition kept getting tougher and tougher for the winners,” Brown said.

Rounds would last around 10 minutes maximum. Junior Coleman Ekel won third during the tournament.

“There was this one guy that was talking alot so I would play music to drown him out if,” Ekel said.

Ekel encourages more people to play chess because it is beginner-friendly.