On the Cumberland Plateau, there were a lot of students having a great time indoors despite the beautiful weather because they were playing chess.
Saturday, it wasn’t just any old chess game. The students were taking part in the Tennessee State Scholastic Chess Team Championship.
Tennessee Tech in Cookeville hosted the event.
They said it’s an exercise for the brain, it's competition, and it’s a lot of fun.
“Chess is certainly a challenging game, and you can find lots of quite good chess games on your electronic device,” said Paul Semmes, the director of the tournament. “Sitting down and playing a person is different, so, you know, there are definitely some elements of, ‘I’m going to make mistakes, so is the other person.’ When I started playing a long time ago, an older gentleman told me, ‘The winner is usually the one who makes the next to the last big mistake,’ and there's a lot of truth in that.”
One of the teams representing Nashville was Maplewood High School.
It was Maplewood’s first year to have a chess team, and they made it to the state.
A big congratulations goes out to the Campbell Homeschool team from Nashville who took first place at the state competition in the Junior High divison.
A mother of a team member told NewsChannel 5 the team consisted of eighth grader Josh Campbell, seventh grader Turner Gough, sixth grader Johnny MacByrd, and fifth grader Harry Campbell (all pictured below). The team was coached by Todd Andrews and Rock Campbell. Congratulations to Campbell Homeschool!
