By Devin Barker — Correspondent

Whether it be on a phone, computer, in class, in the hallways, or during lunch, SHS students are often engrossed in a game of chess.

 Chess has nearly tripled in popularity, with more than 100 million new members making accounts on the world’s leading chess app: Chess.com.

SHS Chess Club Co-President Rishi Ponnapalli says that there is a clear increase in the number of people playing chess. “Since people are indoors more and outside less, people need a hobby that stimulates them mentally but also challenges their brain. Thus, when popular influencers started playing chess, it started a trend of new people trying out chess for themselves,” he said. 

“In the Chess Club alone, we have grown from around 8 members each meeting, to well over 30 members every week,” he added.

SHS Chess Club’s Co-Presidents, Jesse Gamm, says that chess has a different appeal compared with other online games. “In most online games, there is always an aspect of luck, whether it be getting attacked by multiple players at once, or getting bad drop rates. In chess, there is no luck. As long as you know opening techniques and basic patterns, the outcome of the game comes down to whether or not you make a mistake and lose the game or your opponent makes a mistake and loses the game.”

“Since I was 6, I have been fascinated with chess, and I’m super happy that other students are starting to love this game as much as I do, and the success we had as a team this year against other schools in chess matches has been unprecedented since chess took off, added Chess Club co-president Devin Barker.” 

The team has chess matches nearly every Monday, and they said that they love when new players play on the team since it brings a new level of competition when playing in person rather than online.

Many students love challenging themselves intellectually, so it is no wonder that chess has become a pastime of hundreds of students in Sharon. They are able to gain more rating points and play competitively against friends. “Hopefully chess can continue to grow and expand at the rate it is now. I know that chess is a great way to enhance your thinking skills and wish I knew about chess from a younger age,” said Eric Li Even. 

Outside of SHS, tens of millions of people have started playing chess recently. “It’s an insane situation,” said popular YouTuber Levy Rozman. This level of growth in a chess website was so unprecedented that the three biggest chess websites across the world all crashed and were down for hundreds of hours, showing the worldwide scale of this surge.