CHECKMATE ! Leitrim chess group takes gold at community games nationals

Interest in chess exploded globally during the pandemic with people stuck indoors, and The Queen's Gambit, newly released on Netflix, made for the perfect inspiration for people to take up learning chess while they wiled away their lockdowns.

But it was after the pandemic that a local interest in chess sprang up organically in South Leitrim as Carrick early bird & afterschool, owned by Siobhan Whelan, became a hub for little chess players in the area who have since brought home a raft of national medals.

The group started three years ago when her son Callum, who works in the after-school club, started playing chess with one of the children.

Callum first learned at the same age from his teacher, Mick Blake, at Leitirm Village Primary School. Over a decade later, his interest was reignited after he started working in the after-school club.

“When I went into the after-school, I just started to play myself again, and I got an interest in it,” he says.

“One of the children in particular, he's older, he's in secondary school now, but he took an interest in it, and I started teaching him how to play, and then he started getting really good, and then he started to beat me, and I didn't like it, and I had to go and get better,” recalls Callum.

“So I started buying books, and I was watching YouTube videos on how to get better, and then I was teaching him the different stuff I'd learned, and then he was teaching younger children, and it just kind of spiralled from there,” said Callum.

Chess mad

The kids play for up to three hours a day in the club during sessions before school starts and after school. There is also an open session on Fridays that draws in children from outside of the after-school club.

“Some of them come in the morning, and they're playing in the morning, and then they'll come in from school, two o'clock and three o'clock, they'll do homework, they will eat, and they will play chess until their parents pick them up,” said Siobhan.

A lot of the kids will play a similar style to Callum, but the better they get, the more they have started developing into their own players, learning from each other and studying the game.

Many of the kids will play online chess in their free time through sites that give them access to puzzles, games, and tournaments. Callum also plays online and can keep track of how the kids are doing through the sites. He favours Lichess.com for the kids because it offers unlimited puzzles, and it is better to keep an eye on them for safety reasons.

“They just take to the game because there's so much to learn. It's like a language,” said Callum, who says they are reading books, watching videos, and soaking up the game at a remarkable rate, not only remembering the rules but memorising opening sequences and learning strategies.

They beat me all the time, even the seven-year-olds,” said Callum. “I've constantly had to keep upskilling myself, and I learned more things and played a lot of chess because I can't physically play as much as them, even though I do get to play a lot.”

Development

Chess can trace its roots back over a thousand years; the game was developed to teach people to think strategically for war. The crew of youngsters in South Leitirm won’t be directing battlefields any time soon, but the development of mental dexterity, focus and sportsmanship is still there.

“It's a very disciplined game, and you have to apply your concentration to it; you've got to apply yourself to it, or you won't win,” said Siobhan.

Sometimes, they are shocked by the speed at which kids pick up the game. They remember one student whom they had taught during their Chess summer camp jumping out at them.

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“I taught him how to play, and then it kind of didn't take much notice, and then this year, I kind of was, we were, we were just watching him play or whatever and all of a sudden he heard, checkmate, checkmate, checkmate, checkmate,” said Callum.

“We didn't know how good he was at it. And then he was beating everyone, you know, and we were like, okay, so we have another little prodigy that,” said Callum.​

Competitions

Despite a lot of the kids playing in the after-school program being quite young, they make up competitive chess teams on the national stage.

“We go off and play different tournaments, and we will enter them into primary school chess, but they're still very, very young. Most primary school chess players are in sixth class,” said Siobhan.

Children from the after-school program go off and play in tournaments around the country and have so far been successful competing in national primary school competitions and community games.

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Teams made up of children from the group have taken in a raft of national medals in U11 and U13 chess, including bronze and gold at the national community games earlier in July.

“Chess is a very complex game, and they do give it a lot of their time, and they give us a lot of focus and dedication. They're dedicated chess players, these little ones, and we are very, very proud of them,” said Siobhan.