But a recent resurgence in the popularity of chess has made the school’s chess team even more competitive.
Seven members of Otago Boys’ High School’s chess team recently won an online Chess Power Checkmate Challenge qualification competition, and will now compete in the national final of the challenge in October.
The qualification competition was played over five rounds and there were 40 entries (mainly from around the North Island) in the secondary school division.
Otago Boys’ High School pupil Noah Oseki was second overall, Aaron Nelson was third, Nathaniel Miller-Coote was fourth and Richard Wang was fifth.
Online qualification tournaments are held once a month, and the winning team from each month qualifies for the Chess Power national finals.
The top three individual players each month also qualify for the Chess Power Champions Trophy.
Noah was delighted with the results and was looking forward to seeing how the team would perform in the national final.
He said two years ago, he felt like he was the only one with an interest in chess, and was surprised by how the game had grown in popularity recently.
"I’ve played for a wee while now, but when we had lockdown last year, I started playing a lot of chess online.
"I think the lockdown was the catalyst for a lot of other people starting to play chess.
"Then, obviously, there’s the Netflix TV show The Queen’s Gambit. That’s made the game really popular, too.
"It’s a great game - trying to out-think your opponent."
Otago Chess Club president Geoff Aimers said he too had noticed a surge in popularity.
He recently told The Star community newspaper there had been such an increase that the club was scrambling to find enough functioning chess clocks for its games.
The club has 25 adult members and about 25 in its junior section (9-16 year-olds).
If numbers continued to climb, the club might have to organise extra playing times, he said.
