![]() Since then it’s grown even more popular, and in January, chess hit middle and high school students. Chess hadn’t seen this level of popularity since the 1972 World Chess Championship, according to the New York Times. These schools reflect an increased interest in chess that began in 2020, credited in part to Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. Most teachers said it’s a lot of male students, but that female students partake, too. I was surprised to find a group of freshmen sitting with their laptops and phones in the middle of some very heated chess games.” Nedland said upperclassmen have started calling chess the “weird freshman thing,” due to the ubiquity of the game with younger students - but noted that it’s spread across all grades, too. “I heard some cheering down one of the hallways off the main dance area,” Hunter Nedland, a South Dakota-based biology teacher, told Polygon. Students at one school even turned the winter formal into a makeshift chess tournament. Both middle and high school kids are playing chess on their phones in the hallways between classes, sneaking moves in when their instruments are down during orchestra practice. Nationwide, people are playing a lot more chess - usually online or in apps. “It used to be probably 20%.”Īnd it’s not only Lien’s high school. “I have no idea what happened in January, but since then I’ve seen probably 90% or 80% of our school playing chess,” Lien told Polygon. And that’s why Lien was shocked when he showed up at school one day in January and saw chess everywhere. But in high school, it’s typically contained to its own circles, played in chess clubs. No one would ever call chess a niche it’s an old game with a ton of history, played by millions across the world. Lien even created a nonprofit around it, ChessPals, through which he teaches the game at local schools. He grew up in a part of the Bay Area, Marin, which is known for producing a few excellent chess players, so his schools always had a good chess team and coaches. ![]() He’s played it since he was 5 years old or so, his tiny hands just big enough to hold the pieces. Chess has always been a part of Henry Lien’s life.
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