This year's team is different than past undefeated Charger chess teams as it is heavily dependent on a small group of veterans and a strong group of fourth grade rookies.

 

The team is led by a trio of veteran sixth graders, Jordan Kaczor, Jacob Kaczor and Brad Scharbauer. Last year they played on middle boards but this year they have to take on the best players from every other school. "I can't be playing around this year, " Jacob said. He won all three of his games against Classical and said his best move was when he had a checkmate but there was a knight guarding the checkmate square. "I offered him a free rook to distract the knight away from the guarding square, and bam. Checkmate." Jordan also won all three of his games and got the job of giving the pre-game speech to the newcomers about how to behave at the tournament. "I think it was a help," Jordan said. As far as his playing style he said rather than trying for quick attacks, he played a more positional game. "I tortured them by taking space away," he said. Brad also won all three of his games and was given the task of giving the team its last-minute strategy advice. "It's harder this year" Brad said about having to take on a leadership role. "I have to focus because every opponent is going to be good. I can't mess around this year."  Brad said his best move was when he set up a trap where his opponent would be lured into pushing a pawn. "I said in my head, please move the pawn, and he did it. It got me a free piece."

 

Other returning veterans who won all three of their games were Mateo Gil, Charlie LaFarrelle, Kasen Shepherd and Jervin Ewusie. Sixth grader Mateo moved all the way up to board four this year. He said it's way better this year as he practiced over the summer. His best move was when he forked his opponent's queen and king. "I had it all planned out," he said. Kasen said he had to engineer a queen trade to finally win one game, and Jervin said his games were pretty simple. "I took all their pieces and then laddered them."  Charlie said his games reminded him of Yoda tossing Imperial Stormtroopers around and then every once in a while he made a mistake and said, "Oops that was an Ewok."

 

This year's fourth graders look to be a strong group which makes the next few years look particularly promising for everyone's favorite team. Playing in their first-ever chess tournament, Grant Levea, John Gripp, and Tesher Scharbauer each won all three of their games. All three rookies agreed that they were all very nervous when they played their first game but things got better once they settled into deep thought. "As I started playing and my brain got into it, I thought, hey this is fun," Grant said. John said he used aggression to handle his stress. "I tried to attack right from the beginning," he said "I stole their pieces and charged."  Tesher said his worst point was when he felt "trapped," one game, but was able to defend himself and come back to win.

 

Other Charger players were Katie Liu, Rishi Ravuri, Rhodes McAllister, Daniel Castillo, Mary Wilson, Thomas Wiesen, Lulu Campbell, and Keyan Chaudhri. Fifth grader Keyan won both of his games and Rhodes was undefeated but did suffer the embarrassment of a stalemate when he was way ahead. I think Rhodes summed up all of our horrible memories of stalemates when he said "It was like I was a kangaroo trapped in a California tar pit being encircled by a hungry brontosaurus. I was trying to checkmate him, but then I thought, wait a minute what's a kangaroo doing in California, and then I thought brontosauruses are long extinct and they were plant-eaters anyway, and then while I was thinking of the poor Joey in the pouch I lost focus and it was a stalemate. Next time I'll just do the ladder."