House Chess Competition

During the week commencing Monday 3rd of January 2022, Dulwich International High School Suzhou held its first Chess competition of the year. Chess has risen in popularity in recent years, partly due to the tremendous success of the Netflix Chess drama show, The Queens Gambit.

The Queen's Gambit follows the life of an orphan chess prodigy, Elizabeth Harmon, during her quest to become an elite chess player while struggling with emotional problems. The title of the series refers to a chess opening of the same name. The story begins in the mid-1950s and proceeds into the 1960s.

However, Chess at Dulwich International High School Suzhou is part of school life. Our students can often be seen playing chess in the café area of the school and we also offer chess based CCA’s.

There is a lot of debate about the role of chess in education. One school of thought argues that playing chess helps to develop analytical thinking skills, which can be easily transferred to other areas of study.

There is little question that Chess provides a great deal of mental stimulation when played at a high standard. It’s often quoted that there are more possible chess games than there are atoms in the universe.

Dulwich International High School Suzhou, House competitions are a regular part of school life, and the Chess Competition provided a good example of how staff and students often compete against each other in friendly house competitions.

This year the chess competition was made even more thrilling, as each player only had five minutes on the clock to play the game. This means that each game lasts an absolute maximum of ten minutes. This is technically known as “Blitz Chess”. In Blitz Chess, each player plays against a clock and has a pool of five minutes that they use up with every move. If you run out of time, you either lose or draw (if your opponent doesn’t have sufficient mating material to win the game in the time they have remaining).

In our chess competition, each player played 3 games against players from other Houses. Players needed to organise the time and place for their games themselves. 2 points were awarded for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss. The competition games were played either face to face using a physical chessboard, or online, using the incredibly popular website www.chess.com which is free to use, which, along with a host of other options, allows two human players to play each other online against a chess clock, from anywhere in the world.

Through the wide range of CCA's we offer, our students discover their interests and talents while developing Duwich values and competencies that will prepare them for a rapidly changing world.