Hovered over his teammate’s chessboard, senior Sam Korsky knew immediately that his teammate had lost the game. Moving his rook next to his opponent’s pawn, the piece was lost forever.

“The moment will live in infamy,” Korsky said.

A rook can move in multiple directions, but a pawn is only able to move one square at a time, making it a less powerful piece. Thus, losing a rook to a pawn, according to Korsky, is a humorous move for any advanced chess player. Korsky said the chess team practices once a week on Fridays and competes in tournaments throughout the year in order to gain more experience and avoid such mistakes.

The team was created by alumni Jacob Levin (‘14) and Ross Steinberg (‘14), sophomore Joshua Prupes (pictured) and Korsky last year. However, Prupes and Korsky have been playing chess since they were five years old.

Prupes said his mother competitively played chess when she was younger and influenced him to take up the game. Prupes said “it [got] pretty competitive” when he would play with his parents.

“We don’t play anymore,” said Prupes. “There is always going to be a winner and a loser and someone is going to get upset.”

Staying competitive and taking lessons from a chess coach, Prupes said he continued to practice and participate in tournaments leading up to his high school season.

A year and a half ago at the Chicago Open Chess Tournament, run by the Continental Chess Association, Prupes tied for fifth place out of 100 participants and won a $1,000 prize.

Prupes said at a high school chess tournament there are eight boards and the first board has the best players. The Glenbrook North team went 5-2 at the state tournament and tied for ninth place out of 170 teams last year.

Head Coach Michael Campbell said four years ago a few boys tried to start a chess team, but because of a lack of interest, they were unable to collect the eight students that were required to compete in state tournaments. However, Campbell attributes the growing interest in participating on the chess team to Chromebooks because students are able to play chess online.

“I think, through technology, we found that a lot of kids want to be competitive,” said Campbell. “They aren’t necessarily competitive on the athletic field, but they still want to compete.”

Campbell said he competed on the chess team when in high school, too. Similar to other sports teams, the chess team has practices where Campbell and assistant coach Adam Levy teach the team different plays and strategies.

“[Chess] is a sport for your mind more than anything,” Campbell said.

Korsky said during a chess practice, the first half is dedicated to practicing plays and strategies in chess games, and the second half is when Campbell and Levy go over moves that the team played in past tournaments.

Korsky said his team writes down the moves they make during practice games on a piece of paper. Then, these moves are shown on a board that hangs from a wall and resembles a chess board. Campbell goes through different scenarios on this board to coach the chess players on certain moves to make.

Korsky said players improve through repetition and practice games said Korsky.

“You have control over the situation,” said Korsky. “Complete control. It’s very nerve-wracking to see [plays] happen. There’s so much prediction…[There are] so many possibilities. [Chess] is very scary sometimes.”

Campbell said the conference in which the chess team competes is a little bigger than the Central Suburban League, including teams such as Stevenson, Mundelein and Carmel. Stevenson’s team is ranked first in state and Campbell considers that school GBN’s greatest competition, along with other rivals such as Glenbrook South, New Trier and Highland Park.

“We have a very young team,” said Campbell. “[Our team has] mostly sophomores…Out of our top eight [players], six of them are sophomores.”

According to Campbell, Prupes is one of the top players. He is learning from playing against the older and more experienced players from other schools said Campbell. By the time Prupes is a senior, Campbell said “[he] will be a top player in the area no doubt.” Right now, Prupes is 4-3-1 while playing at the first board.

“There’s really no aspect of luck [in chess],” said Korsky. “There’s no team to depend on…there’s no subjectivity whatsoever. It’s very objective. It’s just you versus the other person.”