A newly-created team at Tompkins High School won the second annual chess tournament held February 24th at Paetow High School. The team -- Faizan Zameer, Atreya Jariwala, Sidharth Rajagopalan, Karthik Veeramallu – is sponsored by Tompkins teacher Vern Eikrem, and they took the top honors, winning it all the way this year.

Chess is growing in popularity, said Paetow student Dawoud Rivas, who is in the chess club at Paetow. This year’s tournament attracted teams from every Katy ISD high school except Morton Ranch, which does not have a chess club. Cinco Ranch has a chess club but could not gain the required number of students to participate, Rivas said.

For Team Chess, there are always four members to the team, Rivas said, with the possibility of having three if the team wants to forfeit points for that member.

“I would love to give the game of Chess the recognition it deserves,” Rivas said. “It is a game that has been played since the sixth century. My one dream is to get this game recognized by Texas UIL for High school students.”

“I am hoping that Team chess and Solo Chess competitions can become a thing in Texas since all we have now is competitions for 2nd -8th grade that are recognized by UIL for Chess puzzles,” he added. “I know many other states hold chess competitions such as the one we have in Katy ISD and it is recognized by those respective states. This could open the opportunity for scholarships towards college for these wonderful kids.”

Next year Paetow High will again host the chess tournament for Katy ISD. Rivas says that he is in the process of sending an application to Texas UIL to get the game recognized not only for Team Chess but as well for solo players. “Our club sponsors are also in talks of creating more tournaments throughout the year for not only teams but also solo players,” he said.

Rivas has advice for students who want to form their own chess club on campus. “All they would have to do is get a member of the school’s staff to sign off on holding the club in their rooms and apply for creation of the club through the respective high school’s paperwork,” he said.