The road for Scotch Oakburn College to defend its Tasmanian school chess title has begun.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Students have been flocking to play the game during Thursday lunch times ahead of a Northern intrastate schools tournament on April 3.
Launceston schools will go head-to-head for a seat at the state championships to be played in term four, which is the tournament Scotch Oakburn College won.
Scotch Oakburn chess captain Mitchell Fulton said they were hopeful of keeping the title at their school.
"We lost a few players at the end of last year, but hopefully we still have enough to win," Mitchell said.
"We've got a few new people, we've run out of chess boards, so hopefully we have enough."
He said the focus had been on gaining new people into the club ahead of competitions starting for the year.
"Since the start of the year, we've had maybe 30 or so people, which is more than last year's 10 max," he said.
"We had hopes [chess' popularity would grow after winning last year], chess hasn't really been a big thing until this year."
Mitchell said Launceston Church Grammar would be their biggest competition at April's tournament.
"Their chess captain is actually my cousin, which is kind of funny," he said.
"But they have a team of I think three or four decent people."
The Northern interschool competition will be played at Launceston Church Grammar School at their Mowbray campus.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark www.examiner.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter: @examineronline
- Follow us on Instagram: @examineronline
- Follow us on Google News: The Examiner