Over 240 students from across Lambton County competed in the 35th annual St. Clair Catholic District School Board Chess Tournament on Tuesday.
The popular event, for those in Grades 1 through 8, was held at Holy Trinity Catholic School in Sarnia.
The students went head-to-head in a day of testing their skills.
Teacher Chris Vaillant said you can learn a lot from the game of chess.
"Chess is a tremendous tool," said Vaillant. "In every game, players are faced with challenges and problems to solve. We have students exercising their skills of problem solving, abstract reasoning, pattern recognition, and strategic thinking. So, it helps students develop many of those skills and also how to focus on a task that's in front of them as well. They develop a lot of those social and emotional skills as well like resiliency, learning how to take a loss and regulating yourself when you do succeed."
Vaillant said each school has a chess club that runs in the winter months, and this tournament is a culmination of their hard work.
"They use those skills that they've been refining over the winter and put them into practical use here. It gives the students an opportunity to represent their schools, maybe in a capacity that they don't usually have the ability to. We've gone out of our way to highlight some female participation as well. We do tend to find that it's a pretty male-dominated activity so we do have a separate girls' division and an individual girls' award for the highest-scoring girl."
St. Anne's Grade 8 Student Joanne Fernandes said she always has a lot of fun playing chess.
"I competed last year and it was really fun, it's a good opportunity and I really like doing it," said Fernandes. "I like playing with my friends because they kind of got me into the game. I've also brought people into the game, it's just fun to play with people."
Fernandes said chess has also had a positive impact on her state of mind.
"I feel like it's helped me calm down sometimes," she said. "I sometimes get frustrated really easily, and this helps with that. It's definitely been helping my mental health. It also helps me find new friends because some of these people will be at St. Pat's next year, and I'll get to see them, I'll know some people and it'll be better for me next year."
This year marks the second year that Lambton has run its own tournament.
In the past, students from local Catholic schools competed with those in Chatham-Kent, but it's become so popular the school board now needs to have two separate events.
