Members of the Seattle Prep Chess Team at the State Competition in March. The team earned a fourth place finish.

Earlier this month, the Seattle Prep Chess team headed to Interlake High School in Bellevue to compete in the 2024 Washington State High School Team Chess Championship. After two days of competition, the Panthers secured 4^th place in the state, the highest Prep chess team placement since 2011.

Led by Mr. Ellinger, the Panthers boasted an experienced lineup led by three seniors. The team slotted Aki Anandam ’24 in board one, Roman Chivers ’27 in board two, Andy LaPorte ’26 in board three, Owen Odegard ’24 in board four, and Louis Ta ’24 in board five.

The tournament may have been in March, but the team began preparation long before that: “We’ve had chess practice every [school] day since the beginning of the school year,” Odegard said. “[We’ve put] a lot of hours into it.”

Ellinger noted the importance of teaching different aspects to his players: “Part of [training] is knowledge-based…but then also learning how to think on your feet in a given situation…getting a feel for being curious,” he said. He especially emphasized the need to “learn how to respond to failure.”

As the ninth seed entering the tournament the team expected to finish in the top 10. “[We] had been training hard all season and had a solid performance during metros, so we felt prepared to give a strong performance during the tournament,” Anandam said.

Prep got things started with a strong win vs. Thomas Jefferson High School, followed by a tough loss vs. Newport High School A team, and a draw vs. Eastside Prep. They quickly bounced back by sweeping Prairie High School and taking down Newport High School B team 3-2.

After back-to-back wins, the one thing standing between Prep and a top finish was a pivotal matchup with fifth-seeded Sehome High School.

According to Ellinger, it is always a challenge to stay fresh by the last game: “At the end of a chess tournament you’ve been playing chess for 12 hours over 2 days…your brain gets really mushy and it’s hard to stay focused and stay hungry,” Ellinger said.

Luckily for Prep, the players entertained themselves with poker in between games, ultimately proving vital to their performance: “If we hadn’t had poker to play between rounds then we would have got kind of nuts,” Odegard said.

Prep ended up beating Sehome 3-2 and the win proved as pivotal as they expected: “If we had lost, we would have [finished]…like 12^th or 13^th, but since we were able to win, we got propelled up to 4^th,” Odegard said.

After months of training the team finally got to celebrate. “We were so excited,” Odegard said. “Aki [Anandam] and Louis [Ta] grabbed the trophy and started screaming and they went out with the trophy.”

“We were all so hyped and in shock,” Ta said. “It was very sweet to end my last high school tournament in fourth place.”

Since this tournament marked the end of the three seniors’ run with the Seattle Prep chess team, Odegard expressed his gratitude for the program: “It’s a super nice community and it’s really fun to be able to play with each other both informally and formally.”

Anandam agrees, hoping that any interested students come and see what Prep chess has to offer: “Contact the chess coach, Mr. Ellinger,” he said. “Chess would love to bring in new members and is open to all students regardless of any prior experience.”

While it is easy to focus on their 4^th place finish, this team’s success would not have been possible without the camaraderie they built, and the countless hours of training and studying they put in all year. If one thing is for sure, “they earned it,” Ellinger said.