On May 12th, the Art and Chess Clubs came together to hold a chess tournament in Skyline’s library. The event raised funds for their clubs and the ceramics department.
The winner of the chess tournament — and the $100 prize — was decided by an elimination bracket with five rounds and 32 competitors: students, school faculty, and their kids.
After the five rounds, a winner emerged victorious: Thomas Wang (‘27).
Wang says he has been playing for “about a year…Mostly online. I really wanted to get better, so I decided to join [The chess tournament].”
“I’ll probably give it to my mom,” said Wang, with $100 dollars in hand.
This is the first chess tournament Skyline has held in recent years. “We did a lunch one a couple years back,” says Math Department Chair Jeff Oleksinski, who helped put together the tournament. “Where early lunch and late lunch, kids would play all week, Monday through Friday and after school.”
“I haven’t really been trying to get better, I’ve just been playing for fun,” said Henry Sopoci (‘26), a competitor. “I thought it might be fun, I saw some of my friends’ names down.”
The event also included a silent auction with handmade chess boards. The profits of the auction went to the ceramics department.
“I had my Ceramics Two students create conceptual and artistic boards that really resembled their personalities,” says Candace Ottaviano, Ceramics Teacher, “but also were great examples of creative chess sets.”
And the idea for the May 12th 2025 chess tournament has been in planning since the Fall. “ [Ottaviano] was like, I’m gonna make you chess boards,” says Olensinski. “Let’s have a tournament to sell boards. So, this has been in the works for a long time. Since October.”
These chess tournaments may continue annually at Skyline. “My goal as a teacher,” says Ottaviano, “is also to build community and to invite people out and to showcase all the different interests that we have in our Skyline community. And it felt like there was a lot of that happening tonight, so I hope that we can do it every year.”
