For freshman Akhilesh Kuppili, chess is a passion. With the large number of possibilities and learning curves the sport has to offer, Akhilesh dedicated hours each week to chess after beginning in 2018, when he played with his neighbors.
Through chess, Kuppili learned problem-solving skills, which also helped him with other areas of his academic career.
“I think the aspect of chess that’s most intriguing to me is the number of possibilities that can go on during a game,” Kuppili said. “I’ve never had a game that’s been identical, and I think chess is something where there’s never-ending possibilities, and you always have something to learn.”
Kuppili began attending Hanley Chess Academy in 2018. His goals developed from wanting to learn more about the game, with his father teaching him fundamentals regularly, to wanting to learn from opponents and winning more chess tournaments.The Dewain Barber Scholastic Chess Tournament was a memorable tournament for Kuppili: at this tournament, despite feeling pressure with the three to five-year age gap between himself and the other participants, he was able to find confidence in himself due to the preparation process.
“We would have a bunch of matches, just a rapid fire, we would just do matches for maybe two or three hours, or we would have very studying,” Kuppili said. “Our coach would put a puzzle up on the board, and we would be analyzing this.”
However, chess wins did not come without obstacles along the way, with higher ranks, time management and increasingly difficult tournaments making it harder to balance chess with other extracurriculars, according to Kuppili.
“As he got older, school became more challenging, so he wasn’t able to put in as much time,” Kuppili’s brother, Sai Kuppili said. “But I do see that after getting over that initial kind of bump, he’s really enjoyed it, and he still is being challenged all the time, and he’s just trying to get better as he moves on.”
Through chess, Akhilesh Kuppili said he was able to strengthen his ability to think under pressure and that the mental strength gained from the sport contributes positively to academics and extracurriculars.
“It’s not just winning or losing, because it’s, again, a mind game,” Kuppili’s father, Vijay Kuppili said. “You start thinking ‘how the opponent is doing and what is the best move?’”
Akhilesh Kuppili is currently taking a break from chess due to additional commitments and other interests in science, soccer and music, and he still enjoys playing chess as a hobby. Akhilesh Kuppili recommends that others also play chess, whether it may be competitively or not competitively, due to the skills one can gain from the process.
“[Chess is] something that will make you mentally prepared for a lot of things,” Akhilesh Kuppili said. “It’s something that you can use when you problem solving, for example, and it’ll make you think as much as possible in more of a fun way and more of a competitive way, which is what I love the most.”
