The king of chess

The+king+of+chess

By: Megan Gillogy, Reporter

A pawn is moved forward. ‘Check’ you call out. In a desperate attempt to save his king, he moves it to the left. You move your queen up and there it is, ‘Checkmate.’ The game is yours.

For many, chess is just an overcomplicated game of checkers, but for Ryan St. Peter it is much more. St. Peter is a senior, and is first board in Kaneland’s chess club, a position reserved for the most skilled player on the team, for which he has worked himself up to over his time in high school.

“This year, I’m playing board one on the chess team, the best position. My freshman year, I played board thirteen, and both sophomore and junior year I played six. I’ve moved up to first board, meaning I have to play the best players in the area, which is challenging.”

However, St. Peter isn’t the type of person to give up the fight. Even when going up against better schools, such as IMSA, the Illinois Math and Science Academy, he doesn’t give up hope during his competitions. He’s always preparing beforehand, doing all he can to ready himself for the next match.

“No two chess games are alike, but there are a lot of common trends and positions that you can use to your advantage. Reviewing tactics and always having a plan is very important.”

St. Peter is also skilled with computer programming. St. Peter is self-taught and is constantly working on honing his programming skills. He often does this by learning new ways to communicate instructions to computers, known as programming languages, or working on building a computer game.

“I do mostly game development, and I’m a part of the computer science club as well.  I recently competed at the NIU Huskie Hack, along with another three members of the computer science club. We worked together to create a game in virtual reality, and we ended up winning Apple watches as a prize,”

Between chess and programming games, St. Peter works part-time at the Jewel Osco in Elburn in the produce department.

“I’m currently struggling with keeping a healthy work and life balance. I feel like my work life consumes a big part of my week, but it’s rewarding because I see the effects of my work. I feel productive, but it’s the fact that it does eat up my time that bothers me. If work starts to get in the way of school and my regular life, I try to cut back on work so I can focus on my grades and other things.”

However, St. Peter is always ready for a new challenge, may it be a difficult opponent in chess, or a load of homework at school.

“The fact that I’ve done pretty well in school keeps me going. I just think, ‘I’ve gotta finish strong.’ I’ve got a lot of things to be grateful for, so I try to do the best I can. Life’s not always great, but it could be much, much worse, so I try to look on the bright side.”