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Baxter Academy's fledgling chess team makes an underdog gambit at national tournament

Baxter Academy chess team players Elijah Kai Whitehead and Thomas Tardiff during practice the week before nationals.
Ari Snider
/
Maine Public
Baxter Academy chess team players Elijah Kai Whitehead and Thomas Tardiff during practice the week before nationals.

Last spring, Baxter Academy's fledgling chess team pulled off a surprise victory at the Maine State Scholastic Chess Championship. And today, the Portland-based public charter school's team is on its way to the national K through 12 championship tournament near Washington. D.C., led by a coach who took his own unlikely path to the chessboard.

With the national tournament just days away, Baxter Academy senior Elijah Kai Whitehead was testing out some new opening moves.

"I'm probably gonna move my queen to attack his knight, which is in the center," Whitehead said, eyeing the chess board in front of him.

But his opponent, sophomore Thomas Tardiff, was ready with a counter move.

"I'm going to move my knight back, attacking the queen and defending an important square," Tardiff said.

Outside of this scrimmage, Whitehead and Tardiff are on the same side. They both joined Baxter's chess team when it formed last year. Whitehead said he knew the basic rules of the game, but hadn't played much.

"And we decided to make a team, just to go to states for fun, I guess," he said. "We did not think we were going to win, not at all."

Baxter Academy senior Abdallah Ali considers his next move during chess team practice on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024.
Ari Snider
/
Maine Public
Baxter Academy senior Abdallah Ali considers his next move during chess team practice on Wednesday, December 4th, 2024.

Whitehead said he's a little nervous about heading to nationals. And he credits the school's chess teacher, Majur Juac, with getting them this far.

Today, Juac is running through moves on a virtual chess board projected on the wall

"You want this king to be on E8 and then you can aim to get your king to D3," he said, clicking to demonstrate the maneuver.

Juac himself is a chess national master, an elite title awarded by the U.S. Chess Federation to the best players in the country.

But his road to acclaim on the board began thousands of miles of away, in a refugee camp in Kenya in the early 2000s, after fleeing war in his native Sudan.

He said he learned by watching others, and quickly developed a knack for the game.

"I start winning more game than most of the people I was playing with," he said.

He started venturing further afield in the camp to find more challenging opponents, seeking both competition, and the feeling of total absorption he experienced when locked into a match.

"It's like you have this feeling where you forget everything," Juac said. "Even when I was in the camp, when I was playing chess, everything else would be gone."

After resettling in the U.S., he said he continued playing and teaching chess in Virginia and New York before moving to Maine.

Baxter Academy chess teacher Majur Juac cleans up after practice. Juac learned to play chess while living in a refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing his native Sudan.
Ari Snider
/
Maine Public
Baxter Academy chess teacher Majur Juac cleans up after practice. Juac learned to play chess while living in a refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing his native Sudan.

As thousands of asylum seekers arrived in Maine over the last several years, Juac went to emergency shelters and hotels to teach the game to kids.

He started teaching chess at Baxter last year. After the surprise win at the state championships, Juac is staying positive about his students' prospects at nationals.

"They're gonna have fun," he said. "This is their first time at a national level. So they're gonna do great."

As the team of seven continues to practice, Juac took stock of the match between sophomore Thomas Tardiff and senior Elijah Kai Whitehead.

Tardiff, playing the white pieces, was still on offense.

"What he just did there," Juac said. "You give up the bishop to get a rook. So in this particular position, white is better."

But Juac said, that doesn't mean the game is over. You don't always have to be the better player, he said, to pull off a win.

The national K-12 chess championships take place this weekend in Maryland. The final matches are set for Sunday afternoon.