Chess Goes to State! An interview with Mr. Faro

The OLCHS Chess Team goes to State from Thursday,February 10th to Saturday,February 12th. As someone who’s also in the Chess Club,I decided to interview Mr. Faro,the teacher who runs this whole operation.

”How long have you been running this Chess Club?” Mr. Faro responded that “I’ve been running this Chess Club since my first year here in 2003” Meaning this is going to be year 20 for him doing this. Quite a lot of years.

Now, unfortunately we have never won State. With 128 schools at State last year, this is very competitive. But what’s the best we’ve gotten? Well, when I asked this, Mr. Faro could recall that in 2014, playing 7 games in that State tournament, where we won 3 games, lost 3 games, and had one draw. According to some actual records that Faro pulled up, our best was most likely in 2012, where in 7 games, we won 4, and lost 3, for a slight improvement. In 125 teams that year, we finished 41st.

“Whats a moment that you remember, but you don’t know why you remember it?” According to Faro, back at the start of the school year around 15 years ago, when they gave you the opening tour of all the clubs and whatnot, a kid actually handed Mr. Faro a business card that said “Chess Expert” on it. And they weren’t lying, apparently they were historically one of the best chess players for this school. Talk about a first impression.

I asked Mr. Faro what he was looking forward to when we go to State in a couple days. He responded ”I’m looking forward to the players getting some experience, meeting new people, and sharing the competiton aspect of chess”

Now,when you run a club that’s based around a game like Chess, you best be experienced in playing. Thankfully Mr. Faro is experienced in playing chess, actually being a substitute player on the team back when he was high s hook age, so it’s safe to say he’s been in the shoes of most of the people here before.