2023-10-25

Chess players wanted; Bridgewater club looking for more

BRIDGEWATER - Looking for a place to play or learn chess and challenge your brain? You don't have to look very far.

Each week, Wednesdays, at the Margaret Hennigar Library located inside the Lunenburg County Lifestyle Centre, the Bridgewater Chess Club meets from 6 to 9 p.m.

All boards and pieces are supplied and if it is a, new to you activity, lead organizer Greg Van De Moortele said he or a few of the other veterans would be glad to teach anyone.

"Just by fluke, one day, I was in the library and saw people playing chess. Right away I joined and started coming every week to play with Steve," said Van De Moortele, a three-time high school champion, who joined several years ago.

Steve Saunders had been running the club for many years, but a battle with Parkinson's forced him to take a step back in the organizing part of things. Van De Moortele agreed to take it over.

Van De Moortele is also battling his own disease, epilepsy. He just recently had his 16th brain surgery, his first was many years ago, when he was in Grade 11.

He said chess helps him deal his epilepsy as it forces his brain to focus.

"For me, I do a lot of things to exercise my brain because of all the seizures and surgeries I've been through," he said and further explained that he was the first patient in Atlantic Canada to have a deep brain stimulator put in for epilepsy, although he points out that it has been used for Parkinson's for awhile.

"I have two computers in me now. The Vegas nerve stimulator sends a shock to the Vegas nerve which goes to the outer layer of the brain, but my seizures were originating too deep," he said. "So they put the deep brain stimulator in."

He hopes to continue to play and "exercise is brain" to try and get up to the level to where he once was.

Van De Moortele really appreciates Saunders who has come out on occasion and pushes him to get better, and adds that he was also his travelling mate who took him to different tournaments in Halifax and other areas.

He burned the the mat holder dedicated to Saunders, so that he will also be remembered as a key member of the chess club.

Another club organizer is David Payne, who played a lot of chess in school, but after that, he kind of stopped with the exception of playing online once in awhile.

He was excited to discover the Bridgewater club last December.

"It was hard to get into playing online. It is nice to go someplace now and sit over the board with someone to play," he said adding that it's a complex game and that "it is fun to improve and learn."

He added that chess continues to be popular on a provincial level and attendance at a couple of recent tournaments, broke records.

With that in mind, a the club has organized a rapid chess tournament has been organized for Lunenburg Nov. 18 at the Lunenburg Academy.

To pre-register for the tournament or to find out more information on the club email: bridgewater.ns.chesss.club@gmail.com.