Since then, Jeffery has been playing the game, and was one competitor in the Michigan Scholastic Chess Tournament on Saturday at the Union.

Jeffrey even introduced his brother, Alex, a first-grader, to the game.

“It’s fun and challenging,” said Alex, who competed Saturday as well.

These brothers were only two of the tournament’s 650 elementary children who participated.

The children played by themselves, while a rules official circled the room in the event of a question or concern. The competitors even documented each move they and their opponents made incase disputes need to be settled.

The tournament, played in a teams, had 151 elementary schools represented, with skill levels broken up into four categories, based on grade.

“How you do individually does matter, but what’s most important is that your team wins,” said Jennifer Skidmore, organizer of the event.

Despite the lack of an individual category in the tournament, children who won more than a certain amount of matches were rewarded with metals, in addition to a team’s possibility of winning a trophy.

Aside from chess, the tournament bonds the students, Skidmore said. It introduces the competitors to each other, and creates friendships, she added.

“It’s a very unique opportunity to meet people from different schools,” Skidmore said.

When the children weren’t running around the halls of the Union, many of them cold be spotted standing next to Ben Finegold, an international master chess player who offered game analysis to those who were listening.

“It was actually a fluke, he was actually meant to be a vendor,” Skidmore said. “In retrospect, I think it was a positive thing to have had.”

Ann Arbor schools were victorious, with four winning in four categories. Children from the region swept all categories, but tied with Troy Elementary in the K-3 division.