KARNSCITY — Randle Phebus walked into a room at Karns City Junior/Senior High School, grabbed the fanciest chess board and started separating the frosted glass pieces from the clear ones.

He sat across from freshman Curtis Rodgers and tried to decide his first move.

"I always think about my opening move," said Matt Danelorich, a high school senior who belongs to the chess club, which meets semi-weekly at the school.

Danelorich said he likes to change the first move each game. The variety of possibilities is part of what keeps him interested.

"I'm the kinda guy who doesn't like the same thing repeated over and over," he said. "It's never the same game twice."

Dan Straight, also a senior, said it can make the game more interesting to switch the first moves.

"It's like really, really advanced tic-tac-toe," he said. "You can put the 'X' in the middle, but try putting it on the side and see what happens."

Everyone cited the strategy and intensity that ensues after the first move as what has kept them playing since many of them learned from their parents in elementary school.

The school's chess club is the only known active club in the county, and the interest is growing. More than 80 students participated in the most recent tournament at Christmas.

The attendance numbers are higher in the off-season and lower when musical and sports practices conflict, said Matt Bates, who hosts the meetings in his classroom.

Bates, who said he has played all his life, started a more informal version of the club when he started teaching at the school 10 years ago. The tournaments started just five years ago, he said.

For the school's Christmas tournament, the club recently had a 1931 relic remade into a trophy for the winner.

Sophomore Aaron Davis beat out the 86 others, winning a savings bond and earning his name on the plaque.

The plaque lists the names of the Christmas tournament winners back to 2001.

"That's as far back as Icould remember who won," Bates said.

The high school principal found an 1931 trophy that accompanies the plaque in the school's storage. The inscription on it said it was from the now non-existent Fairview High School. While Bates replaced the faceplate with a Karns City Chess Club inscription, he keeps the "Fairview High School, 1931" plate in the hollowed-out underneath.

To keep in chess shape and just enjoy the game, six males and a lone female showed up Tuesday to play. Danelorich was even playing two games at once. He lost to Bates, but beat Jessica Boice, a freshman.

As they strategize over how to protect the queens, the players also fill each other in on what happened recently. Nathan Walowen has decided to study math at Duquesne in the fall. Straight started track practice.

They also interject comments about the games. Phebus started feeling the heat from Rodgers after losing his queen the first time.

"I hate losing my queen,"he said. "It's such a hard loss."

Five minutes later he admitted "I don't' know what to do to save my life."

But the group doesn't let the faux drama on the chess board completely ruin the mood. As Bates talked with Walowen about his college choice, he acknowledged Walowen was about to make some "expensive choices."

"Expensive choices," Danelorich repeated. "That sounds like a song."

"I can play that song,"Bates said as he got up and walked to the piano against the wall. He lifted the lid and started playing some jazzy blues chords.

The impromptu melody only slightly clashed with the "Lord of The Rings: Return of the King" playing soundtrack, mimicking the black and white pawns of some chess boards.

"The music is the battle between good and evil," Bates said.

There are moments when Bates over dramatizes the game, Danelorich said.

The week before, Bates was playing two games in a triangle arrangement. Both games were rather intense, he said. When Straight made a fatal mistake, the pressure climaxed and Bates said he laughed heartily.

"He let out an evil laugh," Danelorich said.

Bates said he loves the game so much that another teacher and he would play chess by e-mail. Danelorich said he remembers when Bates would get a move in the morning, he would study it over lunch and e-mail his move back in the afternoon.

Danelorich said players shouldn't be intimidated by the reputation of chess.

"Some people probably look at a chess board and see something they think is too complicated," he said. The reality is everyone can learn the rules and develop strategy skills, he said.

Nor should they be intimidated by the stereotype of being a chess club member, Straight said.

"We're in Karns City," he said. "You don't get flak for being in the club."

After a quick side discussion about the meaning of "flak," Danelorich agreed no one has ever teased him about being in the chess club.

Chess relates to life, he said. Straight jested what life would be like if the board was like a field and the giant castles and bishops moved toward players to knock them out of play.

Then he compared his game with Danelorich to the situation in the Middle East.

"Right now, it's like the Palestinian, Israeli war. Everyone's got their guns lined up but no one has shot yet," Straight said.

The game ended in a stalemate.