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The competition simmered with intensity Sunday on the Bryan YMCA’s basketball court, but nobody dribbled the first ball or put up a single shot.

Chess had the floor all afternoon, as about 70 kids of elementary-through high school ages tried their hands against expert, local masters of the board game that has fascinated players for centuries.

“You have to always think a couple of moves ahead,” Alex Perrotti, a seventh-grader at Greensboro Academy, said in explaining what he likes most about the game. “It’s hard.”

The local YMCA, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and Stearns Financial Group hosted the fifth annual, “One Hundred Chances to Checkmate” tournament in an effort to stimulate interest in chess among Guilford County youth.

Skilled players dispensing their knowledge included local resident Mikhail Nepomnyashchiy, an international chess master born and schooled in the game in Russia.

Ten-year-old Nokomis Williams, who has been playing for about a year, said she learned a lot playing against him.

“I learned that if there’s nothing between your king and another piece, you can switch them around,” said Nokomis, who is in fifth grade at Brooks Global Elementary.

She said the maneuver could help her protect her king — the other player’s quarry — or to stall sometime when she didn’t want to make a big move.

Nepomnyashchiy and the other experts played as many as a dozen players at a time, moving from game to game, usually making one move at a time but, occasionally, alternating in a series of swift moves with a single challenger.

The other experts were Joseph Graves Jr., dean of university studies and a biology professor at N.C. A&T; Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the symphony’s music director; local entrepreneur Tom Sloan; and Dennis Stearns, financial manager whose company was among the sponsors.

For most people, a single match is enough to stay fully occupied. So how did experts keep multiple games straight?

“I partition off the games that aren’t taking a lot of thought,” Graves said, adding that those games usually follow predictable patterns. “Then I can take a little longer with the ones that require more attention.”

Graves and other Triad chess leaders hope to get more youth involved in the game through their schools or the Y.

In February, the N.C. Scholastic Chess Championships will be held in Greensboro.

Kids from Charlotte and the Triangle have dominated that event for too long, Graves said: “We have just as many smart students. It’s just a matter of building interest.”

He and Stearns are nurturing fresh talent with a club that meets from 6 to 7:15 p.m. Tuesdays at Hayes-Taylor YMCA. An increasing number of schools also are starting or reinvigorating chess clubs, Stearns said.

“Research has shown chess is the most balanced game on both sides of the brain: creativity and imagination on the right, logic and thinking ahead on the left,” Stearns said.

Many competitors were younger students, but there were a handful of high school challengers.

Tyquan Easton, 17, a senior at Andrews High, said the game has fascinated him since he began playing two weeks ago after joining his school’s chess club.

Most people think the game is only cerebral, but Easton said it could help him in his favorite sport.

“My chess coach tells me that it will probably help me with my wrestling moves,” said Easton, an accomplished wrestler who says the same kind of planning leads to a checkmate as a pin on the mat.

Younger players sometimes had parents close at hand to offer advice on the next move.

Nicky Archibald, 11, of Jamestown, called on his dad as he tried to figure out what to do when one of his bishops was in a tight spot.

“He actually taught me to play,” said Don Archibald. “The first time, I beat him. But now, he can beat me.”

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com