AUGUSTA — When 15-year-old Jacoby Grotton is not working on his homework, he is managing the website chessmaine.net or running chess clubs across central Maine. 

Grotton has made a name for himself in the chess community as he continues his efforts to get younger players involved in the ages-old sport.

He runs a chess club at Cony High School in Augusta. And two of Maine’s larger chess clubs that he runs — in Augusta and Waterville — attract players of all ages, but mostly younger, or scholastic, players younger than 17.

Grotton also represents the state in the U.S. Chess Federation, to which he is one of the youngest delegates in the country.

Experts say young players, including Grotton, have helped revive interest in chess, with many learning to play from websites or apps.

“During COVID-19, it was a complete and total crash for us” because players could no longer play over the board, or in person, according to Dan Lucas, the senior director of communication for the U.S. Chess Federation. “And not only did we recover, but we increased and cracked over 100,000 members for the very first time, and the reason is the scholastic boom and the effort to build scholastic programs.”

Chess was at the center of popular media in “The Queen’s Gambit,” a television miniseries on Netflix about a female Kentucky orphan turned chess prodigy. The show is one of Netflix’s most popular TV shows ever, even four years after its release.

The total number of players in the U.S. Chess Federation increased by about 17% after the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the total number players to almost 117,000, 60% of whom are scholastic players, according to Lucas.

In Maine, nearly half of the 600 chess players who belong to the federation are younger than 17.

Loki Drisko, left, of Augusta plays chess July 23 with Don Smallidge of Waterville during chess club at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at the Marketplace at Augusta at 197 Civic Center Drive. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel file

Grotton, who started a chess club at Cony High School and two all-ages chess clubs, said his peers at school learned to play chess online. When Grotton was 6 years old, his parents taught him to play over the board.

“Everyone at school knows how to play, for the most part,” Grotton said. “If you’re bored in school, chess.com is never blocked. It is always the go-to, but most people know how to play anyway, especially younger people who know from online.” 

Wyatt Hendrix, secretary of the Maine Chess Association, said most of the scholastic members he has seen through the program began playing online, before switching to playing over the board. Now 23, he began playing chess at about 12, and became involved in the governance side of the sport at 15. 

“I think that during COVID-19, it was one of the things to do. It’s easy to do online,” Hendrix said. “It kind of became an alternative for people who wanted to something relatively low cost and it’s pretty easy to learn and something they can do throughout their life and I think that caught on.”

Hendrix said governance changes in scholastic competitions that are over the board changed since the pandemic. They became more accessible by having free events and events more often throughout the year. He said, for example, that if a student competes in a fall sport and must miss a scholastic chess tournament, there is always another tournament in which the student can participate.

One of Maine’s best chess players, Jacoby Grotton, 15, considers his next move while practicing July 23 at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at the Marketplace at Augusta at 197 Civic Center Drive. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel file

The program has added a code of ethics to make players, including girls, feel more comfortable and safer when playing.

With the changes, 80% of students are playing throughout the year, whereas before the pandemic, it was about 50%, according to Hendrix. 

“There’s also a focus on retaining this (momentum),” Hendrix said, “and we want to make sure people are coming in with an interest, because it’s hard and some people get discouraged by learning.”

Hendrix said his focus for the next year is to work with a peer to expand opportunities for girls to play chess through a program in Dover-Foxcroft in February.

Grotton said he also wants to get more young people involved in chess through more clubs. His Augusta and Waterville clubs meet once a week.

“My goals would be to make a chess club monopoly and run every chess club in the state,” he joked. “But in all seriousness, I think a good chess goal would be to enjoy myself. At the end of the day, it’s just a game.”