They’ve got game
Chess club members of all ages square off twice a week.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
There is a small, budding community of folks right here in The Natural State who play a game that they profess is exhilarating but doesn't require athleticism, is easy to learn but arguably impossible to master, and is so universal it can be immediately understood by two players who don't even speak the same language. That game — or art, as some have described it — is chess.
Yeah, chess, the game with queens and pawns and rooks (the proper name for the castle things). It's a game that most everyone gets at least a basic intro to at some point in their lives, but one that's hardly the national interest it used to be, when Americans squared off against Soviets in high profile Cold War matches that brought national pride down to an eight-square by eight-square board.
But it's a game that's far from needing life support, as evidenced by the crowd of at least two dozen packed into the military history section of Barnes and Noble in west Little Rock on a recent Tuesday for the Little Rock Chess Club's mid-week meeting.
“It's a game for everybody. If you can think, you can play chess,” said David Johanssen, the “host” of the Tuesday night meetings, which are open to anyone of any level, whether they are a club member or not. Those who don't know the game, he'll teach. Those who do, he'll play. Either way, someone is bound to learn something, even if that someone is Johanssen himself.
“In chess, there is no end to learning. If you think there is, you're foolish. It takes on a life of its own,” he said.
As does the crowd of players, which aren't a collection of the standard chess stereotypes, goateed old men with thick accents and hard to pronounce last names or dorm misfits who rarely come out of seclusion. On the contrary, the diversity is impressive.
“In this group we've got every age you can imagine,” said Johanssen.
That much is immediately obvious just by glancing around: kids too young to drive thriving on games while their parents shop, twentysomethings with eyes darting across the board as they ponder their next move, and seasoned seniors who have likely been playing longer than most seated around them have been alive. And they're all playing together.
Pat Murphey started playing as an 8-year-old when a neighbor introduced him to the game. Sixty-eight years later, he's still playing.
“It's a great game, a royal game. Some people consider it a royal pain, but they really don't know the game,” he said.
Murphey's opponent is Jonathan Gardner, a 23-year-old student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He said he picked up the game in seventh grade, “around 12 or 13, I guess.”
Next to them is Matt Daniel, 19, who is making his second trip out to the Tuesday night affair. He's known the basics for a while, but never actively played until a friend encouraged him to come out for the club's meetings.
“I know what the pieces do and to look at every other piece before you move,” he said. “I beat one guy, but some of it is just luck.”
But not the luck of card games or dice, Johanssen notes. Whether a booksmart tournament master who knows a vast repertoire of openings or a common sense Joe who has refined his game in unconventional “street chess,” who wins the match usually boils down to who makes the most, the biggest, or the last mistake.
Those sentiments were echoed by club president Alan Myatt at the groups' Friday night meeting at St. Vincent's Infirmary in Little Rock. A little more off the beaten path, it's a gathering that usually draws club regulars with a stronger game. There they might also play pickup chess variations like the four-player bughouse, where two players on a team play opposite colors. Each time you take a piece, you pass it to a teammate who has the option to place it on the board during your turn. It takes a different skill set than tournament chess, and perhaps a little deeper knowledge of the game, but still club members are willing to teach new faces because, as on Tuesdays, anyone is welcome.
That was good news for Dewayne Peeler, who played often with friends in North Carolina, but moved to Little Rock a year and a half ago without knowing where to find a local game.
“I started coming out to chess club because I got tired of playing online. I just wanted to see a real live board,” he said.
The Little Rock Chess Club meets from 7 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. each Tuesday at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 11500 Financial Centre Parkway in Little Rock, and from 7 p.m. until “whenever” each Friday in the DeSoto Room of St .Vincent's Infirmary. For more information, visit www.lrchess.org.
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