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February 22, 2012

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Players silently match wits over chess board

Silence rules as bishops, knights, queens and kings are mulled over at the Clark County Chess Club

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Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun

A gathering of the Clark County Chess Club meets and plays in a conference room at the Nevada School of Medicine Thrusday, May 20, 2010.

By (contact)

Saturday, May 22, 2010 | 2:01 a.m.

Want to play?

The Clark County Chess Club meets at 7 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays in the sixth-floor auditorium of the University of Nevada School of Medicine on West Charleston Boulevard. Mondays are reserved for casual play, while Thursdays go toward earning U.S. Chess Federation rating points. There is no fee to join the local club. Go to site.lvchess.com for information.

Clark County Chess Club

Oswaldo Rodriguez ponders his options during a game at a gathering of the Clark County Chess Club Thrusday, May 20, 2010. Playing in the background are Christine Mariano, an international chess master, and Lynn Parker. Launch slideshow »

It’s a workout gym for the brain, and there’s utter silence.

People are rubbing their temples, pulling their hair. A mere whisper draws a quick, sharp glare.

This is the Las Vegas chess scene, so silent this Thursday night that you can hear the air conditioning shut down.

It’s a silence that belies the complex mind games that are playing out as people analyze their next moves.

Chess “stimulates the mind and helps with focus,” said John Trivett, the club’s organizer. “It’s a very creative and intense sport. It is the most intellectual game ever created on Earth.”

Nine matches are being played this evening, the weekly gathering of the Clark County Chess Club. It meets in the sixth-floor auditorium at the University of Nevada School of Medicine on West Charleston Boulevard. The winner will earn points toward a U.S. Chess Federation rating, which determines pairings and tournament-play classification.

For a noncontroversial, mostly friendly activity, the action is intense and the moves sometimes come nervously or with hesitation. The players sit 3 feet from each other, perched on foldout chairs, stoically analyzing the board and plotting several moves ahead.

To the side of the board is the source of the game’s tension: a timer, which is set to 90 minutes for each player. The frantic end of most chess matches is comparable to the final seconds of a basketball game, when each possession — or piece move — can make or break the hours of work and preparation.

“Playing chess is like solving a puzzle — a challenging puzzle with several twists,” said Walt Churchill, a retired computer programmer and chess veteran.

Each player has a different explanation for why he plays.

Several, such as Trivett and Churchill, are part of the Bobby Fischer boom — when participation increased after Fischer of the United States famously beat Russian Boris Spassky at the peak of the Cold War in the early 1970s.

“Everyone wanted to be like Bobby Fischer. A lot of us started playing because of him,” Trivett, 53, said.

Others have been involved with chess since childhood.

Jose Ramirez, 42, is a bartender who learned chess while growing up in Cuba. Playing twice weekly with the club — Monday nights are reserved for open play, a scrimmage of sorts where no points are at risk — helps soothe his soul and reminds him of his childhood.

He is so dedicated to the hobby that he brings his own board and handcrafted pieces, replacing the club’s more-standard set. He easily reminisces about the chess clubs in Cuba, none of which he played in because they were for members of the Communist Party, he said.

“In Cuba, this is like boxing or baseball.”

Glenn Bidari, 40, is the two-time defending state champion and only a few points away from increasing his rating to the 2,200 points needed for masters status. A substitute teacher, Bidari is the chess coach at Cimarron-Memorial High, where his team bested other high schools in the area for the state title.

Three of his players, one proudly sporting his silver and maroon state championship ring, are part of the group and are often paired against players three times their age. The pairings are computer-generated based on a player’s points.

But don’t let youth fool you. This is a game for all ages, backgrounds and abilities.

“I’m more cautious when playing against one of the younger kids,” Mark Nierras said. “Just because you are inexperienced doesn’t mean you aren’t creative. There are some scenarios where they are more creative and aggressive than (a more seasoned player).

Bidari is the club’s most respected and feared player, but knows he could lose on any given night — especially if he doesn’t focus on each move. Hence, the silence.

“It helps that I hate to lose,” Bidari, 40, said of his strategy. “It’s more about examining your mistakes and trying to fix them.”

Bidari defends his championship beginning next week when the club starts its 12-round Southern Nevada All-Stars Tournament. All players with a rating — it costs $49 annually to be part of the national federation, which includes the rating and a chess magazine subscription — are eligible. There is no cost to be part of the club, but the tournament entry fee is $25 with $125 being awarded to the winner and $82 to the runner-up.

The winner will face the champion from Reno’s club in the fall, while the top 10 finishers from each club square off for the annual team title. There is even a rotating trophy engraved with the participating members of the championship team.

But nobody’s talking about that while they’re playing this Thursday night. The room is thick with silence.

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