Grandmaster

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© 2005 R.C. Barajas

e enters a few minutes late, to applause, and is introduced to the crowd. His eyes quickly roam the cafeteria – not resting on the faces of the people, but taking in the room itself, its dimensions, the storybook paintings on the walls, the utilitarian linoleum floor. It takes him not more than a few seconds, during which time he seems like a novelist or a detective though he looks more like an associate professor in his khakis and gray wool blazer. And really, he is here to teach. He is here to play chess.

Patrick Wolff is an international grandmaster, a rank he achieved at the age of 22. He must be 37 or so now, but looks younger. He is, for the most part, retired from the world of tournament chess, though he writes about chess, maintains a website, and coached Viswanathan Anand who challenged Gary Kasparov for the World Championship in 1995. In front of this group of parents and kids, he is relaxed and funny – in a disarming, chess-geek sort of way.  He is charmingly self-depreciating as he speaks briefly; “Once upon a time, when I used to really play chess…”  

Dominating the room are several mismatched tables that have been arranged in an orderly though patchworked bracket. There are 26 regulation National Chess Center green and white chessboards set up on the battered Formica tops. Waiting on chairs pulled up to the outside edges of the tables are 23 kids and 3 adults.Two of the younger ones are mine, and I have set them up on opposite sides of the bracket – so they don’t see each other’s boards.

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