LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Area schools send hundreds to chessboards, big meets

April 15, 2002

By Sandhya Somashekhar
STAFF WRITER, THE ARGUS

It's a sunny afternoon in Fremont, and the Blacow Elementary School playground is swarming with children after a long day in the classroom.

In the relatively dim light of Room 24, though, about 12 youngsters still sit in their chairs, watching Hans Poschmann move chess pieces across an upright board.

"Never take off your thinking caps, OK?" he tells them. "Always think if there's a better way, and do it."

In a flash, the students couple off, a perfectly arranged chessboard between each pair.

They don't even glance out the window.

Across the country, the popularity of chess is booming, largely because of chess clubs at the grade school level, according to the United States Chess Federation.

More than 800 elementary school students in Fremont and Newark participate in after-school and lunch-time chess clubs, and hundreds of others in the Tri-City area play as part of private math lessons or weekend community clubs.

For the past few years, local programs have been churning out young chess stars who routinely take top awards at state competitions, said Alan Kirschner, an Ohlone College political science professor who runs scholastic chess programs throughout the area.

Last year, Weibel Elementary School in Fremont won a national championship tournament in San Jose, and Kirschner was voted coach of the year by the Chess Education Association.

And Fremont kids dominated the California Chess State Scholastic Championships in Monterey earlier this month, placing in nearly every category. Weibel, where the program is 300 students strong, took the first-place trophy for overall performance for the third straight year.

ABOVE: Sachin Zutshi, 6, plots his next move.
BELOW: Ruben Muresan, 12, contemplates his strategy.

Kirschner attributes the success of local programs to the energetic leadership of adult chess fans and to the academically inclined -- largely immigrant -- nature of the community. "Chess is seen as a nerd sport, and we happen to live in a nerd community," he joked. "I'm the biggest nerd of them all." If you ask students why they play a "nerd sport," they'll tell you it's fun. If you ask them why it's fun, they produce a simple and ready answer. "I like to beat people in chess," said Sachin Zutshi, a first-grader at Weibel.

Like physical sports, chess appeals to youngsters' competitive instincts, Kirschner said. But research shows it also enhances their ability to concentrate, to think logically and to solve problems, and it can improve a student's proficiency in math and reading.

Parents say kids who can't sit still in class manage to concentrate for hours over a chess board. Teachers say they see a marked improvement in some children's behavior and academic performance.

Trent Anderson, a sixth-grade teacher at Blacow and an adviser for the school's chess club, said the sport provides a confidence boost for kids who aren't athletically inclined but want to participate in after-school activities.

And students who are struggling to learn English can show off their intellectual ability.

"This is a place where they can excel when they struggle in class," Anderson said. "This is universal."

While the Weibel program and programs at other Fremont schools have been in place for years, Blacow just began offering chess this year. So did Milani, Snow and Bunker elementaries in Newark.

Chess at Lincoln Elementary in Newark, under the leadership of Principal Robert Foley, has been steadily growing in popularity over the past four years. With about 45 students who actively participate in the lunch-time club, it rivals the school's lunch-time softball team in popularity.

"I've always been a fan of chess. I've had a chess program at every school I've been at," said Foley, a class C amateur player. "It's really very popular in this area right now."

Next year, Foley said, he hopes to spread the program to Newark's four other elementary schools.

Kirschner said that's how the popularity of chess spreads.

"Once one program begins to excel, it's a matter of competition, keeping up," he said. "It explodes from one school to the next."

Weibel has the undisputed largest, most successful program in the area -- and it's not hard to see why.

On Friday afternoons, the older students sit silently in the multipurpose room, shifting plastic knights, pawns, rooks and other pieces across flat canvas boards used for instruction.

Behind a curtain on stage are the kindergarteners and first-graders, sometimes being lectured by fourth- and fifth-graders who play chess like others play their Sony PlayStations.

During a recent lesson, fifth-graders Tarry Chen and Ashwin Aravind explained to the youngsters a move called the "en passant" -- in which a pawn, the lowliest of chess pieces, captures another pawn on an adjacent square.

"Why can't the white pawn kill the black pawn?" a young student asks Chen and Aravind, who demonstrate the move on an upright board.

"Because pawns can't move backwards," Chen explains.

The peer teaching has been a recent success for the program, Kirschner said. The older students not only teach the younger students moves the teachers may have trouble with, they also hold conferences with parents, if they request them, and keep the children's behavior in check.

Chen and Aravind stroll up and down the stage, watching the youngsters squirm in their seats, electrified with the competitive spirit. They also encourage sportsmanship when one player emerges victorious.

"You know the old saying, that you learn more through losing than through victories?" Chen said. "It's kind of like that. That's why chess is so good."