Chess Club Prepares for Comeback

Harvard has long been an underdog in competitive chess. More than a decade has passed since the Harvard Chess Club sent a team in contention for the Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship title.

But at last year’s Ivy League Chess Championship, Harvard did not even reach the podium; Columbia took first-place, Dartmouth finished second, and Yale and Princeton tied for third.

Now, after a rewarding draw with Yale at the schools’ annual competition last fall, the team is preparing for a comeback at the 2013 Ivy League Chess Championship on Feb. 22, according to co-president Tony A. Blum ’14.

Regardless of the outcome, the leaders of Harvard Chess are pushing to intensify the team’s tournament training in hopes of becoming more competitive nationally in the long run.

STEEP COMPETITION

Harvard Chess last grabbed headlines in 2002, when it placed fourth at the Pan-American competition and gave chess giants University of Texas at Dallas and University of Maryland, Baltimore County a run for their money.

While Harvard is now at the top of the Ivy League, on the national scene, the team faces steep competition from schools which recruit internationally.

Currently, the Harvard chess club includes one master and five experts, expert, a rank one knotch before Master

At University of Maryland, Baltmore, which offers full-scholarships to strong chess players, the chess team consists of two grand masters, two international masters, one women’s international grand master, and one master.

“[Our success] basically boils down to the fact that we’ve invested so much money and resources to get top players from around the world,” said Richard Selzler, vice president of the UMBC Chess. “Our top players come from Georgia, Israel, [and] Russia.”

Though Harvard Chess used to hold try outs to limit its membership, the team is now open to the Harvard and Cambridge communities, regardless of their experience.

As part of the initiative to increase the team’s competitiveness on the national stage, the chess club co-presidents and vice-president hope to revamp practice to include more formalized training.

WORK VERSUS PLAY

On Wednesday nights, club members camp out in the back of Quincy Dining Hall, lining a few tables with chess mats and clocks for timing.

For the first 30 minutes, the area is quiet as players practice tournament-style play.

Players stare intently at their boards, calculating all possible permutations, debating the pros and cons of each position before finally moving a piece and hitting the clock.

But after a few rounds, a table of laughter and shouting emerges, a table where weary players congregate after finishing a grueling match.

This is the bughouse table.

In bughouse, chess becomes a team sport—two boards, two players per team, and 2 one-on-one matches.

Players sit adjacent to their partners, one manipulating white pieces and the other black; each player then adds to his board the pieces his partner has captured.

Bughouse players have only three minutes to make all their moves. Time runs too short for careful calculation, and players make moves off instinct.

When Malcolm D. Grayson ’15 makes his way toward the table, a couple of the players holler, “I thought you were quitting bughouse.”

Grayson told himself that he was going to work on tournament-style play, but he cannot resist.

“It’s addictive,” says Faculty Advisor Joseph K. Blitzstein.

Jake S. Miller ’15, vice-president of the Harvard Chess Club, said that currently, practices are “casual.” He added that, “ultimately, we want people not only to be playing and enjoying it but also to be getting better.”

According to Miller, he and the co-presidents want club meetings to remain a welcoming place for those who play recreationally, while offering instruction to those preparing for competitive play.

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE

Co-president Benjamin M. Ascherman ’14 noted that chess requires practice and dedication to improve.

“Unlike most board games, there’s some luck but it’s mainly talent—you’re not rolling any dice,” Ascherman said.

Members of the team hope to secure funding to supplement current training with chess books and formalized coaching.

They also hope to invest in a new computer engine that can analyze games.

According to Miller, the team has thought about asking Marc R. Esserman ’05, an international master ranked 40th among active chess players in the nation by the United States Chess Federation, to coach the team.

In his freshman year at the college, Esserman helped Harvard Chess place fourth at the Pan-American tournament.

Given the number of schools that recruit for chess, finishing in the top five at the Pan-American tournament would be beyond the reach of Harvard Chess for the foreseeable future, according to Blum.

But Blum called Harvard “one of the more competitive Ivies” and said that the team had a reasonable chance of winning the Ivy Championship in February.

“The team is moving from being based on casual enjoyment of the game to being a serious competitor on the national scene,” Miller said.

“The most enjoyment can come from playing against other schools, and we’re trying to make a transition towards that.”

—Staff writer Sonali Y. Salgado can be reached at ssalgado@college.harvard.edu.