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Alexa PhilippouESPN

Playoff basketball series are often decided by the chess match between opposing coaches, and the first-round showdown between the No. 3 seed Connecticut Sun and the 6-seed Dallas Wings has been no different. After Dallas' 6-foot-7 starting center, Teaira McCowan, struggled to get going in Game 1 -- a 93-68 Sun victory -- Wings coach Vickie Johnson changed things up heading into Game 2, bringing McCowan off the bench and starting Isabelle Harrison in her place.

The decision might have seemed minor -- McCowan still logged 24 minutes -- but it played a pivotal role in the Wings' ability to bounce back to take an 89-79 win and force a winner-take-all Game 3 at their place on Wednesday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN).

The Wings got news late Tuesday that leading scorer Arike Ogunbowale is probable Wednesday after missing the past six games with an abdominal injury. But how successfully the Sun can counter Johnson's move and ensure McCowan can't repeat her Game 2 success -- and how quickly McCowan and the Wings respond to that -- remains a deciding factor in determining which team advances to the WNBA semifinals next week.

McCowan's emergence -- in her first season with the Wings after being traded by the Indiana Fever this past offseason -- was a massive part of Dallas' surge down the stretch of the regular season. Since being inserted into the starting lineup after the All-Star break, the former Mississippi State star averaged 16.2 points and 10.0 rebounds in 26.5 minutes per game to close the regular season; those marks were 7.6/5.1/13.9 in her 20 prior appearances this season. Additionally, the 9.2-point differential per 100 possessions in Dallas' net rating with McCowan on the floor versus on the bench was the second-best mark for any Wings player, behind Allisha Gray's 14.1.

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The Wings went 8-5 following McCowan's insertion into the starting lineup, including 6-2 heading into the playoffs, and McCowan took home the first Player of the Month Award of her career in August.

But in Game 1, she was largely neutralized, part of the Sun's strategy to contain McCowan, Gray and Marina Mabrey.

With reigning MVP and perennial All-Defensive Team selection Jonquel Jones matched up against her, McCowan had a tough time getting to her usual spots and getting touches. McCowan finished with six field goal attempts (2-for-6 from the field), seven points and five rebounds. Defensively, she was primarily matched up against the uber-physical Swiss Army knife Alyssa Thomas, who could pull McCowan out of the paint and take her off the dribble -- not necessarily McCowan's strong suit.

The Sun finished Game 1 plus-16 in the paint and plus-7 on the glass, and they held the Wings to just seven second-chance points.

"There's no way we can win with Teaira only taking six shots," Johnson said after Game 1. "We've got to pound the ball inside and play inside out."

Johnson approached McCowan between Games 1 and 2 to see how she felt about being brought off the bench. It wasn't that McCowan was being punished or passed over for Harrison, Johnson said. Rather, it had everything to do with matchups.

In addition to starting the 6-foot-6 Jonquel Jones, the Sun have been bringing in 6-foot-3 Brionna Jones -- the WNBA's reigning Most Improved Player and a favorite for Sixth Player of the Year -- off the bench.

Jonquel Jones can match McCowan's length and has the edge in physicality. Johnson anticipated putting McCowan up against Brionna Jones would play to the Wings' advantage. And it largely did.

Harrison did her part in matching Jonquel Jones in Game 2, especially early on, while Kayla Thornton helped slow down Thomas. Then McCowan and Brionna Jones both checked in at the 4:35 mark of the first quarter and were matched up against each other the rest of the contest. Against a smaller and less mobile defender -- and with a renewed intention by Dallas to get the ball inside -- McCowan looked much more comfortable operating in the paint, finishing with 17 points (second best on the team) on 8-for-13 shooting, while also coming away with 11 rebounds, including eight on the offensive end, and three assists.

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"It was really to match B. Jones," Johnson said of the decision to change the starting lineup. "B. Jones came in, [McCowan] came in. That was the real focus behind everything. She had to match B. Jones, she's the person who can do it, and they went head-to-head the whole night."

McCowan and the Wings flipped the script from Game 1, beating the Sun on the glass (plus-3), narrowing the gap in points in the paint (minus-2) and doubling them up on second-chance points (23-11).

"It feels great knowing I can be on a team where they can use me in the way I'm supposed to be used," McCowan said, referring to her recent success with Dallas as compared to Indiana. "I feel like just coming in and staying true to my role, that's what I've been doing."

After a putrid first quarter in which the Sun managed just seven points, the Joneses still had solid performances offensively, finishing with 20 points apiece in Game 2. But defense and rebounding are what Connecticut built its success on this season, and the team felt that was lacking most of Game 2, part of what allowed McCowan to go off for a big night.

Brionna Jones admitted that the Sun need to improve their help defense around McCowan and do a better job of keeping her off the glass when the teams meet again Wednesday. If the Sun can successfully contain her and more broadly control the paint and boards, they're much more likely to advance to the semifinals for the fourth straight year.

And if Dallas is able to break through with the upset -- and secure the franchise's best playoff run since it was located in Detroit -- it'll no doubt be because of the work of McCowan and Dallas' other bigs in winning that battle.

"McCowan is so big to move that you've got to do your work early," Jonquel Jones said. "And once she gets in that position, the most you can do is just try to tip it out. We just have to be more proactive and do our work early."

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WNBA playoffs 2022 - Is coaching chess match the X factor for decisive Connecticut Sun-Dallas Wings Game 3? - ESPN

The final round game which decided the 2022 British championship at Torquay turned out to be a 75-move epic which had everything. Its protagonists were both Cambridge students: Harry Grieve, 21, mathematics, and Matthew Wadsworth, 22, economics. They were colleagues in their university chess club, but went for each other with zestful imagination in one of the best ever championship deciders.

A sharp opening with a material imbalance was followed by a knight retreat from f3 to its starting square g1, two exchange sacrifices, a winning king march, four queens on the board at the same time, and finally a queen sacrifice to force checkmate. It was a memorable encounter, worthy of its occasion.

Nick Pert, the defending champion, was runner-up on 7/9, half a point behind Grieve, while Wadsworth tied for third.

First prize was 5,000, more than double the norm of recent years, due to sponsorship from the chess learning company Chessable, which is part of the world champions Play Magnus Group. That could enable Grieve, whose stellar result gave him his first grandmaster norm (three are needed), to test himself on the European circuit in the next few years. He and Wadsworth, who also has one GM result, will both be aiming for their second norms in the Northumbria Masters at Newcastle this weekend.

Another test will come when the Cambridge pair take on Englands 2600+ GMs who played at the Chennai Olympiad and who did not compete at Torquay due to the near-overlap of dates plus possible jetlag. It will not be a foregone conclusion by any means, since Grieve and Wadsworth have momentum and youth on their side.

Away from the British Championship, two performances stood out at opposite ends of the age scale. GM John Nunn was a class apart in the over-65s, winning all seven games effortlessly and only twice being taken to over 30 moves. Some thought that Nunn should have opted for the championship proper, but that would have been a severe stamina test. His final-round win was elegant.

Kushal Jakhria, who has featured previously in this column, impressed again in the Major Open. The seven-year-old from the Pointer School, Blackheath, and Charlton Chess Club scored 5.5/8, winning every game as White, until a stomach upset before the ninth and final round stopped him short of qualifying for the 2023 Championship with 6/9. That would have been a world age record, breaking David Howells 1999 mark by almost two years.

Jakhria is also in contention for another world mark. He has just under two months to reach a 2000 ECF national rating, and thus surpass Abhimanyu Mishras US record of becoming the youngest USCF Expert, also a 2000 rating, at seven years six months. Mishra went on to become the youngest ever grandmaster at 12. Can Jakhria do it? His current rating after Torquay is around 1950.

Over in Miami, Magnus Carlsen duly won the $210,000 FTX Crypto Cup, although the world champion had a decidedly rocky passage. He lost four games in one day to his Nemesis, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and three in a day to the fast rising 17-year-old Indian, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. At the finish the leading scores were Carlsen 16/21, Praggnanandhaa and Alireza Firouzja 15.

Carlsen called his loss to Duda a horrible day of chess and more than once complained of fatigue. He now has a break until one of the most important tournaments of the year, the annual Sinquefield Cup, starts in St Louis on 1 September. There his opponents will include Ian Nepomniachtchi, the double Candidates winner who Carlsen recently refused to meet in a second world title match.

An all-grandmaster game ending decisively in 12 moves is a rare occurrence, but it happened in John Emms v Danny Gormally at Torquay after 1 e4 c5 2 c3 d6 3 d4 Nf6 4 Bd3 g6 5 dxc5 dxc5 6 e5 c4 7 Qa4+ Bd7 8 Qxc4 Ng4 9 f4 Nc6 10 Bc2 Qb6 11 Qe2 Nxh2 reaching the puzzle diagram where you have to find Whites 12th, which induced Blacks resignation.

3830: 12 Bb3! wins Blacks errant knight after 12...Bg4 13 Qe3 or 12...Ng4 13 e6!

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Chess: Harry Grieve, 21, wins British championship as seven-year-old shines - The Guardian

GM Vishnu Prasanna is India's 33rd grandmaster. He has worked as a second to GM Baskaran Adhibanand has also coached many chess players since 2016 including GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly. India's second-highest-rated player, GM Gukesh D, is also his student and they have been working together for the last five years.

In this interview, Chess.com India talked with Vishnu about his coaching career as well as Gukesh's chess journey. The interview was conducted via a video call, and text has been edited for clarity or length.

Chess.com India: When did you start playing chess?

Vishnu Prasanna: (Laughs.) That was ages ago, maybe two decades ago. When I was about twelve years old, I joined the Solar Chess Club in Mylapore. My father taught me the initial moves.

When you were growing up as a player, did you have a role model or favorite players?

I was very much into cricket. So, my mother made me play chess because of GM Vishy Anand! He had won the FIDE World Cup in 2000 in Delhi at that time. I started chess because of Vishy and that's how it is for a lot of players in India. He is somebody I looked up to. Coming to favorite players, it keeps changing. My favorite player at that time was GM Garry Kasparov because of the literature I could read. Kasparov's books were the only accessible literature for me. I would say that Kasparov and Anand were huge influences. Currently, I feel that the favorite player keeps changing.

When and how did you enter the coaching field?

I started coaching somewhere between 2015 and 2016. In the beginning, it was just a way to support myself financially. It turned out that I have a knack for ita talent for it, I guess! In a way, I was always studying chess a lot. Teaching also helped me to put those things into thoughts, thoughts into words, and words that I could share with others.

One of my early students was IM Sidhant Mohopatra from Orissa. He was the first student who became a titled player. After that, a lot of people started asking me for training, and I continued coaching players.

Did you have a role model as a trainer?

No, not really. You can say that I was using my own mistakes to train. This is something that I learned through my mentorSrikanth Govind. It is a little bit about Bruce Lee's philosophy. Not teaching anything very specific but working with the individual.

Did you pursue coaching full-time, or did you combine it with your own tournaments?

It was never a plan to do only coaching. I always enjoy playing, and I'm still continuing to play. Most of my training is also very practical. Playing also helps me to stay in touch. I don't think I will ever stop playing.

Coming to the news of the hour: Gukesh! When did you first realize that Gukesh was special?

He had a very fine positional sense from early on. Our first group camp was in June 2017, and we had individual sessions in the next month. Two months later, Gukesh scored his first IM norm and also became an IM very soon after. We had early successes, and I felt that he was not an average kid for sure. You can never say how fast anyone is going to growthere are stumbles and things that could go wrong at any moment. I knew that he was very strong. For an 11-year-old, some of the moves he suggested were very difficult, and that was something.

Could you give an example or an instance from those early years that made an impression on you?

He was very positionally sound. He played in the center much more than most people I know. I come from a street chess/aggressive kind of school, but the boy was very sound. For instance, we looked at this classic game between Krogius and Smyslov. You expect Black to display some kind of aggression in the position and win the game through an attack, but Smyslov remains super patient with his play and slowly outplays his opponent. Special mention to the move: 20...Rfc8.

This move was quite natural to Gukesh at that point in time. Even as a player, it was not natural to me. So yeah, a lot of things like that. He obviously had weaknesses also, but these were anomalies. 20...Rfc8 is not what most 11-year-olds would spot in that position. They are more likely to spot ideas connected with tactics or tricks.

You were with Gukesh when he was rated 2200. You are now with Gukesh as he is 2700+. Can you review the critical moments of this journey from your perspective?

It is hard to pinpoint everything, but I'll share whatever I remember off the top of my head. The first big thing was his GM norm that he got at the Bangkok Open in Thailand which he got with a little bit of luck. He got lucky in his game against GM Nigel Short. It was not a clean win, but you need luck like that. It sometimes means that fate is helping you even when you are not ready. This was a big moment for him. Gukesh thought: "Maybe, I can become a GM very quickly."

Throughout that year, he kept working and made his remaining GM norms. He made his final GM norm in Delhi. Chasing the records plays on your mind, and Gukesh was fairly upset that he could not finish the final norm in Spain. He had an opportunity to do it there, but he eventually did it 17 days later in Delhi.

There were failures and disappointments, but his understanding improved from those experiences. He was struggling a little bit in a certain sense while he was between 2570-2580, but he was anyway strong, and so he continued to climb. I think that he was still making some practical decisions that could have been easily avoided. He managed to reduce unforced errors.

One of the recent critical moments for me was his performance in Armenia. He was playing really well and had climbed to 2640. Then he played two bad tournaments and came down to 2614. We decided that we had to regroup and do something serious in order to cross 2700. Actually, I thought he was ready and felt that if he maintained consistency, he would break the 2700 barrier. After Armenia, he knew he had to be consistent. He understood that losing a game at this level is a fairly expensive endeavor. So, he tried to focus on that aspect, and he has been doing brilliantly over the last few months. No complaints!

Do you set the goals, or does Gukesh set them on his own?

Gukesh decides for himself. I just say that it's a long journey anyway and ask him not to overestimate anything and keep his head in the zone. He is reacting to goals better. I think he responded much better to the 2700 goal, and he definitely didn't slow down there, which is always good.

What do you have to say about the strategy of playing in many open events in a row?

I think the strategy depends on the player. Everybody eats according to their appetite. So, that's something we also discussed. When he was very young, his appetite was higher. It still remains much higher than an average player, I guess. He still likes to play a lot. So, there's no need to argue with that or fight against that. I think if he can maintain that level, he can play a lot. There's nothing wrong with that.

What tournaments will Gukesh play after the Turkish League? (Gukesh is currently playing in the Turkish league.)

He will play in the Spanish League and the European Club Cup. If he is invited to play in the Tata Steel Chess India Rapid and Blitz (in Kolkata), he will play there, or he will play in the World Rapid and Blitz event.

So, that's a busy schedule ahead?

Yeah, definitely. Nowadays, it is very different compared to five years ago. The value of preparation and stuff like that... you can only do so much by sitting at home. Everything changes too fast. So, if you have the energy and appetite, you play.

You mentioned that you were expecting Gukesh to make the climb to 2700. So, you were not surprised by his progress in the last three months?

No, not at all. I was not surprised until the Olympiad. (Smiles.) Everything was fairly normal to me, and I thought that we were headed in the right direction.

How many hours does Gukesh practice chess?

We have never discussed such things. When the interest is there, you don't have to really worry about such things. I think most of the day is spent on chess. It is not just the physical hours he is sitting on the board. He is always thinking about how he can improve, and that's very powerful.

Gukesh didn't use an engine to help him prepare until he reached 2550. Was this a mutual decision or your approach?I told him that it is an idea he can pursue, and he is the only one who pursued my recommendation. I gave the recommendation as an idea. At the FM level, I thought it doesn't matter so mucheven at the GM level. There will always be many mistakes in the game. So I asked him to play for that and asked him to work on other things.

So, you are saying that he would analyze all the games and the mistakes on his own without help in checking the evaluations?

Yes! Just like the old times. Nothing new. Just like chess 15 years ago! I thought it would help him develop his own thinking process and would sharpen him faster.

Did you also use this idea in your own experience?

Yeah. I have tried not to use engines for most of the time in my life.

Gukesh had a few second-place finishes. How did you motivate him to win events after that?

That's not how we work. I believe that everything should come from the selfdiscipline or motivation. We always discussed that only number one matters. It has to be intrinsic, and that's how it has been for Gukesh. I think he is always keen on finishing first wherever he plays.

Shifting now to the 44th Chess Olympiad, did you speak to Gukesh after his soul-crushing loss to GM Abdusattarov Nodirbek?

I was not present at the venue, so I left him a message: such things happen in chess too. I think he has been there before, and this is not his first soul-crushing loss. So, I just left a message and I don't know if he even saw it.

He likes to be in his own zone during the event. So, I don't interfere with that. Vishy Anand had a long talk with him, trying to console him, and Gukesh even played the last round. I wasn't sure about that. When I saw the pairings, I thought, OK, he should be fine.

Where do you see Gukesh one year from now?

I don't really know yet, but I think he will still keep going forward. I don't know how far, but he will keep going in the next year. If he gets the opportunity to play with elite players, he will be up to it.

If you had to attribute the number-one skill to Gukeshs success, what would that be?His tremendous appetite for chessfor both studying and playing chess. I think that kind of appetite is absolutely necessary for what he has done.

Congrats on becoming a father recently. How has that changed you as a person and a coach?

As a coach, I don't know. As a person, you become more patient and become more aware of the little things. You pay more attention; it's a treat. There's nothing to complain about, and it's been a wonderful experience.

Regarding coaching, I have been mostly not doing much. I've only been in touch with Gukesh. I am heading an academy in Sivakasi and my own academy in Chennai. The academy at Sivakasi is set by the Hatsun company. I am the head coach there and have been managing the coaching for them. Personal training, well it is just Gukesh right now. I have been training with other players on and off, but not as much as I used to.

How do you upgrade your skills as a coach these days?

Through experience and interaction with others. When you meet a lot of people, you can see that they are also different. What worked for one person may not work for another. You try to see how else can you make the other player think or how else can you question them or how else can you prompt them to research. I think about the tools that don't exist but could exist and try to bridge that gap through the selection of positions, games etc. I think about what's missing between players of two levels. I'm usually on the lookout for such things. You can see that sometimes there's a pattern there, but most people don't see the same thing or most people could miss the same idea or most people of the same level could miss the same idea.

What are some recommendations you have for aspiring coaches?

That's a hard question! (laughs). Okay, they could start with Jonathan Rowson's books: Seven Deadly Chess Sins and Chess for Zebras. One of the books that had a huge influence on my chess understanding and chess coaching is Lasker's Manual Of Chess. It is a very deep book and one of the best chess books I've ever read, especially the part on positional play. Lasker explains how Steinitz came up with his theories and he also shares his arguments for and against those theories. I would also add GM Boris Gelfand's books.

As a coach, you have to look outside of chess also. Try to come up with your own training philosophy and work with that. The best way to train somebody is according to their belief system rather than yours. You help the student find their own compass and own parameters and assist them with that. Also, my belief is that the student is always a little bit smarter. So, I start from there. It is not always the case, but we have to start from there in my opinion.

Thank you for your time. We wish you the best in all your endeavors!

Thank you for having me. Nice to have this chat!

Special thanks to IM Rakesh Kulkarni for helping with the interview.

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Interviewing The Coach Of Olympiad Sensation Gukesh - Chess.com

Tennessee OC Alex Golesh (left) and head coach Josh Heupel (right). Photo via Tennessee Atletics

The game of football is an aggressive, physical, fast-paced sport that is played on turf or grass. Yet, at the same time, its an epic year-long chess match between individuals that dont take a single step between the in-game lines.

With a year of tape in the books on what this Tennessee team in the Josh Heupel era looks like, the Vols coaching staff is fully aware of the next task of evolving all three phases of the game. And for Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh, thats where a lot of his attention was in the spring.

In the game of chess, moves are often visualized several turns in advance, as both players try to formulate a series of predictions and guesses about how the game is going to play out. A high-level chess player is always going to be thinking turns ahead as they try to outsmart their opponent.

Similar to football, coaches are always trying to figure out what moves the other team is going to put on the board, or the field in this case, and how they are going to set their pieces in the future as well.

In a lot of ways, thats what I spent all spring doing, Golesh said on Tuesday. Man, we hurt them here. Theyre going to take that away. Whats the next counterpunch to that?

Tennessee was excellent in their first drive or two on offense last season. However, coaches have now had an entire offseason to study the film and try to pinpoint how the Tennessee offense operates in certain scenarios. As Golesh said on Tuesday, he is working to visualize those moves in advance. If Tennessee scores on an 80-yard throw and catch to JaVonta Payton, Golesh is already thinking about how the opposing team might be reacting and then planning in advance how to topple that move as well.

Ultimately, in a lot of ways, both football and chess are about anticipating peoples responses.

Youve got to anticipate answers to peoples answers, Golesh said on Tuesday. I think a lot of the time you first play a team, if youre referring to specifically the tempo, just like you saw a year ago, teams settle in. Players settle in. I think its really hard to replicate in practice so people tend to settle in, you get to the second or third quarter, and people are used to it. Play callers on the other side of the ball figure out what they can and cant get in at the tempo. So youve got to have answers.

While he wasnt too keen on sharing everything that had been thought of behind closed doors over the offseason, Golesh did say that Tennessee was evolving and learning how to have specific answers in specific situations.

For us, thats a multitude of different things, Golesh said. I dont want to share it, but we have answers to replicate tempo. Answers to how they answer it.

Whether the 2022 offense is more productive than the 2021 offense is still to be seen. Although, with all the prep work that went into the offseason, Tennessee is certainly well prepared for the chess match that is to come with the season.

There was no secret coming in, Golesh said on Tuesday. A year ago, we came in from a place where the system, from a tempo standpoint, from a spacing standpoint, similar. Weve grown and evolved in a lot of ways. You saw a year ago, as the year went, we have grown and evolved. In terms of how we get the ball out, formationally we have expanded, weve got to continue to expand formationally. Whether its motion or disguising pictures offensively, weve continued to grow. Were drastically different today than we were two years ago leaving the previous place. Were drastically different today than we were leaving in Nashville.

Tennessee will open the 2022 season against Ball State on Thursday, Sept. 1 at 7:00 p.m. ET.

See more here:
Tennessee's Chess Game Mentality Will Prove Beneficial in 2022 - Rocky Top Insider

Inside the Mechanics Institute Chess Room in downtown San Francisco, Christian Brickhouses hands dance and flutter over the chessboard as he replays his most recent match. He plucks a piece from its perch as he plays both sides of the board, showing how he fended off his opponents Scotch Gambit opening to go on the attack, the review performance a common post-match ritual for serious players.

This is where it gets away from him, Brickhouse says of his opponent, his tone giddy as he displays how he managed to gain control of the center of the board and force his challenger to resign in defeat.

Cheaper pandemic-reduced rent, not chess, brought Brickhouse to San Francisco from his native South Bay, where he is a Stanford graduate student. But the pandemic revived his childhood interest in the game while he was stuck in his Mission Bay apartment. Like many people sheltering in place, Brickhouse began playing online. Now, he hops an S.F. Muni Metro train most Tuesdays to head downtown and play live games in the Chess Room.

I probably wouldnt be in this area at all without those tournaments, he said.

While the citys economic center continues to be a more barren version of its pre-pandemic self and as Mayor London Breed has wrangled with companies over ordering their employees back to downtown offices instead of working remotely, events like these chess tournaments point to ways of bringing people back downtown organically without resorting to mandates or overhyped, one-off events.

Bernie Nick Casares Jr. (left) competes against a younger player in the Chess Room at the Mechanics Institute in a Tuesday night tournament.

The Chess Room also illustrates the change in how people use downtown destinations. Before the pandemic, more area workers would come into the institutes Chess Room on their lunch break or after work, said Kimberly Scrafano, the executive director of the Mechanics Institute. The institute is a cultural bastion founded in 1854 and houses a library, literary events and the Chess Room, which is the oldest continuously operating chess club in the nation.

There are fewer people downtown, Scrafano said. People come in more for events but are not in the city every day.

She said the tournament and classes, especially for younger people, have driven interest, but the drop in foot traffic downtown has put a damper on even those draws.

Still, the attraction of an event like the tournament is visible in the crowded annex where Brickhouse is sitting. After the forced isolation of the pandemic, shouldering into shared spaces like the Chess Room alongside like-minded people comes with great appeal.

The Chess Room annex is a small, lively area, its walls and tables cluttered with golden trophies and faded pictures of past masters. This is where players decamp and discuss strategies after matches. Next door is the main room, where the tournament games take place dozens of players sitting in silence as they go head to head.

Paul Whitehead is the Chess Room coordinator at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. He has been a member since 1972, when he was 12 years old.

By 6:30 on this particular Tuesday evening, the tables are mostly full of players in the near silent main room. The only noises are the dry tick of clocks being reset and the plop of felt-bottomed chess pieces hitting the boards, accompanied by the soft footfalls of players pacing between moves.

A teenage boy with a shock of coiffed red hair frowns down at a board. An older man flitting around the room with a white goatee and camo-patterned hat and pants surveys the games, his sweater emblazoned with the words Chess Ninja.

Decades ago, in its heyday, the Chess Room was packed with a cross section of San Franciscans from all walks of life, dropping in for games over the board, said Chess Room Coordinator Paul Whitehead.

When I joined the club in 1972, there were waiters from the Palace Hotel; there were doctors, Whitehead said of the players.

Elliott Winslow transcribes and uploads each match in the Chess Room.

Its been a long time since downtown workers reliably crowded the Chess Room on their lunch break. During a recent Tuesday noon hour, the room was mostly empty except for a few people hovering around the boards and passing through the slanting afternoon light to use the restroom, mirroring the once-bustling but still sleepy Sutter Street outside.

This place was nuts, when he first joined, Whitehead said. (It was) packed with people all day and night long, and the club was open like to 11 (p.m.)

The pandemic has taken its toll on the institution in other ways. Games and lessons moved online, and the Tuesday night marathon tournaments started coming back only last year.

Even after (COVID-19), very few people have come back, said longtime regular player Tony Lama, on the sidelines of the tournament, his tan jacket, bushy white eyebrows and clutched book of chess literature completing the picture of a devoted player.

I dont know if its because there are no office people, Lama said.

Elliott Winslow is another longtime Chess Room devotee who lives in Alameda but is drawn downtown for the tournament play. He holds the rank of international master, the second-highest rating behind grandmaster, but has fewer challenging opponents to face nowadays.

There are fewer people overall, Winslow said. We dont know whats happened to them. If theyve died or moved away.

Christian Brickhouse goes over a previous match in the Chess Room annex at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco.

But Lama and Winslow are exemplars of the power that an event like the tournament has to create a sense of place out of what would otherwise be an empty room.

Lama said he lives nearby on Van Ness Avenue and no longer plays in the competitive tournaments. But he comes to watch the hushed, methodical tournament play, and compares notes with other players the dozens of people whose presence turns the quiet Chess Room into a space humming with tension.

The majority of the players are men and boys, although there are a few women and girls. Most striking is the age gap between some players, with retired players pitted against young people yet to attend high school.

Kids and adults love to play, said tournament director Abel Talamantez, reclining with his hands clasped behind his head in the Chess Rooms office as players trickled in ahead of a Tuesday evening tournament. He said players are drawn not just to the competition but to the social opportunities chess affords.

That theory was borne out before the tournament even started. A young man hovering uncertainly near the entrance to the main room said he had just learned to play a few weeks ago and it was his first time there.

The young man, who would only give his first name, Joshua, said he worked on Market Street and was looking to face down an opponent in person, a much different experience than playing online.

Tony Lama (left) and Albert Starr compete in the Tuesday night tournament at the Mechanics Institute Chess Room.

That kind of organic draw to downtown is what Robbie Silver, the executive director of Downtown SF Partnership, the nonprofit community benefit district in the area, has been trying to spin up since the pandemic sent office workers home and took with them much of the economic lifeblood of the area.

Silver said his group has been in talks with the Mechanics Institute, among other businesses and groups, about ways to attract people downtown and keep them there, be it through light shows, street music or public art.

We have a number of privately owned public spaces in alleys and back streets, Silver said. What if we did a chess tournament outdoors?

If we continue to give people reasons to come down, they will, Silver said. Not only for a chess tournament, but maybe its paired with cocktails or dinner afterwards.

Back in the annex, Brickhouse, the Stanford student, is resetting the board to go over his tournament win from last week, mostly from memory. One table over, Lama is walking through a recent game while behind him a wizened player with white hair and a cane is schooling a younger man in the finer points of the Trojan War. A smiling portrait of longtime world champion Magnus Carlsen, who has said he will not defend his title next year, looks down from on high.

As Brickhouse re-creates the endgame of last weeks match, he muses on how dead Mission Bay and downtown were when he moved to the city in December 2020. But with the tournaments back in person, theres more of a spark energizing the area.

If he worked downtown would he come into the Chess Room on his lunch break to play a casual game?

Yeah, Brickhouse said after a moment of consideration, I probably would.

Chase DiFeliciantonio is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: chase.difeliciantonio@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ChaseDiFelice

Read more from the original source:
This weekly chess tournament is bringing people back to downtown S.F. Could it be a model for the area's recovery? - San Francisco Chronicle