Check out this chess tournament

Dan Baxter's brow furrows in concentration, his hand hovering over the chessboard. The next move the 13-year-old from St. Mary's parish in Coxsackie makes will be crucial.

"Check," the 13-year-old whispers, pushing one of his pieces into place. His opponent, Andrew Wyse, 13, of Kingston, frowns; he has nowhere to go. The match is over.

"Checkmate," says Dan.

Check this out

The two boys were among 74 students from area Catholic and public schools participating in a Dec. 4 chess tournament at St. Patrick's Academy in Catskill, where the team is nicknamed the Emerald Knights.

Teams from Coxsackie, Kingston, Newburgh, Saugerties and Albany crowded the cafeteria and classrooms to pit knight against king and pawn against queen in five rounds of grade-differentiated play.

According to the Kirk Pospesel, chess club coach at St. Patrick's, about 20 students meet after school each Wednesday to learn the rules, strategies and history of the game.

Pawn to pawn

Younger children played in a kindergarten room, while older elementary-schoolers and high-schoolers moved on boards lined up in quiet school hallways. Chess tournaments are popular among the churches and schools in the southern part of the Albany Diocese for both social and educational reasons.

Mr. Pospesel, whose son, Alex, competes with the Emerald Knights, said that tournaments allow children to get to know one another in a constructive, friendly setting, while they also improve their skills by competing against unfamiliar players.

The Emerald Knights regularly travel to area competitions; this year, they may attend up to 16.

Advantages

"Chess teaches clean fun," said Tom Neppl, chess coach at Newburgh Free Academy. "It teaches a healthy level of interaction between kids. Kids enjoy competition, and here you don't have any of the negative aspects of that. And there are positive correlations between chess and higher-level thinking; as educators, we promote that, because it has so many advantages."

But many of the kids don't come for that kind of development. They, like Andrew, think "chess is fun."

One of Dan's favorite parts of the game is "strategizing. And, actually playing it. Chess helps my concentration. You need to know how to think ahead."

Nicknames

In the "skittles room" -- chess-tournament parlance for the place players go when they're not in front of their pieces -- patient parents waited, knitted, worked and watched their children, who gathered around excitedly whenever Mr. Pospesel posted new standings on the wall.

They were dressed in multi-colored team tee-shirts, much as if they were attending a basketball game or baseball series: the Mighty Pawns, the Battling Bishops and the Kings of Chaos being the most common.

"Here's the mayhem," joked Mr. Pospesel, playing the Pied Piper to a gaggle of red- and black-clad children who just noticed that he held in his hand the K-4 standings.

Families

For many, chess can be a family affair. Twins Justin and Jason Pacuk, 14, students in the Coxsackie-Athens district, are playing in the high-school division.

Justin said that the fun in chess is in its intricacies: taking "time to think. You need a lot of concentration. It takes a while to look at a move and make sure there's no possible threats."

"He has no more room left in his room because of all the trophies," said his mother, Susan Pacuk. "We get a lot of social interaction. Lots of kids come these things time after time, and he enjoys the interaction."

Triumphs recalled

Nine-year-old Keelan Tucker, a member of the Mighty Pawns team from St. Joseph's Church in Kingston, relived his last victory for friends Richard Beckett-Ansa and Kyriacos Ouloupis, both also nine.

"I won three out of five games. Most of the people I fought were sixth graders, and they were pretty tough. He should have gone here," he lectured, waving a black bishop in the air, "and then he could have done whatever he wanted. If he had done that, he would have won the game."

Kyriacos' mother, Maria, said chess keeps him and his brother, Theo, "focused and thinking, and involved in something that's good for him."

Karen Merker, the Mighty Pawns' chess coach, is proud that this year many more girls -- especially African-American girls -- seem to be getting involved with chess, which has traditionally been seen as a province for boys.

Winners

In the third-floor library, the chess tournament's command central, the coaches gathered to calculate the standings of each of the children.

When the final game ended, Mr. Pospesel swept up the results and headed to the gym, where green trophies waited to be distributed. As he walked across the gym, heads automatically turned from basketballs and tag, and rapt attention was paid to the front of the room.

"The day went pretty good," he said, scooping up a handful of medals with a grin. "We're looking to give the kids a good time."

(Chess is said to have originated in India around 100 B.C. It was based on real-life battles involving elephants, horses, chariots and foot soldiers. When chess became very popular in Renaissance Europe, the pieces were converted to knights, castles, bishops, kings and queens.)

(12/9/04)