This story aired on the May 2, 2023 episode of Crosscurrents.
Click the play button above to listen to the story.
On a cold Tuesday night, two blocks from Union Square, people begin to queue to enter an old building on Post Street called the Mechanics Institute. But inside there is a research library and a chess match hall on the top floor.
Chess program manager Alex Robins says there’s so much history since they’ve been in business since 1854, but tonight is the big night. It’s the Tuesday night marathon.
“This is the longest-running weekly tournament in the United States — it’s been going on since 1972,” said Robins. “We’ve been doing really well in terms of attendance lately – all of our tournaments sell out in advance.”
That’s the beauty of chess. A sudden resurgence in the 1,400-year-old game can only be explained by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in everyone staying at home, chess tournaments resorting to online play, and the premiere of the Netflix series Queen’s Gambit, which tells the story of a narrated chess prodigy who became a chess champion during the Cold War.
Just minutes before the start of the tournament, the chess players were listening to resident chess master Paul Whitehead, who gave a lecture on a recent international game played by Armenian chess grandmaster Levon Aronian. Mr. Whitehead demonstrates strategies and mistakes made during the game on a demonstration board with chess pieces hanging from it, giving a bird’s-eye view of the carnage.
Whitehead said the chess grandmaster set up his pieces as a dragon variant of the Sicilian Defence, a well-known series of moves that brought most of your chess pieces to the front line. Learning from previous games helps new and professional players turn the tide to beat their opponents.
Sebastian Mino Bucheli
/
Paul Whitehead, resident chess master and coordinator at the San Francisco Mechanics Institute, will be speaking minutes before Tuesday night’s tournament. These lectures focus on previous games of international grandmasters and give insights into strategies and mistakes.
This classroom setting allows regulars to ask Paul Whitehead, “What if Levon made a bold move?”
“Often taking action can lead to trouble,” said Whitehead, who became a master at a young age. “Sometimes it’s time to be patient.”
As the lecture ends, more members pour in and fill the hall. Most chess players are male and of different ages. Some players are only eight years old, others 80 years old. But there were some female players scattered around the tables.
The institute wants to involve women and children from poorer economic backgrounds so that they can learn to play chess. Because despite the recent resurgence, there are still some barriers in the chess world as the game is still male dominated or requires a lot of money to play matches and enter tournaments.
Sebastian Mino Bucheli
/
The hall of the San Francisco County Fairgrounds is organized to include non-ranked games in which players from kindergarten through 12th grade can compete. In the back tables, players can play in ranked matches.
Alex said to really see the Mechanics Institute at work, those interested could watch the Scholastic Chess Championship, where more than 300 students from across San Francisco would compete at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park.
Sebastian Mino Bucheli
/
The hall of the San Francisco County Fairgrounds is organized to include non-ranked games in which players from kindergarten through 12th grade can compete. In the back tables, players can play in ranked matches.
Before the competition began, young children could be seen learning about chess strategy or trying to memorize gambits, a series of famous opening moves in which players trapped their opponents by giving up a piece for something better.
Allysa Stone, Senior Director of Programs and Community Engagement at the Mechanics Institute, delivered the keynote address to kick off the event.
Stone said, “It’s been four years since we were able to bring the championship back.”
There were tables for Kindergarteners through Year 12 to participate in unranked games that students play among their peers, and unranked games with no age range, just difficulty.
Wilson Skinner, a special education teacher at Francisco Middle School, said: I think for Chess Club at that age, it can feel like a place to be.
“I know we run our club as ‘very open,'” Skinner said. “There’s a lot of kids who go out to lunch or who’ve made a lot of friends, a place where they can find community.”
Skinner’s sideline is managing the chess club and team. His motivation is to keep his students together in tournaments and also in the academic environment. But Skinner also has a challenge to face.
Sebastian Mino Bucheli
/
Photograph of Wilson Skinner and two-thirds of his Francisco Middle School chess team, including Vicky Lee. Lee credits Chess.com and the club visits for helping her practice.
“My challenge is how do I get more girls to play,” Skinner said.
Skinner added that on Francisco Middle School’s three-man team, two of the strongest players are girls. One of them, Vicky Lee, came out of the tournament hall to meet with the team after her game. She lost in a previous match but was in high spirits.
“I’m really happy to come here,” said Vicky Lee. “There are a lot of great people and I learned a lot from my first game.”
Just so Lee could practice for the tournament, she used a mix of Chess.com’s online chess games and her chess puzzles, throwing the player into random scenarios to find a faster checkmate. But mostly Vicky writes that she visits the club and interacts with people.
Sebastian Mino Bucheli
/
Although the game of chess is more than 1,400 years old, the game is still male-dominated. At the Institute of Mechanics there was a push to get women and children from poorer economic backgrounds to learn and play chess.
“You can imagine all the dynamics and ways you can move a piece,” Vicky Lee said. “It’s really how we experience life with many moves, except it’s on a chessboard.”
Win or lose, the next generation of chess players will be fine. As long as they don’t leave themselves open to checkmate.
