The following was published in Chicago Weekly, January 27, 2005:

Chess Suppressed

Finding the underground game in Hyde Park

Chess in Hyde Park has something of a checkered past.

For a long time before 2002, the neighborhood had a reputation as a place for playing the game in public. The spot that made that reputation— the “epicenter of chess playing” in the neighborhood, as the Hyde Park Herald newspaper called it— was Harper Court. The small, red-brick esplanade nestled between 52nd and 53rd streets and surrounded by some 20 shops and restaurants was for over 35 years a gathering place for chess enthusiasts to enjoy a game and the company of others. Harper Court’s reputation for chess extended throughout the city.

In April of 2002, that suddenly changed. In a move reminiscent of the covert destruction of Meig’s Field, the four concrete benches that players used were removed from the plaza in the middle of the night. Without warning to players, the Harper Court Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that manages the Harper Court shopping center, had ordered the tables taken away. Complaints had arisen that the chess players harassed women who passed by, left litter, disrupted local business, attracted crime to the area, and otherwise spoke loudly and acted rudely. A couple of red “private property” signs were put up in place of the benches.

The chess community was outraged. Three months later, an estimated 60 or more people took to the plaza to protest the benches’ removal. Demonstrators brought with them a petition with more than 500 signatures calling for the benches to be replaced. It was to no avail. By the following summer, players could use portable card tables on the plaza— and then, only on weekends. But the players didn’t take to that, says Tom Fineberg, a retired math teacher and long-time chess coach. By the summer of 2004, when hardly anyone came out to Harper Court to play anymore, “We figured we really lost the battle,” says Friedman.

And so, chess players in the Hyde Park neighborhood today seem to fall into two camps: those affiliated with the University of Chicago and those who have found games— and the camaraderie that goes with them— elsewhere in the community.

Will Gallagher, a fourth-year undergraduate at the U of C, holds forth one of the University’s two regular gatherings for chess-playing. The president of the University of Chicago Chess Club, Gallagher presides over weekly meetings where students can come to practice their games and socialize with other chess players. About 60 first-year students signed up at the beginning of the school year to receive the clubs’ E-mails, says Gallagher, though he estimates that only five come regularly to the evening sessions.

The meetings, which are open to all students, see undergraduates and graduates alike. These days, however, there aren’t any girls (“That’s sort of a plague with the sport of chess in general,” notes Gallagher). Although there are no “masters,” exceptionally skilled players, in the club, about half the students have rankings from the United States Chess Federation, the official sanctioning body in this country for tournament play using boards.

Alton Byrd is a second-year student at the U of C Graduate School of Business and heads the other chess club at the university, the GSB Chess Club. Byrd has sought to revive the organization, which last year didn’t have any GSB students in it and attracted players who already knew how to play well. This year, Byrd has brought together four “tutors,” GSB students who help others learn how to play or improve their game.

At the weekly meetings of the GSB club, attendees play speed chess and hear news on the club’s latest goings-on. Though it has the Graduate School of Business acronym, the club welcomes all who enjoy playing. Byrd says the club draws many foreign students, including some from Eastern Europe and Russia, and that five to eight people may show up at a given meeting. In a first for intercollegiate chess play at the U of C, the GSB club last Saturday hosted an eight-on-eight round-robin tournament with Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management— “for gloatin’ rights,” as Byrd puts it. Unfortunately, Kellogg came away the winner, three rounds to two. (Another match-up is planned up at Kellogg in a couple of weeks.)

The University does not recruit students to play chess, but that hasn’t stopped student players from having success at tournaments. While the GSB club generally does not participate in them, the University club does; with a budget of 10,000 dollars per school year, it sends players to a few tournaments near and far. Last month, five students, including Gallagher, traveled to Wichita, Kans., to compete in the annual Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship, the most prominent intercollegiate chess tournament in the country. The U of C has won it six times in the past 59 years. This year, Gallagher’s team won the under-1800-ranking section of the tournament (1800 signifies a high skill level).

On a recent Tuesday evening, five students filter into a classroom on the second floor of Cobb Hall to play speed chess. There, Gallagher explains as players concentrate around him that he is trying to organize the Maroon Kings, a yearly tournament open to U of C students, faculty, and alumni, for some time at the end of winter. Gallagher, who has a U.S. Chess Federation ranking of 1755, at one point finds himself playing Markus Reisinger, a German graduate student at the GSB with a ranking of 1800.

“Oh, sweet!” Gallagher yells out suddenly.

“Yeah,” concedes Reisinger, who has just lost, with a smile. “That’s mate.”

•

At a quarter to five on a cold Wednesday afternoon, a group of men is gathered around a table on the second floor of the Borders bookstore on East 53rd Street. As others around them in the café area talk or sip a drink, these eight men concentrate on a game of speed chess. It’s a scene that’s played out many times a day, five days a week.

After losing the tables in Harper Court, chess players in Hyde Park went into a sort of diaspora. Since spring of last year, some have taken to the Borders café. Initially, people played there every day of the week, but when Borders determined that chess-playing conflicted with its greater customer traffic on weekends, it limited play to weekdays only. In response to complaints that players monopolized tables, the store now allows the use of only two tables at a time for chess.

Victor Erbring is an attorney in Chicago and an unofficial leader of the group of chess players in Borders. A resident of Hyde Park since 1979, Erbring is bitter about the removal of the Harper Court benches and laments the neighborhood’s diminished reputation for public chess-playing. “The Harper Court signage still shows the famous checkerboard and chess pieces on it,” he says, alluding to the shopping center’s insignia. “A bit of irony, I think.”

Though the men gathered on this recent Wednesday are almost all black and roughly of middle age, Erbring says he interacts with people of “the most diverse backgrounds.” He reports that players range from eight years old to retirees in their 80’s, and from Americans to Europeans to Indians— though there are hardly any women. The Borders café has proven a popular site for playing, with people congregating there from about 10 a.m., when the store opens. Erbring says that police officers will swing by to play before their overnight shifts, and he estimates that on Thursday and Friday nights, when things get busy, up to 22 people will show up.

To lend credibility to organized chess-playing in Hyde Park, Erbring is trying to launch the Hyde Park Chess Players’ Guild. He wants to ask players to pay a one-time fee of five dollars to belong to the group. With the creation of the guild, he hopes to give players an image of accountability and assuage community members who fear chess players will cause problems. Erbring is looking to attract 20 to 25 members— enough, he hopes, to raise money for a chess clock, a couple of boards, and game pieces. He emphasizes, however, that non-members will be welcome to join members in games.

As for the effect the presence of the chess players has had on Borders, Lori Hile, a spokeswoman for the retailer, says there have been no problems and that letting people play chess in the café area “has no direct impact on our store sales.”

When the weather gets warmer, the players who go to Borders may migrate outside. The Starbucks on East 53rd Street has been popular in the past; it puts out tables and welcomes chess players. Erbring does not know whether the two tables that were installed in the southwest corner of Harold Washington Park last year in response to the loss of the Harper Court ones will be popular, but he has hopes of seeing play return to Harper Court some day.

•

And then, lastly, there’s Hayden Marketplace.

As the sky slowly darkens on a recent weekday afternoon, the sparsely-stocked convenience store on East 53rd Street off of Ellis Avenue is buzzing with concentration— or rather, half of it is. Next to shelves of food and household items, eight men, all of whom look to be middle-aged or older, play speed chess in a small open space that’s reserved for them seven days a week. Since last March, players have collectively paid ten dollars a month for the use of the eastern half the shop, which initially was to be put towards an Internet café, according to Samori Hayden, whose family owns the store.

After finishing a game, Ira Rogers gets up and points out to a visitor a master pipe fitter, a firefighter, a real estate investor, and a teacher who is also a choreographer. Rogers says a given night might see some 20 people and comments that this afternoon is uncharacteristically quiet.

Ira Rogers should know a thing or two about chess in Hyde Park. He was the one who brought the game to Harper Court back in the 1970’s, starting the phenomenon by placing a chess table on top of a garbage can.

“We like the chess game, but we like to play against each other,” remarks Rogers of the gatherings at Hayden Marketplace, which he hopes to see as a permanent home for the game. “We’re addicts.”

At this, a guy nearby laughs. “Speak for yourself,” he says. Then the man adds jokingly, “I’m in recovery.” ◼