Chess is King in King’s County

David Rybstien advises his son, Aaron, to bring out the white-squares bishop from the back file before pushing a pawn to D-3. Otherwise, the bigger piece will be trapped and useless too long into the opening. This is an odd setting for a chess lesson, a small, cluttered back room of the Seaview Jewish Center in Canarsie. But it is a place that in many ways symbolizes the head office for chess in the borough, in the city, and in the country. For here now resides the Brooklyn Chess Club, and Brooklyn remains the heartbeat of that 600-year-old pastime.

The U.S. champion and world champion candidate, Gata Kamsky, resides here in Brooklyn. So does Alex Lenderman, the U.S. Open champion. The seven-time national high school champions, Edward R. Murrow High School, hold chess club meetings every Thursday after class, preparing for the next tournament. There are less formal games played every week at the Wendy’s at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard. In Coney Island, the greybeards are out in force, pushing pawns in Seabreeze Park. There is now even an annual Brooklyn Chess Championship, begun last February to serve the competitive masses.

Chess is said to be a sport for kings and immigrants. And while Brooklyn may be lacking somewhat in royalty, it has a reliable, renewable source of brainy newcomers. Kamsky and Lenderman arrived via Russia. Maurice Ashley, the first black chess grandmaster, came to Park Slope by way of Jamaica. The game is a way of building new friendships in a new world, while thoroughly exercising the cranium.