London Chess Classic

London Chess Classic: the chess set

London is about to host its biggest chess tournament in 25 years. As the game enjoys an internet-inspired renaissance, Max Davidson meets some of the Grandmasters of tomorrow .

By Max Davidson
Published: 4:12PM GMT 20 Nov 2009

Half-past three, and at the Trafalgar Junior School in Twickenham the school chess club is in full swing. “Check!” says Sam Knott, 10, the school’s star player. He has just scooped the under-11 title at the Richmond Junior Chess Congress. Rhiannon Tanner, nine, moves her king. “Check!” says Sam, advancing his queen. Rhiannon tries to shield her king with her bishop. “Check!” says Sam, taking the bishop with his rook. “It’s not fair,” Rhiannon mutters. “He’s a year older than me.”

In another part of the room, Marie Gallagher, who runs the after-school club, is giving a demonstration on castling. “Who knows the difference between an open file and a closed file?” Eager young hands shoot up in the air.

In state primary schools generally, such chess clubs tend to be the exception rather than the rule. But the popularity of this one – there are 30 regular members and the club is oversubscribed – hints at untapped potential.

Offer young minds brain-food and, on this showing, they will devour it as voraciously as they would a Big Mac and fries. The children are enthusiastic, keen to learn, impatient to test their skills against other players. No Arsenal-Tottenham derby is more fiercely contested than chess matches between Trafalgar and St James, another local state primary.

“Children should only play chess if they want to,” says Marie Gallagher, the sister of chess grandmaster Joe Gallagher. “If they are only coming to the club because their parents think it will be good for them, they won’t get much benefit. But there is a growing recognition that chess has an invaluable role to play in education. It is a brain-accelerator, like music.”

Beyond the school gates, the game is attracting renewed interest in Britain, and not before time. Next month’s London Chess Classic at Olympia will be the most high-profile tournament in the country for a quarter of a century, with England’s four leading Grandmasters – Nigel Short, Michael Adams, Luke McShane and David Howell – doing battle against a star-studded international field, including Vladimir Kramnik, world champion from 2000 to 2008 and the only player to defeat Garry Kasparov in match play, and 18-year-old Magnus Carlsen from Norway, the game’s wunderkind.

Here is the full article.