New Great Northern store House of Chess
to host female grandmaster
By Charles Cassady
happenings
Published Jan. 18, 2006

Chess has been called the game of kings. Jennifer Shahade is coming to Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted on Saturday to prove that there are queens as well.

The Philadelphia-born Shahade, 25, is a comparative literature graduate from New York University and a two-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion. Semi-retired from playing professionally, she is now a frequent commentator and writer on the 1,400-year-old strategy game. The Manhattan resident also teaches chess to students in the New York school system. But lately she has won notoriety in black-and-white circles as the author of the tell-all with the catchiest title of recent nonfiction publishing. Oprah could do worse than devote a segment to "Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport."

The 320-page hardcover relates Shahade's inner-circle view of the male-dominated chess world and the women who try to break through gender lines and play at the highest levels around the world, from China to Iceland to Eastern Europe. Part history, part tabloid-gossip,  it's a volume that has rattled a lot of pieces and brought much attention on the topic of chess-girls-gone-wild. Many newspapers have even refrained from printing the transgressive-feminist title.

"It wasn't such a smart idea, that title, in the United States," said Alex Shabalov. "In Europe it's a smart idea, and I think that's what she was aiming for."

Shabalov is a ranked a Grandmaster chess pro, and he is also a business partner in perhaps the only suitable castle in all of northeast Ohio to host a "Chess Bitch" reception.

It's a new Great Northern Mall tenant called the House of Chess, which opened last year in the storefront of a former Foot Locker. This is a chess store, teaching/tournament space and chess club, here in suburbia amidst the fast-food shacks and department stores. "The first House of Chess and the first store-slash-club of its kind, anywhere," said Shabalov. "That’s why everyone is so eager to see how it works out.”

Shahade will reign here on Saturday at 2 p.m., for a book signing, a lecture and a "simultaneous exhibition" match. Time permitting, she may also play a few accelerated games against Grandmaster Shabalov, who is ranked one of the top 10 chess pros in the country by the United States Chess Federation.  A simultaneous exhibition match, or "simul" is when a chess master plays a number of opponents at the same time, going from one table to the next and doing one move at a time in separate games. The House of Chess has limited this Saturday simul with Shahade to 20 boards, which are open on a first-come-first-served basis. There is an entry fee of $15 to participate in the game, but the lecture and spectating will be free.

As Grandmaster-in-residence, Shabalov regularly plays simuls with no board limits when he commutes into town from Pittsburgh, where he makes his home. He opened the House of Chess in a partnership with Cleveland’s Lary Rust and San Francisco’s Alex Yermolinsky, another Grandmaster who sometimes visits and contributes to the club newsletter.

There are many private chess societies behind oaken doors, activities-centers and after-school student groups, but nothing like the House of Chess, is open to visitors seven days a week, during regular mall hours, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“We let people come in and – if they’ve got somebody to play with – they play absolutely free,” Rust said.

But this is indeed a club, and joining in a given tournament match or simul against the house pro usually runs $15. For membership fees ranging from $15 a month to a "mega membership" of $225 for two years (which also covers free lessons by Grandmaster Shabalov), chess aficionados can get a discount and other perks. The House of Chess also maintains a library of chess videos, software and books for sale and reference.

It opened its doors in August, 2005. But why Cleveland for a venture unique in the field of chess?

“After Chicago it’s the second most active city in the Midwest,” said Shabalov. “That’s my first impression.”

Rust said they made a deliberate decision to open the club in a well-frequented suburban shopping center, for maximum exposure to foot traffic and turning shoppers onto the game who might otherwise not have sought out a more cloistered arena.

“The mall has it all. So everybody goes to the mall.”

The club accepts the beginning learner as well as the advanced strategist. Grandmaster Shabalov, a native of Riga in Latvia, certainly didn’t have a House of Chess where he grew up and studied the royal game in a Soviet state-supported environment under the illustrious Michael Tal. Tals, an eighth-ranked world player and six times a chess champion for the USSR, died in 1992, the same year that Shabalov emigrated to the USA.

“It was in Russia. It was a completely different chess culture…I actually had a Grandmaster coach for all of my life without basically paying a cent for it. I really appreciate it now,” Shablov said.

If the House of Chess is a success as its founders hope, they plan to open more of them, possibly starting in San Francisco, in Alex Yermolinsky’s territory.

Membership has been picking up since the holidays, and there is plenty of room for more. Jennifer Shahade’s book-signing and talk is indeed timely, as Rust says that currently there are only about three full-fledged female club members 

For more information you can phone the House of Chess at (440) 979-1133 or log onto www.thehouseofchess.com.