Chess Grandmaster Alex Shabalov ponders his next move against Ralph Spinelli, 7, of Bay Village, during an exhibition match Friday against chess club members at Westside Christian Academy. (Photos by Larry Bennet)

Students take on three-time U.S. chess champion
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published Feb. 14, 2007

Members of the chess club at Westside Christian Academy had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play one of the greatest chess players in the world Friday.

Chess grandmaster Alex Shabalov, who was the U.S. chess champion in 1993, 2000 and 2003, visited the Center Ridge Road school to speak to students and challenge each of them in a match.

Shabalov, who was born in Latvia in 1967, started playing chess at age 8 and later studied under world champion Mikhail Tal.

Shabalov said he was pleased to see so many students learning chess at such a young age.

“It’s very nice to see you all here interested in playing chess and playing in tournaments,” Shabalov told the students. “Fantastic.”

While chess club members in this country are sometimes depicted as nerdy and unathletic, Shabalov did not fit that stereotype. He said he loved sports as a child, skiied and played basketball.

“I think when I won my first tournament when I was 12 — a big tournament — I decided that chess would be something that I would love to do for the rest of my life,” said Shabalov, who lives with his wife and two daughters in Pittsburgh.

Shabalov said there definitely is a strong link between chess and mathematics, as many grandmasters are professors in mathematics or are involved with mathematical related fields such as finance. It’s not necessary to have a good memory to excel at chess, he added.

“I have no memory at all,” he said.

He encouraged students to learn more by reading books about chess strategies.

And he told them not to get discouraged.

“There is a saying that before you become any kind of a chess player, you have to lose 1,000 games,” Shabalov said. “So before any of you lose 1,000 games, you can’t expect to become any better than you are right now. Once you learn a lot and learn from your mistakes, then you make progress.”

Adam Wenner, 10, of Westlake, studies the chessboard during the match against Shabalov.

Then Shabalov took them on — 45 of them.

“I’m not going to go easy on anyone,” Shabalov warned the students. “Good luck to everyone.”

Walking along tables containing the students’ chess boards, Shabalov shook hands with each player before the first move.

He seemed to take different strategies with different students during the early moves. With some students, he focused on advancing his pawns, with others he advanced his knights. By the fourth or fifth moves, he often utilized the special move of castling, in which the king moves two squares towards a rook, and the rook moves onto the square over which the king crossed.

Twenty-two minutes after the simultaneous exhibition began, Shabalov had his first victory. When Shabalov inevitably checkmated each opponent’s king, he waited a second or two for the student to realize the defeat and kindly extended his hand with a gentle smile.

Shabalov checkmated the last of his 45 opponents one hour and fifty-six minutes after the exhibition began. Seventh-grader Taylor Mack lasted the longest against the grandmaster, followed by third-grader Mitchell Patterson.

Daniel Patterson, a parent of two Westside Christian Academy students (including Mitchell), organized the chess club this year. Amazingly, 57 of the 108 students who attend the school participate in the club. Six of these are only in the first grade, Patterson said.

Patterson himself didn’t begin playing chess until he was in the 10th grade.

Shabalov later told Patterson all the students paid close attention to their matches.

"The students seemed extremely focused,” Patterson said, “probably hoping to play their best for a chance to win. I did not see the usual risk taking.”

How did Patterson arrange for one of the world’s greatest chess players to come to Westside Christian Academy?

“I have a buddy of mine from high school days — he’s a local master — and he said Alex owed him a favor,” Patterson said. “I don’t know how you get the United States champion to owe you a favor, but he arranged it. It was his idea.”