AThe Times San Mateo, California Tuesday, July 18, 1972 - Page 25
Chess Duels Flourish In San Mateo County by John Horgan
Their heads are bent low as they ponder their martial moves. They murmur to one another as the hints of tactics and grand strategy become apparent.
There is an aura of tension, a distinct feeling of combat, pervading this room.
The action unfolds on the array of tables spread across the enclosure.
Upwards of three dozen people are conducting their own private war games. But it is far from deadly. It is merely Thursday evening at the Burlingame-San Mateo Chess Club.
These folks wage war for fun.
And interest in this ancient game has never been greater here in this country and in San Mateo County.
All indications are that the four chess clubs here — Daly City, San Bruno, Redwood City and Burlingame-San Mateo — are reaping a direct harvest of new members due to the much-publicized championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Iceland.
According to Wilfred Goodwin of Belmont, the director of the Burlingame-San Mateo club, his organization's membership has increased from 20 to almost 60 in less than four months. He expects to have 80 by this fall.
“This is unheard of,” he says. “People are coming from all over the West Bay Area to join the club now. We have members from San Jose, Pacifica and San Francisco. The interest in the game is surging.”
All told, Goodwin estimates there are about 200 club players in this county. The Burlingame-San Mateo club, which meets at 8 p.m. each Thursday night at the Burlingame Recreation Center, is the county's largest and most active.
Goodwin, 48 and an employee of a toy manufacturer in South San Francisco, has been a virtual one-man gang in the mid-county insofar as promoting chess in concerned.
“You might call the the Mr. Chess of the Peninsula,” Al Hansen, 47, of Hillsborough says. Hansen is a member of the Burlingame-San Mateo club. He has been playing club chess for four years and he has played the game informally for over 36 years.
For him, chess is a diversion which allows hi to overcome all kinds of social barriers.
“Beyond a doubt, chess is the social occupation which can cut through all barriers. Look at our players. Some are young, some are old. You might find a hippie playing with a doctor. Or a woman with an elderly man. In this game, you run the gamut.”
Good adds that a chess team from San Bruno once had a man without hands who used a pencil in his mouth to push his pieces around the board. On another occasion, Goodwin says his team played a school for the blind.
School-age children are becoming immersed in this pastime, too.
At Turnbull Middle School, San Mateo, 69 students turned out to learn chess last semester. The chagrined basketball coach there noted that he could barely find eight youngsters to make up a skeleton team in that sport.
At Fremont High School, Sunnyvale, chess is a block letter sport.
Another member of the Burlingame-San Mateo club, Herb Rosenbaum, 51, of San Carlos, says he is considering teaching the game at San Carlos High School.
“The challenge of this game is unprecedented,” Rosenbaum explains. “It surely beats tournament bridge. Luck is hardly a factor at all.”
Goodwin, who has been involved in organized chess in this area for more than a decade, says there is no question that the Fischer-Spassky match — has increased enthusiasm for the game here.
Hansen, a building developer, says it is somewhat ironic to see how Fischer is treated outside his own country by the chess-loving peoples of other nations. “In the U.S., Fischer had been a virtual unknown until this match. But outside America, he is regarded as an international figure of great importance. Joe Namath, on the other hand, is unknown outside this country.
According to Hansen, there are about 25,000 members of the U.S. Chess Federation, the official chess body in this nation, compared to several million in Russia and nearly 25,000 in Iceland.
Worldwide, he says there are 76 grand masters (the ultimate rating in chess) and 40 of them are Russians. America has ten.
But Fischer has succeeded in focusing the eyes of the U.S. on a game which is just now beginning to experience some growth in popularity.
“He has tremendous daring,” Rosenbaum says. “He is probably a full class ahead of everyone else.”
But the world of Fischer and Spassky is hardly that of the typical chess buff.
For most men and women (and there are far fewer women who play the game than men for some reason), chess is merely a diversion, not an all-consuming passion.
“The chess board is a microcosm of life,” Hansen says. “A person playing chess will reveal a lot about himself during the course of a game. It can be an addiction, a little like golf. But chess is a game you can take to bed with you at night through books.”
Goodwin, sensing that the timing in right to plug chess, has offered new members a bargain rate of $2 for entry into the club. The figure is usually $4.
The club provides everything: Boards, chessmen, clocks, coffee, tea, the works.
Chess Duels Flourish In San Mateo County 18 Jul 1972, Tue The Times (San Mateo, California) Newspapers.com
