Child Champs Ready to Move to Tournament

A relaxed competitor, Jonathan Goldfarb took a little time off earlier this week.

Immersed in a video game, with his face inches from a television screen, the 10-year-old seemed oblivious to the fact that in a few days he would be seated at a chess board in the grand ballroom of the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Fla., with about 1,000 other youths, competing in the biggest annual chess tournament in America for elementary school-age children.

Despite the pressure of the upcoming event, Goldfarb was taking a break from his regimen of 10 hours of chess practice each week. But his title as Southern California Elementary Chess Champion is still the source of much pride in his Irvine home.

“I’m thrilled. I think it’s so neat that he’s found his niche,” Elaine Goldfarb said of her son. “It’s not a game for wimps.”

It seems ironic that children in sunny Southern California would excel at the indoor sport of chess. But chess clubs in Orange County are turning out winners, and dozens of elementary school-age champs are packing up their chess pieces and leaving today to try their luck against some of the finest players in the nation. The tournament begins Friday.

The tournament, held under the auspices of the U.S. Chess Federation, promises to showcase the chess masters of the future.

Since entries can be taken until the last minute, tournament organizers are not sure exactly how many children from Orange County are attending the annual competition. But chess officials guess that at least 20 students from the county and dozens from Southern California will go.

“It’s fun to play. My favorite part is traveling around the world,” said Rachel Rash, 10, who has been to Mexico and plans chess-playing trips to Chile and the Soviet Union. “What I like about chess is that you get smart.”

Her brother, David, 7, likes the competitive aspect.

“My favorite part is when you checkmate another guy,” he said. “It’s like a book hit him.”

The Rash children, nationally ranked chess champions, belong to the Westminster Chess Club, one of 20 clubs in Orange County affiliated with the U.S. Chess Federation. There are hundreds of similar groups around the nation.

Richard Kasa, the scholastic chairman of the Southern California Chess Federation, said chess has a different appeal than other sports, and is a natural outlet for parents who want to show off their bright and talented children.

But parents who get their children involved in chess describe the game as weightlifting for the mind, a sport which increases the ability to memorize, calculate and plan.

“You’re matching mind against mind. It’s not like football, where you can go out and slug it out,” said Fred Rash, a teacher at Westminster High School who started his children playing chess at 3 years old.

Adds Robert Snyder of the Garden Grove club, Chess for Juniors: “It’s brain power as opposed to physical force.”

Yet, because the game has strict boundaries--the 64 squares on the board, the directions that the chess pieces move--children are on a near-equal footing with adult players once they master the rules. And they enjoy beating their parents.

“An adult has no advantage. He still has to mentally manipulate the pieces in the same way,” said James Jordan, the marketing director for the U.S. Chess Federation. “Kids like to play games they can beat adults at.”

The children’s training is complex. Some of children have several coaches; some practice for hours each day.

Andranik Maissian, 11, commutes from Van Nuys to practice in the Garden Grove club. He says he simply wants to do his best this weekend, but ultimately he hopes for nothing less than to be a champion. “In America, there’s lots of players,” said Maissian, who was born in Armenia. “But only children take it seriously. Adults take it for fun.”