Ready for the Check?

At Sherman Oaks’ Horseshoe Coffeehouse, the pies are tasty and the atmosphere fun, with the sounds of alternative rock bouncing off faux-finished walls. Too bad, then, that cafe regular Travis Vern Waters cares not at all about appetite or ambience.

Hunched over a green-and-white chessboard, Waters is oblivious to the sights and sounds of the cafe. “We’re addicted,” explains the 50-year-old Studio City resident, indicating a swarm of chess aficionados who are silently awaiting his next move.

For many Horseshoe regulars, the king is much more important than the coffee--king as in chess king. Although laptop-packing students and writers also sip their beverages at the Horseshoe’s wooden tables, most any night of the week will include a chess match--or two, or three, or four.

Chess is serious business for these folks. Waters, a worker at a dance studio, plays here as often as possible in his quest “to become a master.”

Paul Atwood, a Studio City accountant of unnamed age (chess people are a tight-lipped bunch), has allowed nightly matches at the Horseshoe to replace “alcohol, drugs, movies, working out.” Ace, a tennis instructor, says he’s much too busy with a game of speed chess to be interviewed.

“We’re here basically because we have no lives,” explains one player, looking up from his board for only a split second.

“Chess makes you forget everything else,” says Edo Zoaretz, 23, of North Hollywood, who adds he is at the Horseshoe practically every night because “it’s better than sitting home and watching the stupid TV.”

That’s bad news for the Horseshoe’s co-owner, Hanna Sweis. Hosting one of the largest unofficial chess clubs in the San Fernando Valley was never his game plan, and he’s frustrated by players who he says under-order and refuse to leave at the 2 a.m. closing time if they’re still in the middle of a match.

Concentration is the operative word here. Zoaretz, for example, didn’t take kindly to being interrupted by a reporter in the midst of his game. “I lost because of you,” he glared.

But the word is out, and more chess players keep coming. The players know the management is none too crazy about them, and rumor has it that some have retaliated by giving the Horseshoe the ultimate insult: smuggling in Starbucks coffee.

Poor Sweis. The Horseshoe happens to have the perfect light for playing and tabletops the exact size of a chessboard.

Says 24-year-old chess teacher and screenwriter Jonathan Maxwell, who recently moved to Sherman Oaks just to be near the nightly chess feuds, “We’re here to stay.”

BE THERE

The Horseshoe Coffeehouse is at 14568 Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks. Open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m., with coffee, pastries and sandwiches on the menu. (818) 986-4262.