New Charlotte resident, chess instructor, and all around good-guy Fabio Hurtado has agreed to become a columnist for Queen City Chess. His emphasis will be on reviewing chess related literature. Look for a new installment every couple of weeks. As always, we invite your use of the message board for any questions or suggestions.
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“Let’s get One thing Straight”
A book review of Michael Weinreb’s The Kings of New York (2007)
Coaching a high school chess team becomes
addictive.And I speak as an addict with
a decade of experience.Winning, while
coaching high school chess can…well, obviously winning is always
addictive!In the case of Eliot Weiss
and his team at Brooklyn’s Edward
R. Murrow high school winning has meant a rise to the top of all high school
chess programs in the nation two years in a row.In 2005 and 2006 in Nashville and Milwaukee
respectively the Murrow High School team won the Open Section of the K-12
Division crowning a dynastic two years.In reality, the Murrow team has been an elite program now for close to a
decade. For the best part of 2005 and
2006Michael Weinreb followed them around recording their wins, their losses,
practices, families, taste in music, style of play, and in doing so he captures
the paradoxes of children playing a grown up game.
So what is it like to coach a high school team?Speaking from experience, I can tell you that
while Weinreb admittedly does not come to the chess journalist gig as a chess
player, he does quite an accurate job at the task of allowing you to feel what
it is like.And so a couple of minor
errors that otherwise would have irked me (they might bug you when you read it)
to no end went by the wayside as I entered more and more into a world I know
and love deeply through Weinreb’s tale of the Murrow players.
He describes the politics (in the school system) which
end up always somehow affecting a school team and about the Brooklyn
neighborhood and the changing socioeconomic demographics of Murrow.We read about his Herculean efforts at
fundraising and his timely luck at finding a wealthy sponsor to whom the
players write polite and sterile letters each year thanking her (the donor is a
wealthy Manhattan widow) for the funds to travel to States and Nationals.He gets absolutely right the coach’s
struggles to get his team to sleep and rest, eat breakfast and show up to the
rounds on time, especially for the grueling day two and three of
Nationals.And he nails the fine line
between friendship and competition.After all, in any given tournament, you could end up playing even your
friend and teammate.His descriptions of
this frenemy (half friend and half
enemy) relationship so common in high school and so present in chess culminate
in Sal Bercys and Alex Lenderman, teammates at Murrow, fighting to be the
bigger star.The two Eastern European
born 2400s who lead Murrow to state and national championships while at the
same time maintaining a desire to crush one another over the board.He details their sometime disdain for lesser
rated players and tournaments that mean a lot to the team but very little to
them personally.Both Lenderman and
Bercys teeter between loyalty to their coach (who excuses them from tests and
softens other teachers) and total self absorbtion to their personal egos.
There are many good reasons to read this book even if
you never plan to spend one day coaching a teenager.It is vastly important to realize there is a
big difference between coaching individuals and coaching a team.What Eliot Weiss did at Murrow or what a Ted Goldstein
did at University school in Fort Lauderdale or Robby
Adamson at Catalina Foothills in Tucson or Dr.
Lawrence Goodall at ACND in Miami is to place
all their eggs in one basket.Their heart
will break or soar with one team.They
come to know those players over two, three, four years (for those who play all
four) as they know their children.They
have to put up with their egos (the high rated ones) or nurse their fledging
confidence (the lower rated ones), sometimes pay for food (the ones from poor
families) and even make sure they show up at the right board.Of course all the coaches I just mentioned
have one thing in common:a national
championship!It is a rare thing!Only five coaches can win it at the K-12
level in any given year.There are five
distinct divisions in K-12 Nationals and each division holds about 50-60 teams.For those adult players that never plan to go
see a high school National Championship, this book is a fantastic alternative.
There are many good reasons to read this book, but
where chess players of all ages will see themselves reflected is in the real
lives of the Murrow players who struggle with losses and expectations, with
balancing chess with other priorities and people in their lives, with their
devotion of four years to this pursuit we play and love.
But let’s get one thing straight!We may be chess players but it is about time
we dump out the stereotype that Weinreb exploits in his subtitle of being geeks
and oddballs and yes even geniuses:“A year among geeks, oddballs, and geniuses
who make up America’s top high school chess team”.I have coached two teams to National titles
in the Under 1200 section of K-12 Nationals in 2004 and 2007.And my best, most passionate, most
competitive players were also on the soccer team and basketball team.They surfed, played hacky sack, had girlfriends,
were sports fanatics, boy scouts, loved camping and fishing and yes some were geeks.None were geniuses.Luckily, you don’t have to be an eccentric
Bobby Fischer to love and play ( and be an addict of) the sport we call Chess!
N.B.I also read David Shenk’s The Immortal Game last month, but I
recommend you pass on that one.Not bad,
but nothing insightful nor necessary.