Overview:
The Richmond-based West Coast Chess Alliance is bringing together chess aficionados from west Contra Costa County and around the Bay Area to teach the game and help players find new opponents.
On a recent rainy Saturday, 12-year-old Jose Islas, a Richmond sixth-grader, sat huddled over a chess board across from Richmond Police Lt. Josh Clark as soft elevator music played in the background. In day-to-day life, it’s unlikely that these two would ever meet. But here they were, pondering the best way to checkmate each other while others looked on.
Nearby, dozens of other boards were set up on long tables, inviting players to start a match. The occasion was the Richmond Chess Festival, an annual event put on by the Richmond-based West Coast Chess Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to bring more awareness to the game and give players an opportunity to test their skills and meet prospective opponents.
“One of the biggest complaints I hear from chess players is that there aren’t enough people to play with and no place to play,” said TC Ball, director of West Coast Chess Alliance. “We want to bring people together around the game, have a good time and leave with a positive feeling about Richmond.”
Ball has been organizing the festival since 2013, first holding it at the former Hilltop mall, then at the Richmond Memorial Auditorium. After taking a break during the pandemic, the event returned in 2023 and has been held at Richmond CoBiz, the downtown coworking space, ever since.
Chess is not a mainstream sport (and yes, it is a sport) like football or soccer, in the United States. But it has become more popular over the past decade thanks to “The Queen’s Gambit,” the Netflix series, websites such as Chess.com, which has 225 million users, and the rise of chess influencers who stream games on YouTube and the social media platform Twitch.
Locally, youth chess players can join a game at the San Pablo Library every Friday afternoon and older players can find opponents at the Richmond Senior Center, which also hosts a weekly group every Friday. West Coast Chess Alliance offers chess in eight West Contra Costa Unified School District schools through both in-school and after-school programs and it’s in talks with the Richmond Public Library to revive a program there that was paused in the early 2000s. The chess organization previously held casual games at two Pinole cafes but is now seeking a local business to host casual play and tournaments during evenings and weekends.
“Chess is a beautiful game and the closest metaphor to life because the quality of your life is based on the decisions you make,” Ball said. “The game seems like it happens at a snail’s pace, but you have to develop a plan, carry it out and make adjustments when things don’t go according to plan, just like life.”
Derrick Mok, a fifth-grader from Pinole and one of dozens of young people who turned out for the chess festival, said he learned to play at the San Pablo Library. He routinely plays with his dad but wishes more kids his age knew the game. “It’s very fun and you don’t need anything complicated, just the board and pieces,” Mok said.
Elias Avalos, 17, and a senior at Kennedy High School, said he was taught by a coach while a student at Grant Elementary. “It takes a lot of skill, but you also gotta improvise on the spot,” he said. “Plus, I like the aesthetics of the board and the game. There’s just an art to playing chess.”
After a slow morning that featured a class for new players and casual matches, the tourney started with four players to a table. After lunch, grandmaster Enrico Sevillano, who lives in southern California and is currently ranked the 145th top chess player in the country, arrived, impressively playing 20 games simultaneously, walking from board to board while his opponents waited.
Overall, many participants deemed the event a success: New friendships were formed, skills honed and younger kids inculcated into a beloved game that transcends cultural, linguistic and even generational barriers.
David Belt, a Fairfield teacher, brought his wife and four children to the event. “It’s a good way for people to express themselves,” he said. “You can tell a lot about a person based on how they play chess.”
Visit Richmondside’s list of ongoing things to do for a roundup of ongoing chess matches.
