Chess club takes on all comers at River Park Square

Patrick Herbers started playing chess at 14 and has never grown tired of it. Like many of the chess lovers gathered Saturday at River Park Square, the endless challenge of the game keeps him playing.

Now 57, Herbers spent part of his day playing a few games as part of a fundraiser to promote youth chess activities in Spokane through the Gary Younker Foundation, started in 2002 to honor the chess lover and promoter, who died of cancer in 2001. For $1, anyone could play a game against volunteers from the Spokane Chess Club, who moved around the tables playing multiple games at once.

Though chess players are a small segment of society, the game has a universal appeal that pushes it into the mainstream, he said. References to chess boards, chess games, pawns and rooks lace popular culture.

“It’s a niche thing, but so many things in the world refer to it,” Herbers said. “Even though people can’t play it, they sort of understand what it’s all about.”

Chess advocates in Spokane hope to boost opportunities for young players by organizing more local and regional tournaments.

“Spokane is still lagging behind the other cities in Washington in terms of how chess is growing,” said James Stripes, treasurer of the Spokane Chess Club and chess club adviser at local schools.

Stripes said he’s seen the game help at-risk kids develop self-discipline, confidence and academic skills.

The game levels the playing field for everyone, regardless of age, gender or race, Stripes said.

“Boys and girls compete as equals. Young and old compete as equals. People in other countries compete as equals,” he said.

He can point to 15-year-old Ryan Ackerman as an example. The Mead High School student recently beat his own coach in a tournament, Stripes said. Not bad for a kid who’s been playing the game for only a year and a half, but Ackerman isn’t cocky.

“There’s so much to learn from it,” Ackerman said. “You’re never going to be perfect at it.”

Nineteen-year-old Phil Weyland started playing chess at the age of 5, when his family’s cable television went out in a storm. He’s made a name for himself in the local chess scene, being named champion of the Idaho Scholastic Chess Association in 2005 as a senior at Post Falls High School. He spent part of Saturday playing the game at the mall.

“Every game is a different experience, and a different problem to solve,” said Weyland, a student at North Idaho College. “That’s why you have people in their 70s and 80s still playing chess.”

What’s the key to a good chess player?

Practice, of course. But Stripes offers other advice: Learn how to lose.

“The kids who pitch a fit when they lose aren’t going to stick with it, because you will lose,” he said. “The best players in the world lose.”