Issue date: June 27, 1999

In this article:
Ashley: The first black grandmaster
A "late" start
Ashley helps kids
A quick hit on chess history
Ashley's advice for starting out

All the right moves

hess is about infinity, really. There are more than 90 billion potential choices to make by the time both white and black have made their first four moves. Throughout a game, experts say, there are as many possibilities as there are atoms that can be seen in the universe. "The great ones know how to cut out the other noise," says Maurice Ashley, "and know where to go."

Ashley, 33, knows where to go. He is the world's first-ever black grandmaster of the game, an achievement reached after a remarkable two-decade odyssey. He was born in a Jamaican neighborhood where, he says, "you considered yourself lucky if you didn't get shot on election day." His family then moved to a tiny New York City apartment where he screamed at his sister to turn down the TV so he could focus on chess. From this, Ashley determinedly rose to join this elite club of intellectual esteem. Now, he wants to bring a new generation of players from the nation's cities along with him.

Inestimable millions of people worldwide play chess, but just 470 are grandmasters. Of the 85,000 members of the U.S. Chess Federation, only 45 are grandmasters. The gracefully charismatic Ashley exudes star quality. Is the game deadly dull? Plodding? Not to Ashley. A chess player is a detective, he says. And Indiana Jones. "Chess is lightning fast. Make one slip in a move and it's devastating. You're gone. And the person in the know knows. Like you're walking a tightrope over the Grand Canyon. You slip and you're dead."

Ashley's been there. He didn't catch the chess bug until he was 14 - half a dozen years after other chess enthusiasts are already winning tournaments. That's when he was beaten by a kid his own age.

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It floored him. For all of his young life, Ashley beat anybody at board games. Didn't matter which ones. He beat grown-ups. Then I sit down at this chess game and get blown away by another kid? It drove him to grab a library book and study chess for hours. "I had no reason to want to aspire in chess," Ashley says. "Except I lost a game to this guy and I saw a book in the library. Then, somehow, destiny grabs you."

shley got better than his opponent, then many others. He thrived among a different breed of player. He played with the Black Bears in Brooklyn, a close-knit collection of African-American players. They were men in their 20s, with jobs such as railroad electrician and postal worker, who let the teenage Ashley into their circle. "I'd go Friday night to Saturday morning, 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.," Ashley says. "Twelve hours of chess. That was my going out on a Friday night."

Ashley remembers leafing through national chess magazines and seeing no black faces. He didn't have deep enough pockets to afford a top tutor.

As a young adult, Ashley first won acclaim through coaching young people in Harlem from 1989 to 1997, where he led teams like the Dark Knights to three national championships. It impressed chess instructor Bruce Pandolfini, 51, who inspired Ben Kingsley's character in the 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer. "It was more than just chess instruction," says Pandolfini, who headed efforts to teach chess in needy New York communities. "He practically lived with those kids. He showed them it was possible to start in the inner city and achieve greatness."

But teaching children kept Ashley from seeing how far he could take his game. Two years ago, he devoted himself entirely to competition. At one point, his 2,597 performance rating soared so near the needed 2,600 for grandmaster that U.S. chess officials urged him to apply for the international ranking anyway. Ashley insisted on breaking 2,600. In March, with an opponent's ill-fated move at the Manhattan Chess Club - giving up a rook for nothing under pressure - he snagged the title.

Today, it's Ashley's face that graces the cover of the May 1999 issue of Chess Life.

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UT TO SEATTLE: ASHLEY FLIES cross-country to play a roomful of children at once, 18-on-one. The students at Zion Prep Academy are abuzz. "Is Mr. Ashley here yet?" they ask in excited tones, taking game pieces out of Ziploc bags and setting up the boards. Then, he arrives. "Let's get ready to rumble," Ashley says. The first pawn moves at 1:40 p.m. At 1:55, Ashley's queen takes out a knight. Checkmate. At 2:01, his queen takes queen for another checkmate. At 2:02, queen takes pawn for the third ...

Before the young players walk away from their chessboards, they rub their brows and shake their heads, smiling in amazement. Ashley advises the students to log their moves. "Did you ever see instant replay, at a basketball game, when you see Michael Jordan make a dunk over somebody, then they replay it again and again? In chess we have instant replay: It's writing the moves down.''

Afterward, he conveys the message of his grass-roots national campaign: that the same kids hooked on video games and MTV can get addicted to chess. "The game stimulates all kinds of intellectual powers within a child. It's unlike the popcorn they're used to. It's real."

Chess captivates children, says Zion Prep chess coach Norman Alston: "I tell them, 'If you're really quiet, you can hear the pieces shouting at each other.' Then, they understand there's something really exciting going on. These pieces aren't inanimate objects. There's a struggle going on.''

n achieving the grandmaster milestone, Ashley will keep playing but will work with young players as well. The game "develops so many thinking skills that we want in our kids. We want them to develop concentration, focus, problem solving and goal setting."

His big project now: launching a state-of-the-art chess community center in Harlem, where hundreds of kids will play each other, study the game in the library or play online with competitors around the world. There will be field trips, tournament play and guest speakers. The center opens this fall, in a community where signs of promising future retail development sprout amid stretches of graffiti-covered storefronts.

Ashley views his own rise in player rankings as secondary. There are other priorities, like his wife, Michele, and daughter Nia, 5. He spent more than half of his life getting to grandmaster. "To be a champion, you need to be consumed by the game," Ashley says, "and that's not where I am." In addition to playing chess and working with the center, he makes his living by producing a Web site (www.chesswise.com) and a CD-ROM, Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess.

And mostly, Ashley knows this is his moment to lift young people. "I know the road won't end with being a grandmaster," he says. "It's just part of the trip." Chess is, after all, about infinite possibilities.

-- Staff Writer Dennis McCafferty's last cover story for the magazine was about hate sites on the Web.

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PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Smale, and Dan Lamont for USA WEEKEND

History: Opinions differ, but many believe the game originated in India in the 600s. By 1000, it had spread through Europe as far north as Scandinavia. The modern era and the game's current look date to the 1500s.

Longest possible game: You could play 5,949 moves in a single game before the rules would require a draw.

Famous fans: Sting, Humphrey Bogart, Bono, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Morgan Fairchild, Phish.

Man vs. machine: Garry Kasparov, the world's top player, defeated IBM's chess-playing supercomputer, Deep Blue, in 1996 - but lost a 1997 rematch. "The machine hasn't proved anything," said a bitter Kasparov.

1999 World Chess Championship: July 29-Aug. 30 in Las Vegas.

Source: www.chessworks.com, World Book, U.S. Chess Federation.

Ashley's advice for getting started with the game
1. Find a friend who wants to learn so you can play together.

2. Call the United States Chess Federation at 1-800-388 5464 or go to the federation Web site at www.uschess.org to find information on books and other available materials, as well as contacts for local chess clubs.

3. Try playing chess online, at sites like the Internet Chess Club (www.chessclub.com), at which more than 67,500 games are played every day.

4. Don't get too low about your losses. Don't get too high about wins either; studying the moves made even in victory will reveal potentially fatal moves. "Here's what you do: You take that win. You feel good about it. Then, it's done. No big deal. So you won a chess game. Now, it's a new game."

Getting started in chess -- and getting better
There are numerous books, videos, software programs and Web sites designed to instruct chess beginners and seasoned players. Ashley makes training videos, hosts a Web site at www.chesswise.com and produced the CD-ROM guide, Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess. The Chessmaster Web site at www.chessmaster.com also features popular game software.

Additonal resources
www.chessworks.com
www.internetchess.com
Kasparov vs. The World

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