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A dozen area chess champions from Sperreng Middle School visited the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis on Friday to test their skills against two of the best female players in the country. The duo of Battsetseg Tsagaan and Camilla Baginskaite played a tandem simultaneous exhibition on their day off; the two women are in town competing in the 2009 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship.
Sperreng Middle School has won the Missouri State Middle School Chess Championship for three of the past five years, and the 12 children chosen to play the masters were picked because they are the best from the school chess team, said Rick Nelson, who has coached the team for the past 11 years.
“They’re so excited,” said Nelson. “This is an event they didn’t want to miss.”
Nelson said the Lindbergh School District is home to the best players in the state, despite good programs existing in Jefferson City, Columbia and Kansas City.
“Missouri is really a hotbed for chess,” he said. “I’ve seen chess grow.”
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Of the 12 players who were excused from school to play against the champions (Baginkskaite is the 2000 U.S. Women’s Champion and Tsagaan won the Mongolian Women’s Championship seven times), eighth-grader Aarthi Bala was the only girl. She dismissed any special nature of her participation.
“I just like to play,” Bala said. “I hang out with boys generally. Girls are into sports
but they’re not into games like this.” She has been playing since she was four and said she would be “surprised” if she won.
As the two women circled the interior of the room making one move at a time on each board, they offered advice and encouragement to their young charges. Tsagaan stood over seventh-grader Mike Winkelmann’s game and jibed him about his intentions. “Are you trying to checkmate me?” she laughed. “Well, yeah, but it won’t work,” he said.
The children were also treated to lunch with several players in the championship, then they were given a behind-the-scenes look at common areas of the club and players-only portions that will resume use in Saturday’s sixth round. Only a few of the children had been to the club before.
Nelson said that the after school club at Sperreng officially takes place four days a week, with Fridays reserved for football, “but the kids still show up.”
One graduate of Sperreng Middle School went on to play at Lindbergh High School and now works at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. “I switched up the stereotype of the school,” said Alex Marler. “I played chess and wrestled.”
Nelson, who is closing in on his third decade as a school counselor in the Lindbergh School District, has been playing chess himself for 45 years. He admits a few of his students are capable of beating him, a point of fact which gives him pride.
He summed up the usual life-cycle of his students: “The parents introduce the kids to chess, they bring them to summer camp. From there we play in-house tournaments. Once they start playing they get home and beat their mom or dad. The key is to get them to beat their parents.”
Photos By: Betsy Dynako
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