Moves that Matter brings tourney to Grand Manor

By on August 12, 2011 in

By Mike Wilmering

Almost two months ago, I received a call from Deirdre Plair, a nurse at Grand Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Saint Louis. She told me about a resident at the facility, Demaurion Davis, who had developed a real passion for the game of chess. Although he had been playing chess since the 6th grade, Diedre said Demaurion had recently refocused his love for the game after suffering a debilitating injury that significantly limited his mobility. Unfortunately, she said, there aren't many chess players at Grand Manor, and Demaurion was looking for some challengers. Deidre said Demaurion wanted to find out just how good he was.

I immediately thought of the Moves that Matter program, an outreach of the soon-to-open World Chess Hall of Fame. The mission of Moves That Matter (MTM) is to make the game of chess available in health and human service organizations for the benefit of their patients, family members and caregivers. I told Deidre that I thought this would make a great fit for MTM to implement some sort of programming, so I introduced her to Lauren Stewart who is spearheading the MTM program.

Lauren worked with Deidre to create a unique tournament experience for Demaurion. Rather than organize a special event at the chess club, we decided to bring the tournament to him! About 15 Chess Club members signed up to help out with the event, many of which participated in the three-round, unrated tournament with a time control of game in 30 minutes (G/30).

In Demaurion's first game, he had the white pieces against Patrick Burkhardt, one of the Chess Club's part-time afterschool instructors. Since Demaurion had never played a tournament before, he received a brief introduction to tournament play and they were off! Demaurion entered into a complex positional struggle, but easily emerged with the victory.

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For round two, Demaurion was paired against Dr. Charles Manly, an experienced tournament player. Although Demaurion's queenside pieces remained dormant for most of the game, he managed to outcalculate the experienced Dr. Manly to take home his second full point and maintain his perfect score.

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In the final round, Demaurion was pitted against Michael Branson, who was also undefeated, to battle it out for the Championship. With a shortened time control, Branson made a costly blunder, dropping his queen completely. Being the good sport that he is, however, Demaurion offered to let his opponent take the move back. But rules are rules, and tournament director Mike Kummer wouldn't allow it. Demaurion cruised easily to victory to claim the title with a perfect score of 3/3.

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But Demaurion wanted more. After the tournament ended, there was one other player who finished with a perfect score -- Alex Vergilesov, the club's Scholastic Coordinator. Demaurion challenged Alex to a casual game following the event, and proved he's no beginner. Although Alex managed to defeat Demaurion in the end, he defended spectacularly to make it a very difficult victory for Alex, who estimated Demaurion's rating to be somewhere between 1600-1800.

"This guy's pretty good," he said. "He's definitely no beginner."

Standings. Grand Manor Open

#	Name	Rtng	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Tot	TBrk[E]	Prize
1	DEMAURION DAVIS	unr.	W13	W10	W6	3.0	7
2	ALEXAN VERGILESOV	1871	W12	W4	W3	3.0	6
3	THOMAS PAT ARCHER	1537	W9	W5	L2	2.0	5
4	MATTHEW MENIETTI	1315	W7	L2	W14	2.0	5
5	MICHAEL WILMERING	1032	W14	L3	W11	2.0	5
6	MICHAEL BRANSON	460	W8	W12	L1	2.0	5
7	JOSHUA SEROTA	unr.	L4	W14	W13	2.0	5
8	MR. HOWARD	unr.	L6	D9	W12	1.5	3
9	CEDRIC BRUGES	447	L3	D8	W10	1.5	2
10	CHARLES MANLEY MD	862	W11	L1	L9	1.0	3
11	NATHAN CABOT	unr.	L10	W13	L5	1.0	3
12	STANLEY GEO VEYHL	758	L2	L6	L8	0.0	0
13	PATRICK BURKHARDT	unr.	L1	L11	L7	0.0	0
14	SHERROD CURRY	unr.	L5	L7	L4	0.0	0