By Shengnan Gao
The Scene staff
The World Chess Hall of Fame is only two miles from Forest Park, so it makes sense for the campus to have a chess club.
And now it does.
A handful of students have organized the new Forest Park Chess Club. They’re inviting others to join.
“I always enjoy the concept of chess,” said Yasir “Cherry” Ali, 19, a network engineering major. “Every move is important. One day, I walked into the writing center, saw a chess board and started playing by myself. That is the moment when I came up with the idea of starting a club.”
Forest Park has had both official and unofficial chess clubs over the years. This one is official, according to Campus Life employee Tanya Carr.
“They have turned in all their paperwork,” she said.
So far, the club has four members. They play from 2 to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Seminar Room of the library.
One member is general transfer studies student April Green, 19, who is also a columnist for The Scene.
“Chess is fun and challenging,” she said. “I like the struggle of the game, like strategizing. You learn from losing.
“I’m very excited about the club. I made a couple of friends through chess. It takes a little while to finish a game like chess. It’s a good way to know someone. I hope people can enjoy it.”
The club’s adviser is B.K. Kolar, a writing tutor who first brought the chess board to the writing center.
Kolar learned chess at age 4 and played on teams in high school and college.
“There’s already been more interested people (at Forest Park) than I expected,” Kolar said. “Quite a few strong players around, and most importantly, there are lots of students who want to learn.
“It’s not that difficult to become decent in chess. A lot of students have come knowing nothing and just started playing regularly. Some people who just started playing at the beginning of this semester are already quite decent.”
St. Louis has a long history with chess. It began in 1886, when the city hosted a segment of the first World Chess Championship, according to the St. Louis Chess Club website.
That club was founded in 2008. Six years later, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution designating St. Louis as the National Chess Capital.
“At its core, the game is about successfully navigating life,” according to the St. Louis Chess Club website. “The choices we face as individuals and as a city may not always be as black and white as the spaces on the chessboard. The decision to play, however, is an easy one.”
Kolar, the Forest Park Chess Club adviser, teaches classes as a scholastic instructor with the St. Louis Chess Club.
“I hope I can do some teaching here (at the college), help people who want to learn,” Kolar said. “Other than that, hopefully I can help cultivate a fun chess atmosphere and focus on our chess community, where everyone is collaborating to improve.
“Whenever people are playing games, it is very easy to focus on winning or losing. That’s part of it. It’s fun to win and less fun to lose, but at the same time, losing can be a valuable experience.”
Students who are interested in playing chess should just show up for a game and not worry about their inexperience, according to Kolar.
Everyone is welcome to play chess on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Only STLCC students can join the Forest Park Chess Club and participate in special events such as pizza parties and tournaments.
For more information, contact Ali at 314-556-8188 or yali6@my.stlcc.edu.
“My club is targeted towards beginners,” Ali said. “It would be easier for people to start at the end of the semester so that they would be interested in the second.
“I would like to bring everyone together and have a good time. Nothing’s going to be super competitive. The most we are going to have is small, mini tournaments.”