Keeping Them In Check

Keeping track of 960 chess pieces can be daunting, but chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura has a method.

"When I see a position, I see a position," Nakamura said, "I am not thinking about every single game at the same time."

Thirty chess players representing a wide range of ages and skill levels had the opportunity to take on Nakamura, the third-highest rated chess player in the country according to the World Chess Federation, in a simultaneous exhibition held in the Earl Hall Auditorium Saturday afternoon.

Sponsored by the Columbia Chess Club, the exhibition was originally planned for a crowd of spectators on Low Steps, but was moved indoors due to early reports of bad weather. Still, dozens came to watch as Nakamura swiftly made his rounds, finishing all of the matches within three hours.

Darrow Merton, CC '09 and a Spectator junior finance associate, was the first player eliminated by Nakamura after just 40 minutes of play. Within the next six minutes, three others fell to the grandmaster.

"It was over just about as quick as a chess match could be over," Merton said. "He demolished me."

In 2003, at the edge of 15, Nakamura earned the prestigious title of grandmaster, becoming the youngest American ever to receive that distinction. He has since won the 2005 U.S. Chess Championship and is close to cracking the list of the 50 top-rated players in the world.

Though the competition he faced Saturday was hardly the caliber of those he faces in tournaments, he admitted that the whirlwind nature of the event and the skill of some players left him with two or three games that were shaky. Nakamura came out of the event with 28 wins, one draw, and one loss.

"In the beginning, I wasn't that good. I lost a lot of games," Nakamura said. "It instilled in me this sense of fearlessness, therefore I'm not scared of losing. I can move very aggressively and take a lot of risks. It's paid off for me."

Evan Rosenberg, a graduate student at New York University, was one of the few participants who has had the opportunity to play with Nakamura many times before.

"When someone is so talented at something it's easier to separate him [Nakamura] from reality," Rosenberg said. "He's more of an image to people than anything else."

One of those people was 9-year-old Aaron Schein, who has played in several state and national chess tournaments since learning the game at the age of four. Wearing a soccer jersey with the last name of Japanese soccer star Shunsuke Nakamura-no relation-on the back, Schein lasted for 29 moves Saturday before conceding defeat to his idol.

"I started out with a good opening, but in the end he just beat me," Schein said.