If people think that all chess players are nerds, they should go to Washington Square park in NYC in the summer (right by NYU).....and sit down for a game.....there are hustlers, gamblers, kids, homeless people, businessmen, college students.....all kinds of folks playing speed, tournament, you name it. I was destroyed in a match of speed chess, but I wanted to give it a whirl just to say I played in Washington Square park.

Lots of fun.

I quit playing chess about 6 years ago when a kid on my boy's baseball team kicked my ass. He was 8 years old and had finished something like 20th in a national tournament for his age group. I knew I was in trouble when he made the first move and I made my move and he asked me "Why would you do that?"

I got back at him though. He played the minimum number of innings required and not one single one more for the rest of the season that year.

I've seen those folks playing chess in Washington Square a few times. I never played, though I was challenged by a guy about my age. He looked as if he would mug me as soon as I sat down, so I passed.

The kid who knew chess the best in the troop--he knew a lot of the lingo I didn't know, but not anywhere near what SIEQ is talking about.

It was fun when I would do things like take his queen cause he overlooked a move.

And after I would win, I would dance around like crazy.

We should have an online chess game here on CG.

You post your move.

Like SEIQ against someone else. And the rest of us can follow along.

I prefer foxy boxing, but to each his own.

Plus I suck at chess

I am always up for a game. If no one is enthusiastic about playing me, I could annotate a game between others and then post my annotations after the game.

If multiple people are interested, we could do a round robin.

I could post the details of chess notation too, as it can be a bit confusing at first.

Chess in the U.S. has a problem. Chess is more popular almost everywhere else (In Germany they even show the national tournament and major international tournaments on TV). The highest ranked U.S. player--Gata Kamsky, an immigrant from the U.S.S.R.--is ranked 17th in the world, behind a slew of Russians, Ukranians, Bulgarians, Western Euros and players from Black Sea and Baltic states. The top player in the world, ratings wise, is Anand, who is Indian.

Chess is most popular in the U.S. in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have chess clubs everywhere. Maryland and Mass have plenty of chess going too. Florida has a decent chess scene, in no small part due to Cuban immigrants. In the west, California and Nevada (specifically Las Vegas) have a pretty healthy chess scene. Chess has a solid collegiate presence in Texas, but not much more than that.

Many of the top U.S. players are immigrants or the children of immigrants: Hikaru Nakamura, the second best American player behind Kamsky (Nakamura is ranked #31), has always been a U.S. citizen (because his mother was), but his father was a Japanese citizen. Alexander Onischuck, the 3rd best U.S. player, is an immigrant from Ukraine. The 4th best U.S. player, Yasser Seirawan (#96), is also an immigrant whose parents were Syrian and British.

You get the idea.

It's also true that many of the top players in the world and the U.S. are and have been Jewish. Fisher's mom was Jewish (even though Fisher went paranoid and rabidly anti-Jewish in his later years). Kasparov is Jewish. Former World Champions Botvinik, Lasker, and Spassky are Jewish. The reigning Women's Champion, Judit Polgar, is a Hungarian Jew. The list of Jewish standouts in Chess is very, very long. Even Israel, with it's comparatively small population, has produced Boris Gelfand, who is ranked #18 in the world.

There are also quite a few world class Arab, Persian, and Islamic chess players. Azerbaijan has two players in the top ten.

Chess just doesn't quite match with Norman Rockwell's America, and that's too bad.

Who cares about chess. I bet the top 10 Risk players in the world are all American.

Here's a problem with chess: Americans don't want to read books on how to play a game. They just want to play it.

My wife doesn't know how to play chess. As in she doesn't even know how the pieces move.