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GRANDMASTER

Chess is popular with many Russian intellectuals. In the last 20+ years a good number of them immigrated to US, many settled in the Brighton Beach area in Brooklyn, NYC. The guy in the right corner is probably one of them. What you cannot see on the photo is the little folding table with a chess board on top of it with a little sign “Free Chess Lessons”. He was there entire evening patiently waiting for someone to stop by and play a game with him. I spent thirty or so minutes shooting my little time lapse and no one expressed interest. Most people who visit Times Square probably don’t have time to seat down and spend time on something that is not what they associate with this place – shopping and restaurants. I bet that 80-90% of them do not even know the rules for playing chess, but that is why he was there, trying to educate them on one of the most sophisticated and oldest games the humans ever invented. Meanwhile, he was patiently waiting, drinking some soda from the plastic bottle and eating sandwiches that he or his wife packed for him back at their apartment.

He is probably there on most nights and I hope that there are some folks who is intrigued to learn something new on their visit to NYC or some who already know how to play it and want to show their skills to this old man and destroy his king in as a few steps as possible, or be destroyed, that is to hear or say the ultimate word in the game of chess – “Checkmate”.