Spokane chess whiz Alex Herron moves to put the ‘cool’ in his favorite game
Not that I had any delusions of beating the little tyke.
My last serious match had taken place in 1967 when I was a short-lived member of the Ferris High School Chess Club.
Call me curious. I wanted to see how good Alex Herron really was.
The answer came Thursday afternoon at Uncle’s Games Puzzles & More, a downtown shop at 404 W. Main Ave.
“I told myself I wouldn’t hold back,” warned Herron, who turns 16 next month.
He didn’t. I was toast after my first move. I dumbly stuck my knight out into the open.
“What am I gonna do now?” I mumbled as Herron began moving in on me like Jaws toward a witless swimmer.
“You’re going to lose your knight,” my opponent said.
Chess is a lot like war, only with more whining when I’m involved.
In January, Herron won the Greater Spokane League Chess Championship as a freshman at Gonzaga Prep. So I’m proud to say that it took the champ about a dozen moves to grind me into dust.
Checkmates, after all, can come in as few as two or three moves.
Asked if he learned anything from our game, Herron grinned and deadpanned, “I think I lost 15 to 20 IQ points.”
My annihilation notwithstanding, it was an honor to get to know such a decent young man.
A young man with an agenda, that is.
Herron had a reason for contacting me after so many years, and it wasn’t to play chess.
Now a sophomore at Spokane Valley Tech, Herron is on a mission to make his favorite game cool again.
“Cool” is my word. Herron told me he wants to “raise awareness” and is starting a chess club at his school on Monday afternoon.
In today’s digital world, it’s hard to think of this ancient board game in terms of being hip or cool.
But I grew up in an era when a brash American high school dropout named Bobby Fischer turned chess into the planet’s biggest sporting event.
“He was the best,” agreed Herron.
Every school in the city had a chess club back then. Today that number has been reduced to a mere handful. Herron, however, believes chess is more relevant than ever.
“Chess helps you think and deal with problems,” he said. “I love chess and I want to see younger kids playing.”
Herron also enjoys traditional sports like football, basketball and wrestling. He participates in debate and is living proof you don’t need to be a nerd to push rooks and bishops and pawns around a checkered board.
“There’s no real chess stereotype. I’m a normal teenager. Chess doesn’t make me any different than Joe down the street.”
So how did this love affair begin?
Pretty much by accident. Herron, who was 4 at the time, found a chess set and began playing with the pieces.
“I didn’t know how the pieces moved or the principle of the game,” he said.
Herron’s dad taught his son the rules and then lost their second game.
“He beat me and then everybody in the neighborhood,” David said with a laugh. “That’s when I knew we had something going.”
Herron began playing tournaments. He beat a high school-age player when he was just 5, which is when I heard about him.
It might have been too much too soon. Feeling somewhat burned out, Herron said he took a few years off and then returned to chess when he was 12.
“He’s moving on up. He’s definitely one of the young champions around here,” said James Maki, Herron’s chess coach.
Maki especially likes Herron’s natural passion for the game, that his student is not being forced by anyone to play.
“I’ve seen a lot of young upstarts crash and burn,” said Maki, a rated FIDE chess master. “Alex really wants to get better.”
Plus Herron’s goals are well-defined.
He wants to repeat his GSL championship. He wants to eventually raise his numerical chess rating to 2,200, which would make him a national master.
(Herron’s current rating is close to 1,800.)
There’s only one way to raise a chess rating. And that’s by facing opponents over a board through head-to-head tournament matches.
The stress is palpable.
“I play better when I’m not under pressure,” Herron conceded.
Chess is technically not a contact sport. That said, psychological aggression is often a part of the game.
Some opponents will do anything for an edge, like continuously tapping a foot, say, or giving you the evil eye.
“I just play,” said Herron, who describes himself as a chess purist.
“I don’t try to get into anybody’s head. If I’m going to win, I’m going to win because I’m better, not because I’m getting into somebody’s psychology.”
It takes a special mind to excel at chess.
Contrary to common thought, you don’t have to be good at math. What you need is to be able to close your eyes and visualize a chessboard.
Other things help, like talent and a killer instinct.
Sometimes, Herron can see seven or eight moves ahead. In easier contests, that number can expand to maybe 30 moves.
In one of his GSL matches, Herron lost a bishop through a dumb mistake.
Upset, he said he got up and walked out of the room to compose himself. It worked. Herron came back to win the game.
“That was one of the most satisfying moments,” he recalled.
Humility helps the chess player, too.
Herron is quick to point out there are players in Spokane he can’t beat.
“I’ve lost more than I’ve won,” he said, adding, “I learn from my mistakes.”
For a moment, I thought of challenging Alex to a second game.
Fortunately, I buried the thought and said goodbye.
Alex Herron’s not the only one who can learn from a mistake.
Doug Clark can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or dougc@spokesman.com.