Chess in Market Square attracts all races, faiths and creeds
People sometimes won’t talk to a reporter with a ready pen and open notebook. That, angrily and vocally, was the case with Rob, who can be found most days sitting at his chess board in Downtown’s Market Square.
The problem is some people command attention, even if they neither want nor seek it. Rob’s that guy. He plays game after game, providing color commentary before or after a move or while walking away from the small table under the trees so another guy can have a chance.
Chess is a brain game, with studies linking game skills and cognitive ability. It’s also a fitting metaphor for survival — using brain power to protect your king while pursuing your opponent’s. It’s a 64space monarchy with pawns readily sacrificed, but more painfully so the queen, bishops, knights and rooks, all in defense of the royal crown.
Tall and extremely thin, Rob admits to a tough life at age 64. I never learned his last name, and he declined to say where he lives.
Most striking is how that humble chess mat, rolled out onto a metal table and populated by well- worn black and white plastic pieces, serves as a United Nations of Downtown, attracting, engaging and unifying men of varied backgrounds, occupations, ethnicity, religion and race.
No women dared to play during my three visits.
Others hold chess matches in Market Square, but Rob’s operation is the most visible. Skill is the sole arbiter of power and influence. Win and you’re king of the board. Lose and you’re a banished pawn.
Krishna Swamy Ramesh, 61, an engineer of Indian heritage from Cranberry who often plays here, says in chess you are judged by skill level rather than race, faith or creed.
One regular player is from Bosnia, another from Russia. Yet another is a retired judicial bailiff.
“One guy just released from prison beat the pants off of everyone,” Mr. Ramesh said.
Players include many African American men and a Ugandan engineer who ended up teaching Swahili at the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Ramesh says Rob is a moderately good player who stakes claim to Market Square real estate each day to provide “entertainment for an eclectic mix” of people.
Among that eclectic mix is Garland Vanstory, 61, of the North Side. He learned to play chess at a Hill District recreational center where some learned to play chess competitively and continue playing as adults, he says.
Mr. Vanstory, who beat Rob the only time I saw them go head to head, says he aspires to play Mr. Ramesh, whom I never saw lose a match. Mr. Vanstory explains that he only plays worthy competitors because the less skilled “can dull your blade.”
“Chess gives you a sense of direction — who you hang around, what comes from your mouth, how you think,” he said. “You have to have patience, take the wins like you take your losses, learn by your mistakes — that there’s always someone better.”
On a good day, 15 guys will show up to play. Several passersby looked tempted to try but nervously continued walking toward the trumpet player and the young lady performing with hula hoops.
All the while Rob sits totally focused on that chess board, lord of the fiefdom he has created to challenge skills and interact with like- minded people. His deep, grumbling voice, often hard to hear and understand, produces some grand pronouncements about life and chess.
“In chess, you gotta be the devil. In life, you don’t gotta be,” he said out of nowhere, deep in a tight match.
Then out of the blue: “If you blacken my eye, I’ll break your nose. But if I get my ass kicked in chess, I’ll say, ‘ Good game.’”
That’s a common Rob theme. After I restated my desire to write about him and his chess board, he barked: “I don’t want anything written about me. That book’s already been written, and it’s called the Bible.”
He scolds one player: “You should have taken that bishop a long time ago.” Later he mumbles in protest during a game: “You trying to do tricks on me? I don’t like tricks.”
Then come these:
“You can’t make a man more than what he is.”
“We all got baggage.” “Sometimes in chess, you resign. You never resign in life.”
“If I ate like a bird, I’d be fat.”
One afternoon, he arrived at Market Square and unrolled his chess board as usual. An awaiting chess player asked, “Why’s it wet?”
“It rained last night,” Rob replied.
Chess is life. Life is survival. I only hope Rob can avoid checkmate.