Chess grandmaster Sadvakassov mows down competition at Duquesne
 
By Mike Cronin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, April 16, 2009
 
Without even looking at the boards, international chess grandmaster Darmen Sadvakassov simultaneously annihilated two opponents in less than 15 minutes.
 
The Kazakhstan native sat with his back to the boards. He never turned around. Nor did he touch a chess piece.
 
Instead, his opponents moved their pieces and a game official announced each move. Sadvakassov, 29, of Squirrel Hill answered by calling out his countermoves. The judges moved his pieces for him.
 
"It's pretty amazing he can do this without looking," said Michael Michna, 20, of Wednesday evening's chess demonstration at Duquesne {pronounced: Du-cane}, University. Michna said he plays the game two or three times a week; But doesn't belong to the school's chess club, which hosted the event.
 
"It'd be an honor just to have him destroy me," said the sophomore finance major of Sadvakassov's prowess. But Michna declined to be one of 12 people who played the grandmaster all at the same time. Non-chess club members paid $10 for the privilege of being pummeled.
 
In the next hour and a half, Sadvakassov beat 11 of them. Kevin Mo, 14, an eighth-grader from Franklin Park, earned a draw.
 
"No, I'm not frustrated. I'm very happy someone got a draw," said Sadvakassov, who will receive a master's degree next month from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. He won a Kazakh-government scholarship to attend the School of Public Policy & Management.
 
"I didn't want to crush everybody," Sadvakassov said. "That's not polite."
 
Mo, for his part, was delighted.
 
"It's a great feeling," said Mo, who attends Ingomar Middle School in Franklin Park. "It was fun playing him. I was very lucky to get a draw."
 
Allowing the dozens of people like Michna who came to watch the chess show see someone of Sadvakassov's talent "proves the brain can do a lot more than we normally imagine," said John Barroso, 46, a Duquesne adjunct professor who teaches business statistics.
 
"Playing without seeing the board demands memory and concentration powers and a high level of rational decision-making," said Barroso, who serves as the Pittsburgh Chess Club's secretary. "It's very puzzling. You have to have a mental picture of all 64 squares on the two boards. It shows if you work hard, you can do it, too."
 
Dan Inzinga, 23, treasurer of Duquesne's chess club, hoped the performance would attract more people to join the club and play the game.
 
"I want people to see how much fun it is," said Inzinga, of Verona, who is working toward a master's degree in public policy.
 
Fun might not be the word one would associate with chess after witnessing the hunched shoulders, frowning faces and bouncing knees and tapping feet of the players that Sadvakassov challenged.
 
But, believe it, chess is good for you, said Ron Barber, 48, who lives in Aleppo and is president of the Pittsburgh Chess Club.
 
"It teaches mental discipline and intellectual honesty," said Barber, an attorney for the Downtown law firm Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky. "And it's a lifelong pursuit. You can play with anyone from any culture. The language of chess is the same the world over."

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