Fair Haven school to send a chess hero to nationals
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Dillon Russell-Kenniston, Cameron Megaw and Jeff Scott (left to right) talk about their chess accomplishments at Fair Haven Union High School. Russell-Kenniston was recently named Vermont high school co-champion. VYTO STARINSKAS / RUTLAND HERALD |
Toolbox
By Gordon Dritschilo Herald Staff - Published: April 26, 2006
For a school that banned playing chess, Fair Haven Union High School has a pretty good chess team.
Senior Dillon Russell-Kenniston and junior Oliver Chase went 5-0 in the Vermont State Scholastic Chess Championship held April 8 in Richmond, sharing honors as the state's high school chess co-champions. One of them will represent Vermont at the national tournament in mid-August, and two other members of the Fair Haven team placed at states.
Fair Haven has sent a team to the tournament for the past three years, according to coaches Toby Milne and Betty Russo, each time returning with a champion player.
"We used to come and play all the time during study hall," said Russell-Kenniston, 18. "Then the high school banned chess. It originated with card games. The administration said they didn't want us playing cards in school. Then some teacher said if they ban card games, they should ban all games."
Jeff Scott, a 17-year-old senior who tied for fifth place at the state tournament, was quick to jump in and say that the team has the administration's full support.
"The School Board recently started a chess club fund so we can send a player to the (national) tournament," he said. "Banning chess, it sounds lame, but they've been supportive of us."
Russo said a minor controversy had brewed over how to determine whether Russell-Kenniston or Chase, who was co-champion with a Burlington student last year, should go on to nationals. She said the published rules for the tournament break ties by weighting the opponents faced by each player, ranking the player with more difficult foes.
Under that system, Russell-Kenniston was the winner. However, Russo said some state tournament organizers want to see a playoff match between the two students. She said she expected a ruling from tournament organizer Everett Marshall.
Chase could not make an interview attended by his other three winning fellow-teammates on Monday afternoon and could not be reached by phone, but described his chess background in an e-mail.
He wrote that he began playing chess seriously in eighth grade with other students during recess. He started playing on the Internet and at the Rutland Chess Club before discovering chess tournaments.
Chase said he has attended several tournaments, including the world open in Philadelphia, which has an entry fee of $300. He went to the national tournament last year.
In March, Chase said he spent a week in Moscow, studying with chess giants Susan Polgar and Anatoly Karpov. His teammates, including Russell-Kenniston, characterized him as their strongest player.
Now the team is looking at how to pay to send its chosen champion, whoever that may be, to the tournament in Illinois.
"It's a seven-day tournament," Russell-Kenniston said. "There's one game each day."
The team members said they expected to need $1,200 to send a player to the tournament. The winner of states gets $400 toward expenses to go to nationals, they said, and the group is looking into other available grants and soliciting the sponsorship of local businesses.
Russell-Kenniston said his mother taught him to play chess when he was six.
"After a game or two, I beat her," he said. "She saw I had some talent and hooked me up with chess lessons."
He studied under Lee Didriksen, a registered master who increased Russell-Kenniston his interest in the game. He attended his first tournament at age 7, but said he did "very, very poorly."
"I think I won two out of five rounds," he said.
Russell-Kenniston turned to two of his teammates and began telling a war story from one of the games at that first tournament, using chess lingo sounding arcane to a non-player.
The anecdote involved sitting down to play a young girl having just watched child chess player movie "Searching For Bobby Fischer" the night before. Scott and 18-year-old Cameron Megaw seemed to find it amusing.
Scott said he started at a Shakespeare camp when he was 12.
"A lot of people played chess during the downtime," he said. "Then Dillon moved in from St. Louis and he was pretty good. Once I got better, we had some really good games."
Cameron Megaw, 18, a senior from Castleton, placed ninth.
"There was a chess club when I was 7 at Castleton," he said. "It was after school and I could walk home and I'd just play. I sort of took a break and I'd play once in a while."
So, what's so cool about chess?
"It's a game of kings," Russell-Kenniston said.
"Ooh, deep," Scott teased.
Russell-Kenniston ignored his teammate and continued.
"It teaches great reasoning that can be used in day-to-day life," he said. "It's strategy. It's tactics. It's war on a plastic board."
After his ribbing of Russell-Kenniston, Scott described the game in terms almost as lofty.
"To me, it's an art," Scott said. "No, seriously. You see four or five different ways you can play and then you see the right way, the next five moves and you deal the death blow."
Megaw described his love of the game a little more simplistically.
"I like beating people who study really hard," Megaw said. "I don't study and I just beat them."
While his words might seem arrogant in print, Megaw doesn't come off that way in person. He is more laid back, and speaks almost goofily of his successes.
"My best strategy is not playing for about a month," he said. "It works. I don't know why. … We were very relaxed (at the state tournament). We were the most relaxed team, probably. After games, you'd see other people studying their books. We'd be playing with a tennis ball."
In addition to competing, the team also runs a chess program at Fair Haven Grade School for students in grades K-6.
"We let the little kids play, take them one on one or two on one, sit them down, go over the basics, typical strategies," Russell-Kenniston said. "They have fun. We have snacks. They enjoy themselves and learn a lot, too."
Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.
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