Chess

Glendale Community College will begin offering a new chess class for beginning players next week. The Beginner's Guide to Chess is a six-week class that goes from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and begins Monday. The class will meet in Room 243 at Hoover High School, 651 Glenwood Road. The class is open to the public and has a fee of $69. Michael Haussler, who taught an undefeated high school chess team for six years, will teach the class. The class will cover how chess pieces move and the object of the game, and teach basic opening principles.

Ryan Carter The city and Glendale's chess enthusiasts are a move closer to checkmate on construction of a new chess park. The Redevelopment Agency on Tuesday authorized setting aside $400,000 for the construction of the park. The money will be taken out of an unallocated agency fund, based on the designer's construction cost estimate. A resolution to accept bids for construction of the park was also approved. The city hopes for construction to begin in August and end by the middle of November.

Gary Moskowitz At a grand opening for Glendale's new downtown chess park this weekend, many people cheered the park's successful completion, but a few passersby were still asking, "What is that thing?" The city's $540,000 chess park, in a walkway connecting the 200 block of Brand Boulevard to the city's Orange Street parking garage, opened last week and was dedicated at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Five large chess pieces, made of white canvas atop brown boxes, double as light fixtures and provide a visual that distinguishes the park from other parks or alleys.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Through the Gifted and Talented Education program, students enthusiastically enrich their education with after-school programs taught by experts. This year's enrichment program, one part of the GATE program, is held at Palm Crest Elementary. It's open to fourth-grade GATE students, and all fifth- and sixth-graders. On Thursday, dozens of students were taught subjects like photography, set design, chess and feature writing by experts in each subject.

Call it the construction equivalent of pawn to e4. Construction workers made their first move on Glendale's new Chess Park this week. The project will convert a walkway on the 200 block of Brand Boulevard into a chess haven with 16 chess tables and several large concrete statues in the shape of chess pieces, which will also serve as light fixtures. Construction is starting later than expected because the city had to put the project out to bid twice.

Council to review proposed hires GLENDALE CITY HALL -- The City Council will meet at 10 a.m. Tuesday in council chambers at City Hall, 613 E. Broadway. The council will continue reviewing dozens of new positions included in the city's 2002-2003 budget. The council is considering eliminating the positions to reduce costs. The study session will be televised live on Charter Communications Channel 6. For more information, call 548-4844.

The people weren't the players in this game of chess -- they were the pieces. Dressing up like traditional chess pieces, board members and other volunteers played a game of live chess Thursday to kick off the annual fund-raising campaign of the Crescenta-Canada YMCA. Officials hope to raise $260,000 to subsidize new programs, assist families that cannot afford membership and help fund programs for junior and senior high school students. Funds raised also go to helping send children to YMCA camps.

Gary Moskowitz Students and faculty members at Glendale Community College this fall are putting themselves completely into the game of chess. Chess players this semester routinely gather around a new, life-size chessboard in the Plaza Vaquero at GCC. The 16-by-16-foot board is painted, in white and black squares, onto the pavement in the patio area in front of the college's bookstore. The plastic game pieces stand about a foot-and-a-half tall, and players have to pick them up and walk the pieces to the next square when they make a move.

I would like to comment about the letter by Neal Bakke on June 5. Your comment was that you believed if the person who died was a chess player or in drama club, instead of an athlete, that he would not have warranted such a large article in the paper. You also question why our society elevates a person who plays ball to a heroic platform. Mr. Bakke, our society elevates all persons who excel at something, whether it be a musician, an actor (drama club)

Judy Seckler BRAND LIBRARY -- At Brand Studios, at least 12 kids, 6-12, have spent the better part of their summer indoors learning the fine points of playing chess. Students in the class, split evenly between boys and girls, did not know from the start how to play the game. Instructor Arnold Dilanchian's method involves the students in the learning process. Students discovered how each chess piece moves, the strategies involved and gradually learned how to play the whole board.

More than a hundred chess players, ranging in age from kindergarten to 12th graders, faced off at the American Chess Academy Holiday Championship Sunday at the Maple Community Center in Glendale. Armen Ambarsoumian, president of the academy, said the tournament “is one of the largest in Southern California and is helping to put Glendale on the map in the chess world.” Ambarsoumian said 133 players from San Diego to Bakersfield showed up to the event, which he called a huge success.

More than 100 chess enthusiasts turned out Saturday for the first-of-its-kind AAA Chess Festival, which aimed to draw attention to the game. The event, organized by the All American Assn. and Adams Square Merchants Assn., separated the 120 participants into three brackets: young children, middle-school-aged and adults, with many involved playing back-to-back games. The outdoor tournament, which drew a healthy audience including parents and coaches, was a way for Chess Master Nshan Keshishian to introduce the game to children.

Have you ever been in Glendale Chess Park? I never imagined that a passageway between two retail stores on 227 N. Brand Blvd. could be a chess park. The idea of using 4,200 square feet to build a place for members of a chess club is brilliant. I have read two letters from chess players’ perspectives complaining about the disadvantages of the place (“Chess Park idea good, execution poor,” July 4). Some of them are true statements, some are not. For example, it is true that the park is inconvenient for people who need restrooms and water fountains.

I always think of the Glendale Chess Park as a black mark against the city and the City Council members who approved it (?A few moves at Chess Park,? June 30). It cost a ridiculous half-million dollars and is never used for its purpose as far as I can tell. The facility, which has no restrooms, is there, but where are the players? It?s used by the homeless and occasionally by lunch eaters and newspaper-book readers. That?s getting your money?s worth? DON MAZEN Glendale ?

It took a stroke of genius for park-starved Glendale to turn an unused alley linking a city parking lot into a pocket park. The 4,500-square-foot Chess Park is a space devoted to its namesake, with five illuminated oversized chess pieces standing guard over the 16 concrete tables. Glendale residents may not think much of the park, but as is sometimes the case, people don’t always appreciate the jewels they have in our own backyards. The park came to my attention through a modern and well-respected architectural magazine.

Under the threat of a dark sky, Anne Marie Darrach worked steadily in Chess Park with her chalks, blending and layering as she brought Glendale’s first-ever “street painting” commission to life. Over the weekend, she chalked out a recreation of Michelangelo’s “Creation of the Sun and the Moon” near the sidewalk in front of passersby. Some stood and silently watched, others were more inquisitive, but all walked away having seen art in progress.

Tatev Abrahamyan is keeping her competition in check. The 18-year-old Glendale resident has had a lot of practice, studying and playing chess since she started school in Armenia more than 13 years ago. Abrahamyan, who graduated from Clark Magnet High School in June, won the 18-and-younger division of the Pan-American Chess Championships with a 9-0 record Aug. 9 in Ecuador. "I don't think I'm a very good player," she said. "My dad taught me the game and I started showing progress right away.

Deborah Meron Many residents balked at the more than $500,000 price tag for a Chess Park. Many asked whether the park's simple design merited the fee. The Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects seems to think so. The institute hand-picked the park, the only one in the region to have a chess theme, for its annual Public Open Space Award, given to an original or noteworthy outdoor project....

Eruption enough to make some rethink vote Glendale's own Mount St. Yousefian erupted in fire and smoke Monday night at the City Council candidate forum at the Central Library. He stomped off the stage and out of the room after he was not allowed to respond to a yes or no question about the chess park in greater detail. I will not argue the merits of the forum format and the yes-or-no section in particular. I will not argue whether the format was biased against incumbents as Mayor Bob Yousefian claims.