I’d like to start a new chess week (and month) out with a little photo quiz.
Where Am I?
I discovered this old photo on my computer when I was updating my website. Old-timers on the Santa Cruz/Monterey Bay chess scene should be able to figure out where the picture was taken. Any guesses before I reveal the answer?
(Space provided for people who want to think about it.)
While you’re thinking, let me apologize to anybody who came to visit this blog over the weekend and got a message saying “Internal Server Error.” I contacted my Internet service provider this morning and they fixed the problem. It was related to the server migration that took place last month when I updated my main website. I hope that this will be the last glitch, but I can’t promise it.
Okay, are you done thinking? The photo was taken in Ted Yudacufski’s old chess emporium, the Monterey Chess Center. I don’t remember the exact date, but it must have been around 2001 or 2002, when Ted was still running his monthly tournaments and I was playing in them semi-regularly. I don’t even remember posing for the picture, so it was quite a surprise to find it in my old computer files.
The Monterey Chess Center was a wonderful place, and it’s sad that it no longer exists. With old photos of world champions and yellowing newspaper clippings on the walls, it was a place where time seemed to be suspended. I recall that one wall had a list of the world’s top players that hadn’t been updated since the 1970s. That “World Chess News” bulletin board behind me in the photo probably doesn’t have any news younger than ten years old on it!
Yet for all that, it was comfortable as an old shoe. The chess center occupied the second and third floors of a building that had a movie theater on the first floor. The second floor had a little shop with chess books and equipment and darts paraphernalia for sale (darts being Ted’s other hobby). There were tables for skittles chess and several dartboards on the walls. The third floor, where the photograph above was taken, had a mostly empty room that Ted used for his monthly chess tournaments.
I don’t know the exact story behind the closing of the chess center, but the approximate version is that the whole building with the movie theater was sold to a new owner, and either they raised the rent or Ted was simply asked to leave.
Unfortunately, I never saw Ted again after that. He passed away on the day before Christmas in 2011. According to his obituary, he died while doing what he loved best: playing chess with his grandson. I did not know about his death at the time; I found out about it just now, when I did a web search to see if I could find any more recent news about him for this blog entry.
Chess is so dependent on people like Ted, who are willing to put forth herculean individual efforts to keep the game alive and get new generations of players excited. He was so modest that he never really spoke much (to me, at least) about his accomplishments, either over the chessboard or away from the board. If you know any more details about his life or his chess career, please add your comments below.
Anyway, Ted was an inspiration to me, and I’ll miss him.
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