Promoting chess in the community

Wednesday, April 13, 2011 
Knights, rooks and pancakes at Silver Spring IHOP
Silver Spring man seeks to build regional barbershop chess league
by Kristi Tousignant | Staff Writer

When Jamal Robinson competes, his trash talk includes mentions of knights, rooks and pawns.

Robinson, who lives in Silver Spring, is one of more than a dozen men who met at the IHOP on Tech Road this weekend to play chess and boast about how many moves it takes to checkmate an opponent.

"It's the camaraderie," Robinson said. "We get a little trash talk going. It's a great way to bond. You can meet people and bond and talk about different things."

The chess matches, which started Sunday, are the brainchild of Tai Campbell, a Silver Spring community activist who believes chess is a way for different communities to connect with one another. His goal is to start a chess league between barbershop communities in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia in June. He said he envisions players from barbershops coming from as far as New Jersey to play in the league.

"That's what we aim to do," Campbell said. "We want to promote the popularity of chess and build a network system through barbershops and build a better future for all of us. It's all about bringing us all together."

The chess players at the Tech Road IHOP event all get their hair cut at community barbershops, including Big G's Images in Silver Spring and A Cut Above in Laurel.

More here.