A chess champ -- a very young chess champ
jcribbs@beaufortgazette.com
843-986-5517
I started to panic when, on his second turn, Kevin Rogers moved his knight to C4. He moved the piece with a speed and certainty that -- whether he knew it or not -- telegraphed a clear message.
I play this game fast. I make quick decisions. I make these decisions quickly because I made them two moves ago while you were sitting across the table fumbling with your pawn like the tubby imbecile you clearly are.
Early in the game, I remember staring at Kevin's gold trophies near the chess board, reading the "1ST PLACE KINDERGARTEN" label on one of them and feeling vaguely nauseous. I was still focused on my pawns, and Kevin was hopscotching knights and bishops across the board like he was H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
Just two minutes in, he grabbed his queen and carried it halfway across the board to A4, just a few spaces away from my king.
"Check," he said.
I prepared myself to lose to Kevin Rogers: Lady's Island resident, recently anointed state chess champion and 4-year-old.
A few quick facts: Kevin attends Alpha Christian Child Development Center on St. Helena Island and weighs about 40 pounds, according to his father, Darrin Rogers. He stands less than four feet on his tiptoes. He is doe-eyed, fidgety and gets bored easily. He and two godbrothers from Okatie started a chess team called the "Knight Raiders," and they have official-looking T-shirts that are gold and black.
Apart from chess, he loves golf, football and basketball. When asked what his favorite TV show is, he screams, "Golf!" When asked why he likes to play chess so much, he silently points across his kitchen table to a grouping of several trophies and yells, "It's right there: trophies!"
At the 2008 Scholastic Championships in Columbia in March, Kevin Rogers took first among kindergartners, winning two out of five games, including several against children in grades above him -- not bad for someone who played his first game of chess in November.
Kevin got a trophy. He was essentially named the best kindergartner in the state. The Beaufort County Council commended him and gave him a plaque the size of his head earlier this month. He doesn't say much about it, but it couldn't have been less than spectacular.
"He actually makes my game better," Darrin said. "I give him something, and if he excels at it, I give him something else."
He was bouncing in his chair at the kitchen table Wednesday, playing chess with his father, Darrin Rogers. Early in the game, he moved his queen to a fatal position, immediately recognized his error and tried to move back. His father stopped him.
"I ain't cutting you no slack," he said.
Kevin smiled.
He was fresh from the U.S. Chess Federation's championship in Pittsburgh for students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, about 2,100 kids. In short, it was an experience. He placed 169 out of 247 in a division for children between pre-kindergarten and first grade, and it was his first appearance in a national tournament.
The tournament is no joke. The first sentence of a federation press release about the Pittsburgh tournament reads as follows: "What national chess tournament demonstrates unrelenting stress, uncontrollable joy, and players that cry and fall asleep at the board?"
A photo of co-champions from the division for students from kindergarten through third grade shows the winners clutching trophies that are literally taller than they are. The whole thing looks like a gas with kids smiling and playing and parents going nuts with cameras, but tournament play can get wicked serious. More federation coverage of the tournament includes a section subtitled, "A Chess Coach Don't," about an angry coach fuming at one of his children, saying, "You said you gave me 100 percent, and I looked at your game and you lied to me. I want to know what you were thinking about when you weren't giving me 100 percent!"
"Cookies," the child quietly said.
Kevin first encountered this brand of intensity when he sat down to play a first-grader, his father said. Before each game, both players have to sign a sheet that shows which player is using black pieces and which is white. When the game is over, the winner signs the bottom.
When Kevin got to the table, the boy, who was from Texas, had already signed the winner space.
"I'm gonna beat you," he said to Kevin.
When Kevin beat him, he gave his dad a thumbs up. After each win, he busts out his thumbs.
"Every time he came around the corner with thumbs up with a big, Kool-Aid smile," Darrin said.
"I didn't say anything back to him," Kevin said.
"We don't trash talk."
Darrin first noticed Kevin was a chess player when he was teaching his wife, Adrinette, to play in November. At first, he tried to play with her, surprising Adrinette who figured the game was a little too advanced for a pre-kindergartner.
"I said, 'Baby, you can't play this. It's difficult,'" she said. After she left, Kevin leaned forward and showed his dad, a steady chess player since childhood, how the pieces moved, Darrin said. When he had that down, the two started playing. Kevin picked it up quickly after a few games, and each game was more aggressive. Darrin remembered the first time Kevin pushed his king into a corner into checkmate after just a few games.
"I'm like, 'Uh, OK.'"
After that he played Adrinette and Darrin every chance he got.
"After the first couple of weeks, he started beating me. ... I was impressed," Adrinette said. "Then he wanted to play every single day. He would wake up at 7 o'clock on the weekends and run to the chess table and say, 'OK, I want to play.'"
Kevin's rare patience also helps his chess game, said Charliece Capers, owner of Alpha Christian Child Development Center. She remembered two people from Kenya came to the center earlier this week to talk with students, and when the question-and-answer session began, children hollered and waived their hands, trying to ask questions. Kevin sat silently with his hand raised.
"He was very patient. He kind of follows that rule," Capers said. "That's why I think he's so good at chess too: He knows that everyone has a turn and even if it's not his turn, he knows his turn will come. Most (4-year-olds) can't comprehend that."
I eventually beat Kevin at chess but only because my games move at a geriatric pace. Our game was more than an hour long, the longest game he had ever played (and the most embarrassing game I'd ever played). At about the 45-minute marker, he told his father he was worried I was going to cause them to miss their tee time at the local par-3 course.
That stung a bit.
He challenged me again Wednesday. He beat me in about 15 minutes.
We got to talking about chess.
"Why (do) you like it?" Kevin's father said.
"Because it's my game!" Kevin said.
"I know it's your game," he said, laughing.
"I want to go golfing next."
I asked Kevin what he wanted to do with chess, what he wanted to when he grew up.
"UPS!" he shouted.
His father works for the company.
"No, no, you don't want to work for UPS."
"Restaurant cooker?"
Darrin gave in.
"I'll let you be what you want to be now."