Chess

Black wants a draw and hopes for 1.Qa2 Stalemate to end his agony in an almost hopeless position against two White queens. Gary Hooper, Maine Junior High School Chess Champion, finds a better move as White.

Portland’s chess club meets Friday nights at the Forest Avenue YMCA, Bangor’s Thursday evenings at the University of Maine Library, Lynch Room, Hancock County’s Acadia Chess Club meets at the First Congregational Church in Ellsworth on Friday evenings and on Thursday evenings at the MDI Hospital cafeteria, Bar Harbor.

Meetings of all clubs start at 7 p.m. and visitors are always welcome. At the Acadia Chess Club, Steve Votey, founder and president, will help newcomers, who soon may find themselves absorbed in the play. Votey was named Maine’s Chess Organizer of the Year by the Maine Chess Association and is one of the most active organizers in the state.

The Down East Chess League will hold its first meeting at 7 p.m. Friday, April 19, at the First Congregational Church in Ellsworth. The club will have a summer-long preliminary season after which there will be its first official season in the early fall. Five-man teams will be graded from strongest to weakest.

“Downeast” is not always well defined and the Portland club attracts New England players to its Downeast Open each June or July. In Bangor, Downeast starts somewhere around the Machias River, but on that river they talk of New Brunswick as being Downeast.

Perhaps Downeast is a state of mind. The people of Boston are downeast of New York and New York is downeast of Cape May, N.J. In any event, all are welcome to the opening, April 19.

Solution: Gary played 1.Qa8-h1+ Checkmate!! and the game was over. He had looked at 1.Qa2 but took time to discover that White would be stalemated. He looked at 1.Qxh5, which would eliminate Black’s last pawn, but saw 1…Kxg3 and hunted for a better move. He then looked at 1.Qf3, which protectd the g3 pawn. Remembering to hunt for a “better move,” he then found the one. It is by carefully looking that Gary Hooper became Maine Junior High School Chess Champion.