The following letter to the Editor was not published in the
Washington Post.

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Chess Cultivates the Mind

						October 20, 1998

To the Editor:

Charles Krauthammer's opinion "The Tyranny of Chess" (Oct 16) unfairly
discredits chess and its enthusiasts by drawing false generalizations
from the behavior of a single fanatic in the Russian Republic of
Kalmykia.

The millions spent by Kirson Ilyumzhinov for his "Chess Palace" pale in
comparison to the hundreds of millions of tax-payer dollars squandered
in the DC-Baltimore area on football stadiums, baseball parks, and
horse-racing tracks.  Krauthammer ridicules cultivating young minds
through teaching the challenging intellectual sport of chess in school
and on TV, yet he is mute to our promotion of brutality through
prime-time boxing, football, and ultimate fighting.

If Krauthammer spent a day with instructors from the U.S. Chess Center
in Washington, DC, he would witness firsthand how chess develops
academic skills, builds self-confidence, and provides a constructive
alternative to drugs and violence in area schools.

I invite Krauthammer to visit the UMBC Chess Club to meet some of our
well-rounded chess-player scholars, including the legendary William
"The Exterminator" Morrison, who teaches Baltimore youth how to play
the game and was the basis, in part, for the park chess player in the
movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer."

Let's make sure our own sporting, educational, political, and economic
affairs are in order before casting pawns at a distant miscreant and his
twisted passion for a noble game.

Sincerely,

Dr. Alan T. Sherman,
Associate Professor of Computer Science, and
  Faculty Advisor, UMBC Chess Club
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

FYI: On October 21, International Grandmaster Alexander Shabalov
(highest rated player in the USA and member of the USA Olympiad Team)
will analyze recent results from the 1998 Chess Olympiads in Kalmykia.
Shabalov's talk begins at 8:15 p.m. See www.umbc.edu/chess for more
information.