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Toms River Chess Club: Never Boring!
A legendary New Jersey club re-emerges in its 50th year. By PETE TAMBURRO
Former World Champions Tigran Petrosian, Mikhail Tal, and Mikhail Botvinnik (l-r), just some of the visitors to the Tom Rivers Chess Club over the years that have made the south Jersey chess gathering spot such an interesting venue for its players.
THE CLUB WAS DOWN TO TWO PEOPLE showing up one night not so long ago. The Toms River Chess Club in south Jer- sey was on the ropes. Were they going to join a long list of expired clubs? Had the Internet killed off this club, too? That would be a shame. Founded in 1964
as a small group meeting at the town hall, it developed into an extraordinarily suc- cessful membership of over 200 members. Mikhail Botvinnik made his only public
lecture there. Reuben Fine also gave a talk and played a blindfold game at the same time (he lost to a club member). The simul- taneous exhibitions they sponsored at tract ed players from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York as the people giving them were legends: Arthur Bisguier, Anatoly Lein, William Lombardy, Roman Dzindzichashvili, Andy Soltis, Viktor Korchnoi, Tigran Pet- rosian, Walter Browne, Boris Spassky, Leonid Shamkovich, Ron Henley, Lev Alburt, Samuel Reshevsky, Larry Christiansen, John Collins, Joel Benjamin, “Belle” the computer and Anatoly Karpov. The “fish” playing these fellows nicked
this group for 35 losses, so it was no picnic showing up in this remote location. One memorable moment was the Karpov exhi- bition where a little kid had Karpov busted. The grandmaster (GM) offered him a draw, which seemed to more than a few a bit on the unsportsmanlike side. The boy politely declined the offer to Karpov’s sur-
10 November 2014 | Chess Life
prise. A little while later young future IM, Dean Ippolito, blundered. There was no draw offer forthcoming from the GM. How did this club get all these stars of
chess? Another young fellow of twelve, Steve Doyle, walked into the Toms River Chess Club and handed Pete Tamburro his money for a membership in the New Jersey State Chess Federation. Steve Doyle then went on to become the impresario of chess in New Jersey. Even at a young age, the boy and, later, young man, had a knack for pulling things off—like a Fine and Botvinnik, not to mention the others. As many people learned while waiting for Kasparov to show up at the U.S. Amateur Team East, Steve has a seemingly endless store of funny stories about the greats. This writer’s favorite is Steve recounting
his taking Tal down to Atlantic City. Tal, fresh with winnings (in cash) from a tour- nament put it all on the roulette table and started winning and winning and winning ... Steve desperately tried to have him save half as he won, but to no avail. Eventually, Tal lost everything, yet reacted as though he had dropped a penny on the sidewalk. However, Doyle was more than some-
one who could talk a great player into visiting. The real secret was the varied activities of the club, and something was always happening. There were “annual activities” (a list courtesy of Steve) such as the annual club
tournament, the annual fall tournament, county championship, junior and senior championship, monthly quads and a club ladder tournament. The club would con- tact local businesses to provide prizes, which were diverse items such as booze, books, clothes, watches, clocks, sets and such. Then, they would have a club bar- becue and celebrate. If that weren’t enough for anyone’s year,
there would be non-rated 30/30 tourna- ments, five minute tournaments, consul ta - tion games, gambit tournaments, swap nights (trade your chess goodies for some- one else’s chess items), league play, chess lessons, problem solving contests (the inter- nationally famous two-move chess com - pos er Bob Lincoln was a member), surprise parties, Las Vegas dice chess, kriegspiel, losing chess, open houses, a warm-up tournament for the rated event, chess-a- thon, exhibitions in libraries and malls, volunteering to go to rehab facilities to play with the patients. You were never bored! The most dra-
matic “other” activity was the famous Westfield Chess Club (WCC) versus Toms River Chess Club (TRCC) match of 15 boards in 1975. Westfield was heavily favored, but TRCC came away with a moral victory by drawing the match. A good many high school players were enjoying the fun at the club and the Toms River high schools started winning everything in sight.
ALL PHOTOS FROM WIKIPEDIA AND WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; CARISSA YIP COURTESY OF FAMILY
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