Transcript
Hey, my name is Michael Propper, and I’m a co-director and principal of ChessNYC. As a child I didn’t get an opportunity to play chess, and it was a very uninteresting game for me.
In the 70s mostly you may or may not know Bobby Fischer, the only World Champion ever in the history of the United States, was playing a fellow who was supposed to win from the USSR, Boris Spassky, and I couldn’t help but noticing these games were taking days to finish. And for love nor money you couldn’t have gotten me to play a game that took days to finish. You need nine innings or four quarters or three periods or I’m not interested.
So as a result I never really had the opportunity to play chess as a child, and my perception of the game and perception of reality is that it was a boring, dull, slow old game, and the people that played it looked equally boring and dull. So I never went near the game at all.
As an adult I came across the game of chess. What I learned was that it was a great game. It was heart pounding, adrenaline flowing game that most people don’t just get the opportunity to learn about because they don’t gain a relationship with it. What I kind of discovered was that the chess community for many, many, many years was almost arrogant and didn’t permit the game. They tried what we called chessify America here at ChessNYC, and we take a different approach.
We try to Americanize the game of chess so that it fits more into our schedule that we enjoy doing here, and at ChessNYC.com I’m very pleased and proud that we’re now in about 80 different school classes and have several thousand students. And we are changing the perception of chess in New York City.
The videos that you just watched are just a few of our passionate coaches introducing you to aspects of the game so you can get the opportunity to find out exactly how great the game of chess is. I missed chess for many, many years. I’m not missing it any more. I hope you enjoyed the sessions, and I hope it gave you an opportunity to decide if you want to play the game and learn really how to do it.
Our website is ChessNYC.com. You can e-mail us at [email protected]. Our telephone number is 212-475-8130, and I personally promise you that if you decide to take on the game of chess we’re going to fire you up on a level that you never thought existed within the game.
