“CHEKM8”

Publish Date: 2/1/2010

Chess enthusiasts geeked up over annual tourney

By Tom Hacker
Loveland Reporter-Herald

Among the odd couples who sat at tables facing one another at The Ranch on Sunday, one of the oddest was a slight 12-year-old boy and a barrel-chested man, 60-something, with a tangle of white hair.

Neither was able to speak, since they were locked in a chess duel that each expected might last three hours. Nabil Spann, 12, and Ed Cronin, age approximate, were among 46 players who gathered for the weekend-long Loveland Open Chess Tournament, an event sponsored by the Loveland Chess Club that’s in its 37th year.

A geeky game, chess. The players will tell you so. Even the event organizer, Randy Reynolds, wears his geekdom as a badge of honor.

“Yeah, I guess I would say it’s sort of a geek thing,” Reynolds said.

He is an electrical engineer at Intel Corp. in Fort Collins. He is wearing a T-shirt that says, “Chess Rocks.” He drives a Toyota Matrix with a vanity plate that reads “CHEKM8.”

Here is the full article.