Mr Young's Room

When I look back on it now, I have to feel a little bit sorry for the guy. I mean, he had to teach all us clowns throughout the day...and they wouldn't even let him have lunch by himself! :D

Anyway, Mr Young was from Brooklyn (just like Bobby Fischer!). And he was chiefly known (at least in our circles) for his advocacy of the Mr Young Defense. This consisted of 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 h6.

We all assumed--since most everything was still done in descriptive notation back then--that he must've at some point misread P-QR3 as P-KR3. All of which was a dandy theory...except that he played 3... h6 against 3 Bc4 too. :)

Several of us would gather outside that classroom daily, waiting for Mr Young's 4th period to let out. Then we were free to invade.

You and your opponent would turn the desks around so that their backs were facing each other. Then you'd put the board half on one, half on the other; all of which made the game seem more like a collaboration than usual (especially since neither of you could shift around too much in your seats during the contest).

You'd play for the half-hour lunchtime session (however many moves you could get in during it, if it was something important like a tournament game). Then it was time for yet another "adjournment."

There was a whole mess of dittoed pages like chessboards kept on Mr Young's desk (just a purple grid--no checkering tints), and you'd write down the position so you could take it home for study (all the Black pieces would have circles drawn around them to distinguish them from White). Often right after taking a whiff of the dittos whenever they were hot off the press (just like in that scene from The Wonder Years). ;)

Several of us also had Ms Sanders (although it may still have been Miss back then!) for Algebra fifth period, so we'd be passing these gridded diagrams back and forth (with huge tangles of arrows outlining all our intended continuations)...and just hoping that Ms S wasn't too put out by our flurries of activity.

Chess teams usually have four boards; and by some miracle, that worked out exactly right for our team that year. Our top four were probably C players (and maybe on a good day reaching into the 1600s); anyway, we were clearly much better than everyone else. Another oddity was that there was a senior, junior, sophomore and freshman (me) on the team.

We even managed to have a double round robin that spring for the school championship!

Our top board Kevin (the junior) was pretty loud, obnoxious and arrogant. He was far from the only guy at the chess club like that naturally; but what we found most difficult to take about him was that he generally managed to beat the rest of us.

Everybody on those top 4 boards eventually got a USCF Expert rating (and a couple of us even made master). Still, it's arguable that the most talented guy in the club was named Cappe; and I'm not even sure that he played chess.

What he mainly did--and consummately well (aptly enough too, considering his name!)--was to stack pieces. Seriously. You'd take a little clump of 3 pawns (I think it was) and nestle them on top of a queen. Then you'd keep on going with it. Ever upward!

Most anybody could manage 3 stacks eventually (if they practiced long enough). Cappe however could do 4 of em with ease; and I'm pretty sure that on at least one occasion he managed 5.

Bear in mind too that Cappe wasn't much more than 3 feet tall...and you had to be very careful with (or in) the desk, lest you pitch the whole business off onto the floor by mistake. :)