Chess is like the moves we make in life

Harlem Street Chess from Makkada Selah on Vimeo.

Harlem Street Chess Targets Youth
By Makkada Selah on Dec 12th, 2010

Across from the Apollo Theater on 125^th Street, a group of chess players regularly hosts a sidewalk match.

Vincent Holland, 49, is a substance abuse counselor, spending one of his two days off playing chess.

Holland learned the game in the Tombs in lower Manhattan, where inmates are held before they go to court. He was 28; the inmate who taught him was much older. After six weeks of playing chess, the game’s reflective nature and his positive interaction with an older man helped Holland focus. He soon got out of jail, now works full-time and hopes to replicate his chess rehabilitation process for young people he meets here on 125^th Street.

“We get a lot of youth that are in trouble,” says Holland. “And they’ll stop and check the game out, and we get to say a lot of good things to them.”

Tehuti, 44, frequents the chess table too, and often lectures young men passing by. He, too, learned to play chess in prison, and says it helped him to acquire a cool head and to process his feelings in a healthy way.

“Playing chess teaches you patience, and you have to be a thinker,” Tehuti says. “Chess is about strategizing and thinking ahead. If you try to play with emotion, nine times out of 10 you’ll keep losing the game. You have to use the equation of I over E, you have to put your intelligence over your emotions. You have to calm yourself down and look at that board.

“And don’t be so close up on the board, either. Back up and be able to see the board, so you can see all the angles. Because if you look at the game esoterically or allegorically, chess is like the moves we make in life.”

Source: http://theuptowner.org

$500,000 chess grant

Lame duck's golden eggs
By James M. Odato Capitol Bureau
Published: 06:00 a.m., Monday, December 6, 2010

ALBANY -- Even as he urged lawmakers to help him cut spending, Gov. David Paterson last week quietly authorized $16.7 million in grants from a fund he controls -- to pay for chess tournaments in New York City...

...The grants are well above traditional amounts some of the recipients usually receive from the state -- such as the $500,000 for Chess-in-the-Schools Inc. for schools in New York City. It helps pay for chess competitions and supplies as well as programs to encourage college enrollment.

Source: http://www.timesunion.com

Taxpayers are getting rooked

Charity queen's king's ransom
By HEATHER HADDON and JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Last Updated: 6:37 AM, November 28, 2010
Posted: 12:44 AM, November 28, 2010

Taxpayers are getting rooked.

A high-society charity that funds chess programs in poor schools has become a gold mine for its executive director, a former Wall Streeter who pulls down a $244,000 salary, and its treasurer, who helps run a mutual fund that handled millions in the program's investments.

In 1994, Marley Kaplan, 61, left the investment-banking world to be a do-gooder at Chess-in-the-Schools, which teaches children the game.

At the time, she was heralded in media profiles for giving up her six-figure salary for a job that paid a meager $25,000. "[She] did not have a wealthy husband or any family money to make up the difference," one story gushed.

But quietly, her annual salary leaped, including a $100,000 raise between 2007 and 2008, financial records show.

"That seems quite dramatic," said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing for watchdog group Charity Navigator.

Kaplan's kingly compensation is double the $120,000 that chiefs of similar-sized nonprofits in the Northeast receive, according to Charity Navigator.

The chess group's former development vice president pulled down $164,000 and its head administrator raked in nearly $100,000, according to financial records.

...In addition to the salaries, the nonprofit spent $104,000 on "investment advisory fees" last year, according to its financial statement.

Of the $7.7 million it invested -- taxpayer money and donations -- nearly half was moved into a mutual fund run by Blackstone Partners, the firm where Robert Friedman, the nonprofit board's treasurer, is a managing director.

He sat on the board's finance committee when the shares were bought.

Charity watchdogs said such a move is a no-no. "[Board members] need to be absolutely objective in that role," said Bennett Weiner of the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, a watchdog group.

And the investments backfired, with the Chess-in-the-Schools group losing nearly $2 million last year, according to financial records.

Here is the full article.