Chess Team Trying to Keep Making the Right Moves

In less than three years, the Reseda High School chess team went from a group of novice players passing time during lunch to one of the best teams in the state, and the members are optimistic that their winning streak will continue today at the Super National High School Chess Tournament in Tennessee.

The “Four Knights of the Apocalypse,” as they refer to themselves, knew only the basics of the game before 1994 when math teacher Nowshad Monishi cast about on campus to form a chess club.

“I wanted to have students do something positive and creative during the lunch hour,” Monishi said. “I didn’t think it would lead to this. It was their desire that got them here.”

The boys, Richard Majchrowicz, 16, Jeff Mickleson, 17, and twin brothers Pavel and Yan Shainsky, 17, proved to be the most talented and dedicated of those students who play at school.

That dedication took them to third place in the Los Angeles Unified School District competition in 1996, and to first place in the 1997 California State High School Championship Tournament.

“Chess is a game of strategy, a game of your mind,” Majchrowicz said. “It teaches you a lot of concentration. It’s a lot like war. You have to have an imagination, and when you use it, it becomes a battle.”

The state champion Reseda team almost lost a chance to participate in the national tournament because it was not the L.A. Unified champ and the district wanted to send only last semester’s top school, Fairfax High School.

Monishi pleaded Reseda’s case and the district relented, agreeing to send both to compete today. Joining them will be a team from Monroe High School in North Hills, which won the L.A. Unified competition this semester.

No matter how it turns out this week, the team members--all students of the Reseda Environmental Physical Science Magnet School--said above all, they are having fun.

“At our level we’re not playing for money, so what else can it be?” Yan Shainsky asked.