NON-STOP CHESS: SOUTHEAST MISSOURI CHESS CLUB PRESENTS EXPO SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

Chess has an image problem. People think it's a game for boring nerds when in fact it holds many possibilities for fun and spontaneity, says John Elfrink, a member of the Southeast Missouri Chess Club.

Saturday and Sunday, for instance, United States Chess Federation-rated experts Waldo Odak and Jim Musumeci, who are from St. Louis and Carbondale, Ill., respectively, will play eight games at once against all comers. The games of Simultaneous Chess will be part of the Chess Expo the club is sponsoring at the West Park Mall.

Beginning at 3 p.m. each day, members of the club will offer free lessons and demonstrations of variations on the game. Other games include Speed Chess, which is played with a short time limit, and Bughouse, a game played by two-member teams.

"There are a lot of blunders and mistakes" in Speed Chess, Elfrink says. "It's a lot more relaxed and friendly."

Kreiegspeel is a game played with each player on a separate board and only able to see their own moves. Members of the club may even participate in a game called Blindfold Chess, which is played the way it sounds.

The club grew out of a group of chess players who met regularly at Barnes & Noble for about a year. The Southeast Missouri club was just sanctioned by the USCF and hopes the expo will help it attract new members.

"We are letting people know we are an affiliate now," Elfrink said.

A public tournament will be held throughout the weekend, with the winner receiving a free one-year membership to the USCF. Participants are asked to bring their own chess sets.

Playing chess has nothing to do with how smart you are, Elfrink says.

"It's the ability to recognize patterns. In playing a game of chess, you might not have seen an exact situation before but you've seen a situation similar to it."

"You can draw on previous examples and learn enough to make an educated guess," he says.

One of the club's goals is to help start chess clubs at the local high schools. Nearly 5,000 chess players from across the nation attended the National Scholastic Championships last month in Knoxville, Tenn., Elfrink said.