HER face gives away nothing. With quiet precision and barely a flicker of her eyes, she moves a piece across the board, stops, and utters the two-syllable word that players dread the most - checkmate!
Amahle Zenzile, a pupil from Imbasa Primary School in Old Crossroads, is only 11 years old but, according to her coach at Crossroads Chess Club, she plays like a seasoned champion.
“Her aptitude to chess is unmatched,” says Thando Hlakula, who teaches her for free. “The progress she has made in a very short space of time is quite remarkable.”
His chess protégée, who lives with her grandmother, has won a number of gold and silver medals and is ranked second-best player in the Western Cape and fifth in her category in South Africa.
Recently awarded her South African colours for chess, Amahle has been invited to represent the country at the African Youth Chess Tournament in Namibia from December 14 to 22.
To all of this, she says, simply: “I always try my best and there are many people helping me.”
But more than just a bright kid, she represents a growing number of pupils who have taken to the chess board like ducks to water.
“It’s exciting to see the enthusiasm in young people for the game of chess”, says Reon Hunter, acting principal of Delft Primary School and chairperson of the Western Province Schools’ Committee.
An ardent chess player, Hunter believes every child should have the opportunity to play, whether in a club or at school. “It teaches you many things, from discipline to concentration. It encourages strong and lasting friendship and good gamesmanship.
“We have so many bad things that happen in our areas, like crime and gangsterism. If we could get kids hooked on chess from an early age, it would solve many social problems. I really believe that. We know children who play chess do better at school and have a better understanding of how to study, how to solve problems and tackle difficult issues.”
Hunter adds that he has had first-hand experience of watching “no hope” children with poor school records blossom and
succeed by learning to play chess.
“It’s unbelievable, the transformation. When people meet these learners later, often in tertiary education, they can’t believe it is the same person,” he says.
“Our mission is to ensure that every child who can’t pay for a chess set or tuition must be able to play at all costs,” says a Creative Chess Equipment spokesperson. “The aim is to organise schools’ chess tournaments efficiently, to make chess tournaments accessible and affordable for less privileged communities and to use chess as a tool in the battle against crime and antisocial behaviour.”
Health-fitness revolutionary and author of ReSYNC Your Life, Samir Becic takes a more scientific approach. “Games like chess that challenge the brain stimulate the growth of dendrites, the bodies that send out signals from the brain’s neuron cells. With more dendrites, neural communication within the brain improves and becomes faster.
“Think of your brain like a computer processor. The tree-like branches of dendrites fire signals that communicate to other neurons, which make that computer processor operate at a fast, optimal state. Interaction with people in challenging activities also fuels dendrite growth, and chess is a perfect example,” Becic says.
Studies also show that chess provides numerous other benefits to our brains. Pieces move in different directions, which can fine-tune motor skills, while the mental effort can improve cognitive and communication skills, which is particularly effective in stroke or brain injury recovery.
And not only the young benefit from the game. A recent study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that people over the age of 75 who engage in brain-games like chess are less likely to develop dementia than their non-board game-playing peers.
You might not get to the level of grandmaster Bobby Fischer, who made it famous in the 1950s and 1960s, but your brain will be a winner.