Philanthropist millionaires Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield spent $61,000 to buy the chess library of the legendary Bobby Fischer, including notebooks he prepared for his 1972 World Championship match with Boris Spassky.

The Sinquefields acquired the collection through San Francisco-based auction house, Bonhams and Butterfields.

“I am thrilled to have this collection from arguably the greatest chess player in history,” said Rex Sinquefield, founder and board president of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, in a statement. “I have been a lifelong fan of Bobby Fischer.”

The reclusive Fischer died in 2008 at 64. The collection purchased by the Sinquefields includes 320 books on chess; about 400 issues of chess-related periodicals; three sets of proofs for Fischer’s 1969 book, “My 60 Memorable Games”; and a number of bound volumes detailing the match histories of several chess masters, including Spassky.

The Spassky-related works center on Fischer’s preparation for his historic 1972 match, won by Fischer. The victory ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship.

The collection also includes a copy of “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess,” with a note indicating that Fischer planned on suing the publishers.

Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, who are retired investment company executives, said they weren’t yet sure of their plans for the Fischer collection.

St. Louis native Rex Sinquefield did influential research on historical stock market returns and pioneered many of the nation’s first index funds. He and his wife’s Sinquefield Charitable Foundation in Osage County supports organizations that enhance music, children, art and education.

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center was founded in 2007 with funding from the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation. It recently hosted the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship, which was won by Hikaru Nakamura. The center also will host the 2009 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship from Oct. 2-12.
© 2009 American City Business Journals, Inc.

FROM: http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/mobile/stories/2009/06/08/daily58.html?ed=2009-06-12&ana=e_du_pub

Saint Louis, May 13, 2009 — After five rounds of the U.S. Chess Championship, Michael Brooks of Kansas City, Mo., has an impressive three points, putting him just one point out of first place. Brooks, of Kansas City, has defeated two grandmasters with ratings higher than 2600, including the seventh- and 15th-ranked players in the country.

Brooks went into the tournament with a rating of 2423. In addition to the two wins, he also has two draws. His only loss came in the first round to Jaan Ehlvest of Baltimore, the 11th-ranked player in the country with a 2649 rating.

If Brooks continues to rack up points, his rating is sure to climb.

“If he finishes the tournament with a performance rating still over 2,600 he will get one of the three norms required to attain the grandmaster title,” said Jim Voelker, a board member of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, which is hosting the championship. “I don’t think there has ever been a grandmaster from Missouri.”

Round 6 of the nine-round championship is today. The tournament concludes Sunday.

For a live update of tournament play on Twitter, go to www.twitter.com/ccscsl. Results of all matches are available at www.saintlouischessclub.org.

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis opened in July 2008, and has over 500 members. The club also will host the 2009 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship from October 2-12.

For more information contact:
Laura Slay, Slay and Associates
314-504-0081 or lslay@slayandassociates.com
or
Jack Naudi, Slay and Associates
636-751-4965 or jnaudi@slayandassociates.com

Photos from the first two rounds of play are available below:

Round 1 Photos

Round 2 Photos

Left to Right:  Rex Sinquefield, Todd Worrell, Aeneas Williams, Tony Rich

They called him one of the best closers of all time in St. Louis Cardinals history.  But today, his opening game was hard enough – on the chess board.

Over his major league baseball career as a hard-throwing reliever, Todd Worrell has pitched over 256 saves.  Today, celebrating the opening of the U.S. Chess Championship, Worrell came out of the bull-pen with his aggressive, high-speed burners.  However, this time it was a bishop screaming off the mound.

KSDK Sports Team Katie Felts with Aeneas on Chess

The defender, however, was no ordinary opponent.  NFL St. Louis Rams legend Aeneas Williams made a name for himself with 12 defensive touchdowns and 55 career interceptions.

Yet the four time All-Pro cornerback and free safety acknowledges that improving his chess game involves the a lot of mental determination.  The athletes’ genuine sense of competition was evident as Rex Sinquefield and Tony Rich coached them through the moves that Grand Masters make.

KSDK Interviews Chess Club Founder Rex Sinquefield

This weekend, KSDK Sports Team Katie Felts features more about the often under-estimated sport of chess.

Another passion of both Worrell and Williams is philanthropy in St. Louis.  Todd Worrell has been an engaged board member of the Greater St. Louis Fellowship for Christian Athletes for over 14 years.  Aeneas Williams dedicates his service to his Spirit of the Lord Family Church and public appearances across a wide variety of charities.

KSDK at the chess plate with Todd Worrell

Lest you think that professional chess is only for the professionals, meet 10 year old Margaret Hua.  Already one of the highest ranked chess players in the US, Margaret is shattering old molds of what it takes to be the best in St. Louis.  KETC Living St. Louis Producer Ruth Ezell offers visitors an insider’s look at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.

For up to the minute twitter news on the ten day competition, follow www.twitter.com/ccscsl

The challenge was as bold as taking on a chess grand master inside the Chess Club & Scholastic Center of St. Louis.  In less than three hours, can community leaders and volunteers paint an entire St. Louis Metro bus with the look, feel, and brand of the Chess Club’s fine work?

First, we have to give credit where credit is due.  Laying out a clear design for an entire bus wall isn’t a slam dunk.  That’s why we depended upon Susan Barrett and her leadership with Arts in Transit to provide a great design layout.  With the design in hand (picture of challenge), now comes the painting.

Maybe it was the flurry of young chess players that came to the Club parking lot to support their club.  Maybe it was the parents joining in with their paint brushes.  Maybe it was some of our hard-working advocates at Pelopidas that displayed their hidden art talent.  (picture of Emily and Sean here, and Travis Glaspie pic)

All that I know is that, in less than two hours, St. Louis’ first Metro Arts in Transit (AIT) bus dedicated to chess outreach was moving close to completion.  We didn’t even have time to polish off the rice krispie treats (add joi and Karen pic) before the paint was drying, and chess games were resuming.

Checkmate on a great philanthropy.  Once the bus design is fine-tuned, this design will traverse our Greater St. Louis community for at least a year.   Since its inception in 1986, AIT has completed more than 150 public art projects, installations, and community enhancements.  Attached below are more photos of the bus sides as they developed.

In less than a year since its opening, what an impact the Chess Club & Scholastic Center of St. Louis is making.  This community charity reminds us that we don’t stop playing as we grow old.  We grow old when we stop playing.

Best of luck ahead with the 2009 US Championship!

[pro-player type="MP3"]http://www.pelopidas.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/rexchessclubkmox3.mp3[/pro-player]

By AL Lawrence

Rex Sinquefield

Most of the fun has gone out of reading about the super-rich. “Wall Street versus Main Street” is a constant media mantra. We’re shown fund managers and investment bankers perp-walking or being grilled by a congressional subcommittee, shaming the greedy traders who brought all of us down with their short-term get-rich schemes.

There are understandable reasons for this billionaire-bashing. But Rex Sinquefield is a different kind of “Wall Street” success. And neither short-term nor greed are words that apply. He made his millions by founding a Santa Monica firm that structured solid, long-term investments in real companies. Now in retirement, he’s giving back big-time to his native Saint Louis—and is sponsoring his lifelong passion, chess.

A life right out of Dickens
Even the fortunate flush now roll only half as high as they did in mid-2007. Many American companies, facing the cycle of downturns and layoffs and further downturns, are shrinking from charitable contributions. In this context, chess benefactor Rex Sinquefield is remarkable. Truth is, Rex would be pretty remarkable in any context. In fact, Charles Dickens would have loved to write Sinquefield’s life story, which features the kind of tear-jerking life-challenges the novelist loved—a cleft palate, life in an orphanage, a difficult personal choice between the Church and business, and a broken back—just to list a few. Not to mention the rags-to-riches resolution.

Following his father’s death, little Rex moved from his protective home and family, a seven-year-old’s whole world, to a crowded, nun-strict orphanage in the northwest St. Louis suburb of Normandy. Some rise to meet adversity. Young Rex flourished, especially in competitive contexts, covering any personal pain with wisecracks and grins, not tears. Deciding early to become a priest but always interested in the stock market, he entered the seminary owning $200 of stock in Great Northern Paper. Three years later, he changed course, majoring in philosophy and business at St. Louis University.

After a hitch in the Vietnam-era army, he enrolled in the University of Chicago’s MBA program, where he studied under, among others, future Nobel Laureate Merton Miller. Rex went on in 1973 to pioneer the first passively managed indexing S&P 500 fund. An “index” fund is set up to reflect, not to try to out-perform, the market in general. It’s “passive” because an investor lets his savings ride—resisting the urge to constantly churn and change his picks. Thus he avoids the risks of guessing at the future fluctuations of individual corporations. The idea is, in a way, the opposite of the overly sophisticated and risky investment approaches often blamed for our current financial problems. Indexing funds became a staple for the growing sector of middleclass investors who had their own, non-financial jobs to worry about and wanted their savings to grow long-term—at the same time, the billions in funds provided a dependable source of working capital to American companies.

In 1981, Rex co-founded and, with his wife Jeanne, a Ph.D. in economics, ran his own company, Dimensional Fund Advisors. When he retired in 2005, he had helped many others to make money—and had made a lot himself. Now he is an important and eclectic benefactor—of the St. Louis Opera Theatre, its art museum, symphony, botanical gardens, and numerous other charitable causes. But his passion is chess. And that passion brought Wall Street to Main Street in St. Louis.

Sinquefield is a real chess enthusiast. He told me that once, years ago, he was on a trans-Pacific flight that happened to also be carrying Bobby Fischer and then-FIDE-president Florencio Campomanes. Rex instantly recognized Fischer, but Campo warned Sinquefield that Bobby was in a foul mood, not even talking to his traveling partner. “But you can try,” Campo said. Even when faced with the force that cracked the biggest egos, Sinquefield couldn’t pass up an opportunity to meet the greatest ever, and he knew his audience. He stopped by Fischer’s seat. “I hope you beat those commies,” he told Fischer. The champ came out of his pout. “I will,” Bobby said.

Rex Sinquefield, playing the Sicilian in a simul game against Jennifer Shahade. World Youth representative Margaret Hua looks on.

[to see a recent game, go here]

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis

During a break from the recent Mid America Open, I went, with my longtime buddy, Nebraska chess-expert Gary Colvin, to visit the new club that Rex Sinquefield sponsors. I admit it was a bittersweet and sentimental journey. After catching chess fever while a sophomore at the University of Missouri, I joined the old Capablanca Chess Club, in the St. Louis suburbs. A key-club (adult members could enter the club any time of the day or night—a sensible arrangement in the three-shift industrial city that St. Louis was in the 1970s), the “Capa” Club served as an incubator of Midwest chess, nurturing a number of then-rare Missouri experts and masters. But when the Fischer bubble burst, the Capa club, like other chess clubs across America—after expanding into bigger and fancier quarters when Fischer beat Spassky—had to shutter its doors when Bobby refused to play again.

Not your grandfather’s chess club

The new club was organized in 2007 as a nonprofit organization, dedicated to introducing thousands of St. Louis children and adults to the benefits of chess, and to supporting existing school chess programs while encouraging new programs within the regular school curricula. Already the club has attracted more than 500 members and has been written about in both chess and non-chess media.

Since my familiarity with the St. Louis’ roadways peaked 35 years ago, I had to use my Verizon’s phone navigator to find the club’s address: 4657 Maryland Avenue, just east of the intersection of Euclid and Maryland. My first shock came on hearing the fembot-voice tell us “Your destination is ahead on the left.” The old Capa Club occupied the second story of a car dealership on a main but definitely unromantic intersection, across Big Bend Avenue from a White Castle and across Manchester from a Jack in the Box. (Did the side effects of those wee-hour junk-food forays keep me and my old gang from making norms?)

Outside the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis

But now Gary and I found ourselves in a trendy dining section of St. Louis. In the unseasonably warm weather, couples were drinking lattes and families were snacking under umbrellas along the fashionable street. We could have been in Pasadena along the row of clubs on Colorado Boulevard, at the outdoor restaurants across from Lincoln Center on New York City’s Broadway, or walking along the bilingual bistros on the sidewalks along Sunset Drive in South Miami. No car dealership, no Jack in the Box. Could there really be a chess club here?

Out of the car and strolling down the café-lined avenue, seeing the restaurant tables change to stone chess benches with green-and-beige board tops, we knew we had arrived. But we had trouble accepting that a chess club—in a well appointed, two-story building of its own—was in the middle of this block of obviously prime real estate.

Once inside, we saw that chessboard had met boardroom. The worn chairs and cigar-stained tables of the old Capa Club were nowhere to be seen. If James Bond and Donald Trump were going to play some serious chess, this would be the place. The pictures tell the story.

Club executive director Tony Rich, who looks as if he runs a fitness center, not a chess club, heads a truly professional staff. We were given a friendly greeting at the reception desk (really, a reception desk!), and a tour of the three-level facility—the two above-ground floors and a lower level that features a small kitchen, lounge area, and a classroom for teaching chess. There are flat-screen monitors throughout the facility and even monitors available to show the outside passers-by the tournament action happening inside.

And there will be lots to show them this year. In May the site will host the U.S. Championship , and in October, the U.S. Women’s Championship. Meanwhile, there’s a full calendar of regional events as well, for both beginners and experienced tournament players.

I’m already making plans to be at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis in May. Check out the schedule of events here. I know a lot of us will be visiting this new and unique chess destination in upcoming years to see some of the most important chess events in North America.