Dreaming Of Checkmate.(Society and the Arts)(playing chess in Africa)

Byline: Scott Johnson

Chess is catching on across Africa and beginning to produce some formidable players. Kasparov, beware.

Amon Simutowe learned chess by reading magazines. He was the Zambian national champ by the time he was 14. But a series of dazzling victories at a recent tournament in the Netherlands earned Simutowe, now 25, a permanent place in chess history: he became the first subSaharan African to achieve the notoriously difficult ranking of international grandmaster. At home in his native Lusaka, the local papers exalted in his victory on the front pages.

Chess in America has typically been the reserve of the geeky eccentric, or the rich and effete. But in many parts of Africa, where the game is seen as a powerful tool for intellectual strength and self-improvement, it has developed a broad following. And because chess is so cheap, it is luring players who are just as likely to come from a rural village in Botswana or a South African township as from a European boarding school. Now two homegrown stars -- Simutowe and Zimbabwean Robert Gwaze, who won the African Individual Championships last month and is heading toward becoming a grandmaster -- are leading the way for other African players to break into the ranks of the world's best. "This is the beginning of a real renaissance," says Lewis Ncube, the Zambian vice president of the World Chess Federation. "In time they'll be able to challenge for the top positions in the world."

Christian missionaries first spread chess throughout Africa in the 19th century. But the continent has generally lagged behind in turning out masters -- until now. Since Simutowe first beat British grandmaster Peter Wells in 2000, he has become something of a national hero. He receives hundreds of e-mails from adoring Zambian fans and provides them with daily updates from his tournaments via BlackBerry. Chess now regularly makes the front page of the sports section in The Post of Zambia. And Zambian officials are reportedly considering awarding Simutowe -- who earned degrees in finance and economics while on a chess scholarship at the University of Texas at Dallas -- a diplomatic passport to encourage him to become a global ambassador for African chess. "This is proof that you can come from southern Africa and achieve grandmaster ranking," says Dabilani Buthani, president of the African Chess Union. "It's going to be a boom."

Perhaps. There are lots of ...