CHECK MATES

CHECK

MATES

By Tara Ryazansky

Photos by Max Ryazansky

Carsten Hansen has competed in professional chess tournaments all over the world, across Europe and the former Soviet Union as a World Chess Federation Master level player. Today he stares down a very different opponent. On the other side of the board is a kid from Bayonne. Hansen leads the Recreation Chess Club that meets every other Saturday at the Bayonne library.

Hansen learned to play chess when he was fi ve. His father was a highly skilled player who founded his local chess club in Denmark where Hansen grew up. Hansen was good, but it was sibling rivalry that inspired him to push himself further.

“I started taking it seriously when my brother won a prize in a tournament, and I didn’t win a prize,” Hansen, who was ten at the time, says. Once he devoted himself to chess he got very good very quickly. “When you can beat all the adults in the local chess club, and you go on to compete in all the tournaments, and you’re winning those as well, that’s motivation.”

As he was fi nishing up business school he wanted to try to play professionally. “My parents were of the opinion that I should have a regular job, but I wanted to play fi rst and see how far it would take me,” he says. Otherwise, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

Back in Bayonne He enjoyed traveling, but eventually he burned out. “I nearly gave up playing chess altogether,” he says. “I’d had enough. I came home, and my dad convinced me that I still had some obligations to the local chess club. They had supported me, so I was like, ‘Ok I am going to show up for

the games.’ It was when my opponents thought that they could beat me that I got motivated again.”

Now, he mostly plays chess online, when he isn’t playing with his students to train them in tactical skills. “I enjoy teaching the way to play chess to children,” Hansen says. “The more they enjoy chess the happier I am with that.”

Hansen’s students are ages 6 and up. Some just know the basics, while others are intermediate players who show promise.

“Some younger players have this intuitive idea of where the pieces are going,” he says. “They spot tactical opportunities really quick. That’s typically what separates weaker players from stronger players. That’s something I am teaching the kids here, to spot where the weak pieces are and to take advantage of it.”

ONLINE ACADEMY

He also runs an online academy. “It’s for very strong players,” he says. “We have three different levels.” The course is called 12 Weeks to Better Chess. “Twelve weeks doesn’t sound like a long time, but if you put in the hours you can get really good really fast. Some of the participants who put in the work experience explosive growth. Even after playing for 30 or 40 years, they’re like, ‘I never knew I can get this good!’”

Hansen is also a prolific writer on the topic of chess. “My 30th book is coming out this coming week,” Hansen says. “I could write another 100 books and not be done with what is in my head. Even though I haven’t been playing at the board at tournaments, I still find joy in making discoveries. Sometimes I’m sitting and working on something, and I get an idea, and I sit and analyze it, and my wife she’s like, ‘Carsten are you ever coming to bed?’ I’m sitting and scribbling or at the computer, and all of a sudden I have the structure for a new book.”

Most of Hansen’s books are designed for advanced players, but his latest work is for intermediate players. “I’m teaching them more about tactical ideas and how to spot tactical opportunities,” he says. The book is titled Chess Tactics for Improvers Volume 1. “There are 808 puzzles in this book at different levels of difficulty, but all of them relatively easy.”

Rooks for Rookies

Volume 2 is in the works. “Sometimes, if undisturbed I can write a book in a couple of weeks,” he says. “I have another book coming out for beginners,” His young students inspired him to

write for newer players. They also serve as test subjects for his books. Each class starts with puzzles that might be included in the upcoming book. “Some of the puzzles are very elementary, and then I am building on how the pieces are moving, how the pieces are interacting and what squares they can go to, which pieces can capture each other, and from there which pieces are loose, which ones are not protected. Then we move on to simple tactics. That’s how I learned myself. The puzzles are not going to be too difficult, but still they are going to challenge them. They like to win, but they don’t like for it to be too easy.”—BLP

To try some puzzles check out:

Twitter- @cazhansen

Instagram- @chansen64

Facebook Community

Winning Quickly at Chess

“The more they enjoy chess the happier I am with that,” Hansen says.