06/24/2007

King of the chess board — again

For Gregory Bailey, the game never gets stale, mate

By Tom Carr

tcarr@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Mesick native Greg Bailey, 55, recently earned the title of the Michigan Chess Association's 2007 senior chess champion. "I'm Michigan's top geezer," Bailey said. Bailey plays once a month on Wednesdays at Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City.

MESICK — Gregory E. Bailey is the king of Michigan Chess Association's senior division for the second time.

Bailey, 55, won the organization's championship last month for those 50 and older. He had won the same competition in 2004.

"My life is kind of wrapped up in the game of chess,” said Bailey, who owns an insurance agency in Mesick and is a lifelong chess enthusiast.

Bailey took the title with three wins and a draw and by defeating two former Michigan Open champs, Thomas LaForge and Gary Kitts.

When Bailey was 6 years old and living in Mesick, he had already become a pretty good checkers player, having learned the game from his mother. He'd seen people play chess, knew about the legendary champion Bobby Fischer and was curious about the game.

"I scraped up a dollar and bought a plastic set in Manton,” he said. It became one of his "most prized possessions.”

Yet it wasn't until about the sixth grade that Bailey decided to really learn the game. He had lost repeatedly to a classmate who had learned how to win in four moves, so studied the only book on how to play chess in the Mesick library at the time.

"I checked it out for the entire summer of 1962,” he said.

The friend who had beaten him with tricks so often moved away before Bailey had a chance to try his new knowledge.

That's OK. He won the Mesick seventh-grade tournament. He then challenged for the eighth-grade championship and won.

The teacher who organized the competition, John Neahr, mentored Bailey. He gave his student queen odds, meaning Neahr played without a queen.

"Quickly after that, I insisted on him playing me straight-up,” meaning no advantages, he said.

In 1970, Bailey had his first chance to play a grand master on his $1 chess set. He went to Detroit for an exhibition, where a Yugoslavia master, ranked at the time as fifth in the world, was taking on 64 players by circling around to different boards. Bailey paid $5 for the privilege and played him to a draw in what he said was one of the master's worst showings at such an event.

"Detroit has a tradition of some very strong chess players,” Bailey said.

In competitions sanctioned by the United States Chess Federation, Bailey won the 1988 Michigan Amateur and 1993 Chicago Open. He came in second in the 1993 Western Open and a 1990 five-state regional tournament and the 2005 Michigan Quick contest of 10-minute games.

He earned the title of Life Master in 1993, based on his combined performances.

In 1987 and living on Bois Blanc Island, Bailey won the Upper Peninsula Chess Association championship.

Bailey estimates he donates about 25 to 50 chess sets per year to children interested in the game.

"I remember when I couldn't afford a chess set,” he said.

His love of the game is tied into his love of selling insurance, he said.

"I think I kind of like the competitive nature of sales,” he said. "You have to think on your feet. It's kind of like a chess game.

"It's like in chess, you lose a lot and take a lot of lumps.”

Bailey likes chess because it's "a fair test of your intellectual capabilities.”

It also cuts across class lines.

"It doesn't matter how poor you are,” he said. "In a chess club, the respect goes to the strongest player.”