Maurice Ashley

By: Dhruv B.

Information:

Name: Maurice Ashley

Birthdate: March 6, 1966

Alive or dead: Alive

Places lived: St. Andrew Jamaica, New York

Main Idea:

Maurice Ashley is known as the first African American chess grandmaster. He later became a chess coach to teach kids how to play good chess and be inspired to become really good at chess like him. After he became a grandmaster in 1999, he became the first director of the Harlem Chess Center (closed because they did not have enough money to go on in 2002.)

He also wrote many books such as Chess For Success and Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess. He has commentated on many famous chess games such as “Kasparov versus X3D Fritz” and “Kasparov versus IBM Deep Blue.”

Background Information:

Maurice Ashley was born at the end of the Civil Rights Movement. When Maurice Ashley was 12, his family moved to Brooklyn New York, where he got inspired to start playing chess. Even though he worked really hard, he was not good enough for his high school chess team.

Challenges:

Some challenges he faced were having people say “you can’t play chess” or “you aren't good enough.

Fun Facts:

Some of the teams he played on in college are called the “Raging Rooks” and the “Dark Knights”. In 1997, Maurice decided to take a break from coaching and focus on how he was doing in his own games.

Character Traits(3):

Character Trait 1: Intelligent

I think he is Intelligent because he is very paitent.

Character Trait 2: calm

I think he is calm because he stays cool when things are hard.

Character Trait 3: persistent

I think he is persistent because in hard positions he never gave up.

Relevance Into Today:

If I could ask him any question I would ask him what it takes to get to the grandmaster level. If I could ask him another question it would be what inspired him to be so persistent while playing. He is significant today because he is really good at chess, has taught many people, and has earned his grandmaster title about 35 years after the civil rights movement and he was still the first African American grandmaster!