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Las Vegas Chess Center creates gathering place for all ages

Benjamin Fleming, 10, and Chema Estreller, 8, rushed to strategically move pawns, rooks, knights, castles and queens, always with an eye to defending the king, as they faced off across a checkered board at the Las Vegas Chess Center, 3160 S. Valley View Blvd., Suite 105.

The boys grinned as they took turns slapping the clock and plunking pieces down on the hardwood board.

“Good game, good game,” Chema called out as he saw he was out of moves.

“I win!” Benjamin cheered as he leaped to his feet and raised his hands over his head.

Casual games between students are common at the center founded by Juan and Sabrina Jauregui.

The center also offers private lessons for all ages and abilities, with beginners meeting with highly ranked young coaches and advanced players learning from grand master Atanas Kolev, who recently moved to Las Vegas from Bulgaria. There are also weekday after-school sessions and school vacation camps for kids, adult competitive play on Friday nights for advanced players, and group classes for seniors.

Almost every Saturday, the center hosts a scholastic tournament with competition for players ages 6 through 18.

“I was here Saturday for my first tournament, and I got third place,” Benjamin said.

“He just likes to play,” Benjamin’s mother, Jennifer Fleming, said. “He has his eye on whatever the prize is. I always say it’s not all about the prize.”

Estie Estreller said his son Chema has been with the center for almost a year.

“The center has helped him a lot,” Estreller said. “He’s been playing competitively because of all this exposure.”

On the other end of the room, chess coach Jonathan Mikolic worked with Shanti Isaac, 7.

The girl’s mother, Vijaya Poluri, said her daughter loves the center and is always asking when she can go.

“She was playing chess in school, and she wanted to get better,” she said.

Poluri said her daughter’s school taught the basics “over and over in an eight-week session. So I was looking for a place — a resource in town for her to learn. I tried a chess club, but it really wasn’t conducive for children. They had a bunch of enthusiasts — mostly older men — playing very intently. It’s not a place for children.”

The Las Vegas Chess Center, Poluri said, is different.

“It’s a place where she can get explicit instruction and have the opportunity to play with other kids of her own strength and improve from it in a peer group,” she said.

In the center’s back room, Harrison Thomas, 6, listened as his coach Jonathan Zavala taught him the basics.

“He wanted to learn about chess, so we signed him up,” Harrison’s father, Howard Thomas, explained. “He saw it in a movie and thought it looked cool.”

“What movie?” Zavala asked.

” ‘Harry Potter,’ ” Harrison said, adding that he’s not disappointed the pieces don’t move or attack unassisted.

“I thought this one was a knight that could take his sword out. That happened in ‘Harry Potter’ because it’s magic,” the boy said as he wiggled his fingers for emphasis.

Thomas said Harrison and his younger brother Gunner pull out all the chess pieces at home and duke it out.

“These two are very competitive, but they don’t know how to play the game,” he said.

By contrast, Juan Jauregui knows how to play. He played competitively as a young man in Cuba. Then after 30 years away, he jumped back into the game, playing in a bookstore near their home in Maryland just outside Washington, D.C.

At first, his wife couldn’t understand the draw.

“But after I started, and she saw me, she said, ‘Now you have to play chess,’ ” he said.

About six years ago, the couple moved to Las Vegas to be close to their daughter and because “it was too cold in Maryland,” Sabrina said. They looked for places for Juan to play and came up short. There were scattered games and tournaments, but no consistent place to play regularly.

“So we started playing in our garage,” Sabrina said.

After a while, they moved game play to the City of the World art gallery downtown. Then they moved into the Learning Village, where they offered classes for two years. When the Learning Village closed, they went in search of another venue.

“We can’t get out of chess now,” Juan said. “We have too many people following us. We were closed one week, I think, and everyone was so sad.”

“So we said, ‘No, we have to keep it going,’ ” Sabrina added.

They opened the new Spring Valley location in September, and so far, they love it and are looking to expand. The location is central, accessible and offers plenty of free parking.

The whole Jauregui family contributes to the center’s success, down to the couple’s 4-year-old granddaughter Tristan Johnson, who plays mermaid chess, a game she devised so she could always win. Sabrina is retired from her job as a Teamsters organizer, and Juan, who was a doctor in Cuba and a lab technician here, now dedicates all his time to the center.

“Chess is good for everyone,” Juan said.

Visit lasvegaschesscenter.com or call 702-202-1797.

— Contact View contributing reporter Ginger Meurer at gmeurer@viewnews.com. Find her on Twitter: @gingermmm.

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