By Laura Walter

Gene Edmonds sat in a side room, one or two hallways from the main action. He shot the breeze with a handful of acquaintances who had come to chat.

But really, the 72-year-old was waiting to unfurl a portable gameboard and get down to business.

He was ready to play chess.

As a senior, Edmonds was hosting a chess demo the Thrive Dorchester special event. As a young man in 1972 Cambridge, Md., he rose to the challenge to teach himself chess.

Many other players learn the same skills, moves and responses because the knowledge is passed down—but Edmonds says he didn’t get that traditional training. He figured it out himself.

A quick mind and nontraditional approach made him a formidable opponent on the Eastern Shore and beyond.

“If you make a movement different from the book, you find they don’t know what to do,” Edmonds said.

When he plays, does he envision the potential moves and configurations? Instead of responding, he set up the board to play a round.

At that table in the Weinberg Intergenerational Center, he offered to play a simple game, kindly and intentionally setting up his opponent to win.

Edmonds told stories of playing chess around town, joking that people in Cambridge would pack up their park boards when he showed up. So, he went to play in Salisbury and bigger cities next. He seems to have been skilled player.

“I learned to love the game and appreciate the game because the game is more like life than people know,” he said. “Anything in life—you have to plan … a lot of people don’t think things out.

He shared bits of his life and wisdom, in between moving the thick pieces.

“And when we get advice in life, we need to talk to people that know what they’re talking about!” he insisted. “If I’m buying a house, I’m not gonna talk to someone who sells cars.”

He talked about winning trophies at city competitions against players from NYC, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

“People don’t know how to react to losing. … There’s not too many people that are undefeated in sports,” he said. Life is the same way—you’re going to take hits, so you need to learn to survive them.

Edmonds shook his head at “how much people hate each other and don’t know them.” He said it’s not worth hating someone just because his parent does. “That person hasn’t wronged me,” so there’s no point in continuing negativity just for the sake of continuing it.

“If we didn’t let race, color get in the way, we’d have a better world.” We’re all part of the human race, his mother taught him—but “I better always respect people that were older.”

As the game continued, he asked the novice once or twice, “You sure you gonna do that?”

And finally, “What do you say?” he asked as his opponent paused.

“Oh! Checkmate.”

“That’s right!”