ALUMNI: Chess grandmaster Larry Christiansen recalls his years at Poly High.
By Emily Hughes, Staff Editor
For students attending a school with such a rich history dating all the way back to 1887, the teenagers at Riverside Poly High School seem to know relatively little about the generations of predecessors who called Poly home before them. While many students have heard names such as Reggie Miller (former professional basketball player and class of 1983) and Tyler Clary (2012 Olympic gold-medalist, setter of MANY Poly swimming records and class of 2007), most have not heard of the many awesome alums who are out there, doing impressive things for their communities and living fulfilling and interesting lives. One such alum is Mr. Larry Christiansen, a world-renowned chess grandmaster and a member of the Poly graduating class of 1974.
Larry Christiansen has been playing chess since he was 8 years old, and he’s probably been winning since then too. While in middle school, Christiansen actually won the National High School Championship, and he then went on to win the US Junior Championships in 1973, 1974 and 1975. Christiansen did very well in varied chess competitions in Europe after high school, and in 1977, just a few years after graduating from Poly, he was awarded with the highest honor in chess: the title of Grandmaster (basically the black belt of chess). Just a few years after that, Christiansen won the US Championships, eventually winning them again in 1983 and 2002. He has also won and played in many international competitions, and is lauded across the world for his exceptional skill.
Back when he was in high school, though, Christiansen kept his affinity and talent for chess mostly under wraps. “I was a member of the Poly High Spotlight staff,” noted Christiansen on January 29, “and I remember playing blindfold chess with some of the staff members of Poly Spotlight, as a stunt. But I didn’t play too much chess with any of the kids at Poly. I was on the water polo team, and in those days, you didn’t want to be known as the chess player.” According to Christiansen, the city of Riverside did have a great chess program that prepared him well for his many competitions, but while at Poly, he explained, “I was mainly associated with my swimming and water polo colleagues. But I was good at chess, and I did have a special gift for it.”
Many consider sports a good way not only to train physically, but also mentally. Christiansen has experienced this phenomenon through Poly’s water athletics program: “We had a good water polo team, and being a part of it gave you a lot of mental stamina.” Christiansen believes that being in good physical shape helped him to be in good mental shape for chess.
When it comes to his experiences from Poly as a whole however, and not just in terms of chess, Christiansen expressed, “It was an excellent school in those days, with excellent teachers.” He notes that there were some particularly influential teachers at Poly, like today, and the social scene back in the 70’s has its parallels to today as well. “You’d have the jocks, the nerds, the drama, the people. In those days, you did a lot of driving around, cruising we called it, up and down Magnolia Avenue. People like the racecars, including myself.” Christiansen recalled the time he blew out the transmission of his dad’s car while driving around Riverside. “I had to drive it in reverse about ten miles down Riverside up to our place on Glen Haven.”
After Poly, Christiansen traveled all over the world, and even lived in four countries in Europe, including Germany for ten years. In Germany, his only forms of entertainment were the books from the English bookstore and the radio. Christainsen explained, “I never watched TV. Most of the shows were David Letterman knock offs in German.” He also spent some time in the Soviet Union, noting that it was a “whole different world back then.”
Christainsen has published multiple chess-related books, two of which, Rocking the Ramparts and Storming the Barricades, are best-selling guides to aggressive chess-playing. Currently, he is still playing chess, but he also holds public chess-playing events where he teaches individuals some basic moves.
The legacy of chess-playing at Poly doesn’t end with Larry Christiansen; students in Poly’s Chess Club continue to hone their craft during lunch on Thursdays. Anahin Ortiz (10) is the vice president of Poly’s chess club. “I like chess because it relieves my stress. I’ll be going to classes and so stressed out, and then lunch comes and I’ll play with my friends and it’s really nice,” Ortiz expresses, who also thinks the fact that Christiansen went to Poly and then went on to become a world-famous chess player is quite inspiring. “To think that somebody from Poly, just a small Riverside school, could become one of the greatest chess players in the world is really cool,” she notes.
Christiansen’s advice for Poly students intent on pursuing their dreams? “Work hard. Do what you want to do. Have a sense of humor about things. Buy a solid car. Learn a second language, and read a book a week, at the minimum. Don’t be part of the crowd, and if you enjoy doing something, do it.”