Russian Paul
When I used to play chess with the hustlers in Washington Square Park, Russian Paul was the strongest regular player. He was an International Master. I played him a couple of times and he always beat me.
According to this New York Times article, it looks like he has moved up to Union Square Park.
Another hustler, whose first name is Kenny and whose street name is Little Daddy (he is 5 feet 3 inches tall), said he could always tell how good his opponent was in the first couple of moves. For example, he said, if someone moves quickly but fumbles the pieces, or uses one hand to move the pieces and the other to hit the clock, which is against the normal rules of speed chess, then the person is not experienced.
This is good to know - next time I play them for money I will move a piece with one hand and hit the clock with the other.
“You make the games close,” he said. “You don’t want to crush them. You want to leave their ego intact, because you want to keep them coming back.”
Yeah I saw them play with people like this many times. They pretend that it was a close, exciting game - when it really was always in complete control of the hustler.
From the sounds of the article it seems that the hustlers have moved to Union Square. The last time I was in NYC, I remember thinking that the chess scene in Washington Square Park had become pretty seedy. I wonder if they moved uptown to Union Square because of that. Nobody played chess in Union Square when I lived there. I’ll have to check it out when I visit in a few weeks.
