Grandmaster Clash

OR the past 10 days, a group of people have hung around a lounge in Lower Manhattan with stunning river views. Not that any of them have looked up to take notice.

In cerebral silence, 17 of the world's top chess players have gathered, with chins in palms, for some high-voltage competition. With money, reputations, bragging rights, a United States title and a spot on the Chess Olympic team at stake, there has been no time for window gazing.

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The host of these strategic scrums is Frank Brady, New York's ambassador to chess. By day, he is chairman of the communications department at St. John's University in New York, and a coach of the university's chess team. By day off, he is one of the country's handful of international chess arbiters. This title gives him the right to officiate at world-class tournaments like the ones being held at St. John's Manhattan campus on Murray Street, when the last contest begins at noon today.

On a recent afternoon, Dr. Brady, 70, zipped horizontally, vertically and diagonally around several long tables in a room in which well-dressed players, many in suits, thought hard and spoke softly. He kept one eye on 10 men competing in an international tournament, miniature flags from their respective countries at their elbows, and the other on seven American women vying for a national championship, a top prize of $3,000 and a spot on the United States Chess Olympic team, which plays in Spain this October. (That honor eventually went to Jennifer Shahade, 23, of Brooklyn.)

No one seemed to notice the sailboats heading down the Hudson, not the player from Belgrade, nor his opponent from Harlem, nor even the dozen or so zip-lipped spectators who could have doubled for a waiting-to-see-the-doctor crowd. You could almost hear the synapses sparking.

But everyone was well aware of New York's favorite chess son, 40-year-old Joel Benjamin of Battery Park City, who wore a serious face and - what else? - a checkered shirt. Mr. Benjamin, who won national titles in 1987, 1997 and 2000, and is the odds-on favorite to win the top men's prize of $1,200, apologized to Dr. Brady for not wearing a tie. "I'd die wearing one on a hot day like today,'' he explained.

Dr. Brady dreams of a day when he might duplicate what is known in the chess world as New York 1924, the year the city was the host of the Super Bowl of chess tournaments. The event featured three world champions: Alexander Alekhine of Russia, JosÈ Capablanca of Cuba and the eventual victor, Emanuel Lasker of the United States, who, at 56, was thought to be too old to handle the strain of world-class tournament chess. "When I put together events like this,'' Dr. Brady said, "1924 is what I'm striving for.''

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