The Game of Life

Before he watches his brothers board the bus for school every day, 10-year-old Treyvion Duenas has a little ritual. Standing on the corner of 75th and Main streets in South-Central Los Angeles, he joins hands with his grandmother and two brothers and says a prayer.

“Our father,” they intone, “help us to get to school and back safe. . . . Help Lawone and Momma to get home OK, help us to learn our work, stay in our seat, do what the teacher tells us and behave ourselves.”

What he doesn’t say--and maybe he doesn’t need to--is, “Please give me the stamina of Big Blue and the cunning of Garry Kasparov and allow me to crush my opponents in Kansas City.”

Treyvion, you see, is among four members of Lilleth El’s chess club at 75th Street Elementary School who will be going to Kansas City, Mo., on April 26 to participate in a U.S. Chess Federation tournament.

El started the club in 1998 as a way to redirect students who were fighting in the schoolyard during recess. “I thought that if they could fight on the chessboard, it would be better for everybody,” she said. She also thought that chess would give the students valuable mental exercise and perhaps improve their math, reading and thinking skills.

So far, she believes, it has worked. And in the process, the club has taken three trophies, including two first-place finishes in a recent unrated tournament in Buena Park. Four of 20 club members will make the trip to Kansas City--with some help from their friends, including David Byren, 13, of Hermosa Beach, who donated a portion of his bar mitzvah money, and Federal Aviation Administration employee Ronald Turner, who took up a collection at his office.

The club meets during lunch and after school on Mondays and Wednesdays. Treyvion is always there, even if it means foregoing food.

Before chess, Treyvion “couldn’t stay still,” said his grandmother, Virginia Hughes, who is raising him.

“It’s made him focused. Made him stay still. Made him sit down for a while,” she said.