Chess helps feed Falbo’s love of mathematics

Published 7:00 am Thursday, May 12, 2022

JOSEPH — A pandemic was not going to corner Clem Falbo on the chess board and force him to resign. His love of mathematics and chess is too great.

The 91-year-old Joseph resident refers to the Wallowa County Chess Club as the “oldest chess club in Eastern Oregon,” which began in 2011.

“When we moved here from California, I was a member of the U.S. Chess Federation and had run some chess tournaments, but there was hardly anyone to play here,” he said. “Finally, I found out some kids were interested along with some adults, so we got the club going.”

The club boasts a roster of 35 people who have played over the years with between seven and 14 people playing on a weekly basis. COVID-19 forced Falbo to put the club’s weekly meetings on hiatus for about a year beginning in February 2020, but a couple of weeks ago pieces and boards were back in action every Monday at the Josephy Center For Arts and Culture.

Falbo said the benefits of playing chess are many, and it can be a family activity with parents bringing children to the club and everyone plays.

“We like to play the adults against the kids to teach them a little bit, and the kids can teach us a little bit,” he said.

Falbo also said the game teaches young players to follow rules and gives them a jumpstart into math and geometry through the visual anticipation of planning moves many steps ahead.

The club is designed more to teach the game than high-level play, but that doesn’t mean opportunities don’t occasionally present themselves.

“We had a grandmaster stop by one night and he played us all and beat us,” Falbo said.

Falbo played in enough tournaments over the years to earn a 1,600 or “B” rating, making him an above-average player. Grandmasters are rated 2,500 or above.

The Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit” became a nationwide sensation when it was released in 2020 and sparked renewed interest in the game. For those wondering, Falbo favors the London System as his opening when playing the white chess pieces.

“Chess just needs publicity,” said Falbo, who called the series the best representation of chess he has seen on screen.

Locally, he hopes to continue adding members to the club, and is trying to put together tournaments and learning events to bring the game to more youth.

Math and chess

Falbo learned chess from his grandfather at 12, but developed the finer points of the game during his time in the Navy during the Korean War. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Texas, Austin, and has written numerous books on mathematics. He also continues to write published papers on mathematics with the latest coming in 2021 in a British journal.

It is continued work in the field that keeps driving him daily even after being diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago.

He taught mathematics — specializing in differential equations — in California at Fresno State University and Sonoma State University, the latter stop for 35 years. He retired in 1999 and began working with his wife, Jean — also a chess player — in the U.S. Peace Corps teaching math in the African nation of Zimbabwe before coming to Joseph.

His love of mathematics translates to the chessboard and feeds his mind that has always hungered to find answers to tough questions.

“It is a thinking game and with every move you have to try to think of every possible outcome of that move,” he said. “I play positional chess and that appealed to me because what it amounted to was pattern identification. It is kind of like weather prediction because when you get a certain pattern you can predict things.”

The Wallowa County Chess Club meets Mondays from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture. All are welcome. For more information, call Clem Falbo at 541-263-1415.