October 04 1990
The Times, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada · Thursday, October 04, 1990
Checkmate!
Writer Proves King of the Board
By Christi Lapi
You'll never make a living playing chess.
That was the advice given Jonathan Berry by his father, as Berry was pondering such a future when he was a University of B. C. student.
Maybe his dad underestimated Berry's passion for the game.
“It's thoughtful. Imaginative. Precise. Beautiful,” says the Nanaimo resident. Beautiful, he says, like the movement and progression of music and mathematics.
“It's an art that requires a lot of technique. There are points where you can't just figure out what's going to happen. you have to use your intuition. There's an element of creativity.”
Berry, 37, hasn't made a living playing chess—exactly. He's made a living writing about chess, managing chess organizations, and building computer programs.
Since 1978 Berry has written a chess column for The Globe and Mail, which runs in the Saturday edition with a Nanaimo, B.C. placeline.
He also spent about nine years, until 1984, as business manager of Chess Federation of Canada. He was also chief editor of Canada's national chess magazine En Passant during most of that time.
But don't figure Berry as a fellow perpetually buried in books and computer programs. He's also a spokesperson for the Ladysmith Nanaimo Greens, a newly-formed chapter of the Green Party.
“The earth is a big pie, and you can only cut it so many ways,” says Berry.
He says the mainstream parties all support unlimited growth. “We can't afford it,” he says. “But the other parties are acting as though we can.”
Perhaps like eyeing a chess board, Berry tends to look at the larger picture. Take, for example, the inner route—and the Greens' call for an environmental assessment.
Can the environment, he asks, sustain more use of the automobile? Supplies of gasoline are finite and demand is increasing. Consider acid rain, toxic emissions, and greenhouse gases caused by automobile use. While public transport is a less expensive alternative, current renewable energy vehicles don't travel at highway speeds.
Has the automobile reached its peak? Check. Do we need a new highway? Checkmate.
And his lifestyle reflects his views. “I've always been a frugal person,” says Berry. “I don't drive a car and never have.”
But his chess work has taken him traveling. He won the 1974 Mexican Open, and the 1990 Paul Keres Memorial in Vancouver and B. C. Open in Victoria. In 1988 he was chief arbiter at world championship events in New Brunswick and Mexico.
But his main kudos come from correspondence chess, where players send their moves by mail. He's twice been Canadian champion and once North American champion.
Born in Chilliwack, Berry, the son of an army officer, was raised in Winnipeg, Ottawa and Vancouver.
When he was about eight years old his brother taught him chess. “We played a little bit, one a month,” says Berry. “I really got interested once I was in high school.”
One advantage of the game: “It was dry,” he said with a chuckle. “I'd been playing touch football, and it started to rain.
“I wandered into the chess club. It was all downhill from there.”
He continued his interest in chess while at UBC, taking a year off to play in chess tournaments in the Pacific Northwest.
“I broke even monetarily,” says Berry. “But it didn't seem to offer a lot of potential as a player.”
He graduated from UBC in 1975 with a degree in mathematics, and plenty of courses in creative writing, Russian and physics. He decided to teach English to Spanish-speaking people in Honduras, but changed his mind when he was offered a position as business manager of the chess federation.
In his nine years there, he built up the organization until it was secure and saw its membership grow.
But in 1984 the urge to travel hit again, and Berry headed off to visit his parents in Mexico, where they now live, and play in various chess tournaments.
He later became office manager for a small computer software company in Vancouver. It specialized in programs for monitoring the stock markets.
In 1987 he escorted a chess tour to the Soviet Union.
Also in 1987 Berry began to look for a home in an area less urban than Vancouver. He settled on Nanaimo, which he'd visited before at chess tournaments.
“I'd always liked Nanaimo,” he says. “And I could afford it. There's a bit too much traffic—but you never get anything that is perfect.”
Now he lives with an artist Lorraine Joyal, who enjoys pottery and bonsai. He continues his chess columns; contributes regularly to En Passant; and serves on the editorial board of Inside Chess, a magazine published in Seattle.
His passion for chess continues—and he's a patient man. A grandmaster of correspondence chess, he's competing in the finals of the XIII World Correspondence Championship. Even after nine months of play, it's too early to pick a winner out of the 17 hopefuls. Competition, he says, take about four years.
