Boston College 2L Is One of the Nation’s 100 Best Chess Players
A second-year law student at Boston College who is one of the country’s 100 top-rated chess players has been playing the game ever since a quick defeat in a seventh-grade challenge.
Charles Riordan told the Boston College Chronicle he was a class nerd when a classmate challenged him to play. “I got checkmated in four moves, much to the delight of everyone watching,” he told the publication. “At that point, I realized I needed to learn how to play and get a little revenge.”
Riordan tells the Chronicle that he enjoys chess because it’s a problem-solving exercise. He says he has a focused playing style; he focuses on the game and doesn’t look at his opponent. Yet he enjoys the “really amazing people” he has met through chess.
His advice to other nerdy seventh graders: “Don’t quit … unless you hate it. In that case, do quit and play sports,” Riordan told the Chronicle. “And I’d tell them not to worry, most chess players are very nice and not all that geeky once we grow up.”
