Our featured article is based on the winner of the 2014 North American Class B Server Championship: John Smail. John competed with 6 other
CCLA opponents and won the title with a 5-1 record (a winning margin of 1/2 point).
John was born and raised in Sheffield, England. He moved to California in his mid-twenties. He played postal chess to survive a Scottish boarding school in the 1950's where he found a chess club. During the 1960's to 1990's, he played sporadic forays into OTB chess.
His employment consisted of computer programming, managing an ornithological research station, teaching, and driving a cab in San Francisco. Asked if he could do it again, would John take a different path or was he satisfied with the route he followed? John's answer was that he would have pursued a scientific career.
Since retirement in 2004, John plays erratic but occasionally amusing server chess with CCLA and some OTB with Berkeley chess school/club, and a few postal games with incarcerated opponents. John has been a CCLA member for about 10 years.
John is married and has two daughters. Besides chess, John's other hobbies include birding and watching Cal women's basketball. I asked John that when people look back at your life, how do you want to be remembered? His response was: "a decent, silly guy" !
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