FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (August 28, 2014) -- Col. David Hater and Air Force Master Sgt. Robert Keough may be two of the most boisterous and outgoing chess players to compete at this year's NATO Chess Championship.
Defying the introverted chess player stereotype, Hater, who works as assistant chief of staff at U.S. Army Cyber Command, and Keough, who is newly assigned to Fort Meade, view chess as a highly competitive sport that brings together international armed forces.
"I started playing when I was very young," said Keough, who was part of the U.S. silver medal NATO team in 2002. "I liked the competitive aspects. I liked winning tournaments."
At this year's NATO Chess Championship from Sept. 8-13 in Quebec City, 11 countries and 66 competitors will be present. The U.S. chess team, with a third-place ranking, plans to medal.
"We've got two masters [ranked higher than 2,200] and four experts [ranked higher than 2,000], which I think is the strongest team we've ever had," Hater said.
Regardless, Hater said that everybody on the team would have to play the "tournament of his life" for the U.S. to win gold.
"Most years we would have no chance of beating Germany [the top seed]," Hater said. "This year we are certainly not expected to, but it would not be totally outside the realm of possibility. I mean it would be an upset, but at least we can think about an upset."
The official NATO Chess Championship began in 1989 with only four countries, including the U.S., represented at the tournament. The tournament was funded by the Department of Defense until 2011, but due to budgetary constraints, the U.S. no longer sponsors a team, said Hater.
Motivated by his love of chess, Hater decided to form his own team to represent the U.S. He worked with representatives of the NATO Chess Championship, the U.S. Chess Federation military chess committee and the Army to determine the proper protocol for creating a team.
"This year, everybody's traveling on their own dime," Hater said. "I worked through the military chess committee and we came up with a mathematical formula [for who should be on the NATO Championship Team], and it was objective. I weighted [players'] national ranking the highest, although there were some other factors."
As a nine-time NATO Chess Championship competitor and the U.S. team captain, Hater wanted to make sure the process through which he determined the team was as objective and transparent as possible.
"[Hater] actually put out [an advertisement for the team] on uschess.org, which is the United States Chess Federation's website," said Keough, a six-time NATO Chess Championship competitor who recently placed second in the Atlantic Open chess tournament in D.C.
"If you're a military player, you don't have to be active duty; you can be Reserve as well."
To prepare for the tournament, Hater and Keough will continue to study the strategy of top competitors.
"We may want to look at games that their opponents have played," Hater said. "So just like in the NFL where they watch film of their opponents, we like to do the same thing if we can get it."
Hater said that along with preparing for the tournament, as team captain he has other responsibilities, such as relaying the nuances of the tournament to his team and representing his players in disputes.
However, Hater said he impresses upon his team that "they are all ambassadors of the U.S." in this tournament.
With the tournament less than two weeks away, Keough said there are only so many realistic preparations the team can make due to the large number of participants at the tournament.
"We can't prepare for the [many] players who are going to be there," Keough said. "We don't even know who we're going to play. So what we'll do to alleviate that is, every one of us will have a laptop with chess programs and chess databases. And we'll have access to information so that if we can get a round pairing early enough when we get an opponent, then we'll look up their games and try to find a weakness in their opening repertoire.
"Our top seed is already looking at Germany's top seed," Hater said. "Everybody's preparing."
Editor's note: If you are interested in learning to play chess, email Air Force Master Sgt. Keough at robkeo@hotmail.com.
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