Book Details

The Kings of New York: A Year Among the Geeks, Oddballs, and Geniuses Who Make Up America's Top HighSchool Chess Team

In The Kings of New York sportswriter Michael Weinreb follows the members of the Murrow chess team through an entire season, from cash games in Washington Square Park to city and state tournaments to the SuperNationals in Nashville, where this eclectic bunch competes against private schoolers and suburbanites. Along the way, Weinreb brings to life a number of colorful characters: the Yale-educated calculus teacher (and former semipro hockey player) who guides the savants while struggling to find funding for his team; an aspiring rapper and tournament hustler who plays with cutthroat instinct; the team’s lone girl, a shy Ukrainian immigrant; the Puerto Rican teen from the rough neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant who plays an ingenious opening gambit named the Orangutan; and the Lithuanian immigrant and team star whose chess rating is climbing toward grandmaster status.

In the bestselling tradition of such books as Word Freak and Friday Night Lights, The Kings of New York is a riveting look inside the world of competitive chess and an inspiring profile of young genius.

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