Mark Walters

mwalters@ydr.com

Players range in age from 3 to 84.

Some people sit outside the store playing for hours.

If you don't know how to play chess, you're welcome to come and learn.

You can kill, murder and kidnap, and it's all legal in a game of chess, Eric Leonard says from a downtown York sidewalk.

Leonard, 33, speaks passionately and, at times, romantically about chess from outside Po's Bookstore. It's an equal game, he says, and there's no luck involved.

Three games of chess were unfolding beside Leonard along South George Street as foot traffic picked up during a recent First Friday afternoon. Leonard had just finished playing some chess of his own.

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The strategic board game can help take kids off the streets, Leonard suggests. If they want to be aggressive, they can be aggressive right here. "Put your mind to use on this jawn," he says, as if to challenge urban youth.

"All day chess" started a couple weeks ago, when bookstore owner Kevin "Po" Bertram set up a table outside his store, at 25 S. George St., inviting people to play. They played, and then they came back.

There are now nearly 200 members signed up — from ages 3 to 84 — and several games going on in a given day. If you don't know how to play, Po invites you to come and learn. There's usually someone there offering tutelage to beginners.

Police officers and sheriffs will walk by on their lunch breaks, Po says, and tell him they wish they could stop and play. He says he's received support from city officials and lawyers, people who like the way it looks for the city.

He wanted to do something positive and constructive for adults and children. Chess, he says, transcends cultures.

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Tyrone Anderson, known as P-Zilla, tries to play at Po's twice a day. He stops by before and after working at McDonald's just down the street. Anderson, 42, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and learned to play chess at Washington Square Park, in Lower Manhattan. He's grateful to be able to play chess in York.

Leonard grew up playing his neighbor, Emmanuel Brown, who was engaged in two games at once outside the bookstore last week. Brown, a 2002 William Penn graduate, says art is being integrated into York. "This is an opportunity to bring chess," he says.

Leonard says he got better at chess in prison. That's because in prison, you either read, play chess or do workouts.

"This is the Bible to some people," Leonard says. And the pieces are like family members.

He's the king, and his girlfriend is the queen. Rooks are like grandparents, Leonard explains. He compares knights and bishops to cousins, aunts and uncles. Pawns are like distant friends you haven't seen in a while. But when you call them up, they're there for you, he says.

Contact Mark Walters at 717-771-2032 or follow him on Twitter at @walt_walters.