Nearly all the pieces are in place for Western Kentucky University to secure a college chess tournament.

All that’s missing is the prize purse for the final checkmate.

The WKU Chess Club has spent several months organizing an invitational chess tournament tentatively scheduled for March 27-29, with proceeds raised to help fund research for Alzheimer’s disease.

WKU senior Samuel Hunt of the chess club said several colleges and universities nationwide, including Duke, Rose-Hulman, Vanderbilt and other schools in Kentucky and Tennessee have committed to bring four-player teams to the tournament, which has also secured a director in Tennessee attorney and scholastic chess promoter Harry Sabine.

The club, however, is still seeking businesses to put forth the minimum $10,000 for the tournament’s prize fund.

“We have the Garrett (Conference) Center reserved, but if we don’t get the finances for (the tournament) by Jan. 15, we’ll have to shut it down,” Hunt said.

The university’s chess club has a steady membership that has been able to attract interest among the student body, meeting each Monday in the faculty house behind Cherry Hall.

WKU English professor Dale Rigby serves as the club’s faculty adviser.

While the university continues to seek funding for the planned tournament over the next two weeks, Hunt and other club members are at work establishing chess clubs beyond campus.

“We’re trying to start a chess club in every city school and supplement education through chess,” said Hunt, who grew up in Indiana and is studying physical therapy and nutrition. “There’s a lot of research that shows that chess improves test scores and IQ scores. It’s more than a game; students need the analytical skills that chess teaches.”

A study of seniors that appeared in the June 2003 New England Journal of Medicine showed that people ages 75 and older who regularly played chess or engaged in some other mentally stimulating activity were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Hunt said chess clubs recently started at T.C. Cherry Elementary School and Bowling Green Christian Academy have attracted a total of 75 members.

The club is in the process of searching for grants to fund the purchase of the necessary equipment - boards, pieces, clocks and notation papers for scoring matches - to help start up clubs at additional schools.

“We know there’s grant money out there and businesses out there who can help out, but we have a hard time getting this vision sold to people,” Hunt said.

Chess is often perceived as an exclusionary game that requires a sharp mind to understand how to play, but Hunt said the club is open to players of all skill levels and that the critical thinking skills the game teaches have several real-world applications.

Hunt, 36, should know - a wide receiver and cornerback for his high school football team, Hunt took up chess in seventh grade, taught himself how to play and would end up winning his division at a national tournament in high school.

“It doesn’t take a smart person to play chess, just look at me,” Hunt said. “You just learn how to play, and you can develop your mind as you keep playing.”