Tom Langland’s long-lived love affair with chess
If Tom Langland were a chessboard piece, he wouldn’t be a bishop or a knight. It’s likely he’d be a king.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory computer scientist is one of 50 tournament directors certified by the United States Chess Federation (USCF) to oversee tournaments throughout the United States.
Among those individuals, 20 have won the federation’s tournament director of the year award, something akin to being inducted into a tournament directors Hall of Fame. Langland is one of the 20.
Moreover the U.S. Chess Federation has selected 10 special referees, who are on call during weekends to assist other directors and to adjudicate appeals by players of decisions made by tournament directors. Langland is one of them, too.
“I have always been enthralled with chess and now I receive immense satisfaction as I give back to the community and watch other kids get the same enjoyment as I did many years ago,” Langland said.
At 63, Langland got his start in the world of chess more than five decades ago in 1972 as a 12-year-old sixth grader at Kachina Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona.
It was the same year that the American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer dethroned Soviet world-champion chess player Boris Spassky in Reykjavík, Iceland, in what was dubbed the match of the century.
“I was captivated by chess in grade school in Arizona during the Fischer chess boom. I was one of the many people who started to pay attention to it because of the Fischer–Spassky matches,” said Langland, who joined his school’s chess club and recruited others to join.
After continuing to play chess in high school, Langland started college at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, where his chess life grew by leaps and bounds.
When Langland first walked into the lower level of the university’s student union, he spied a pool table, video games, a bowling alley — and multiple chess boards.
“The student union was a place where you could go and hang out in between classes. When I wasn’t in class, that’s where I was. That was the most fun I’ve had in my life. We would sit around and chat and play chess all day.”
At ASU, Langland participated in about 10 U.S. Chess Federation tournaments each year, directed several tournaments and, in 1980, emerged as the under-21-years-of-age runner-up Arizona junior champion.
After moving to California and marrying his wife, Dana, Langland to return to his chess boards. He soon won the Stockton Chess Club championship over about 30 competitors, something he has done twice since then.
Passing it on
“When I became a father, I became active in my kids’ school parent club. After being awarded the volunteer of the year for my work on the school website, I looked to find another way to become involved. A teacher wanted to start a chess club, and that was a perfect opportunity for me,” Langland said, smiling.
In about 2005, with his oldest son, Jordan, in second grade and his younger son, Steele, in kindergarten at Art Freiler School, a kindergarten through eighth grade school in Tracy, Langland started organizing the school’s chess club.
The Freiler School chess club burgeoned to dozens of members, who then needed more competition, so Langland organized clubs in at least five other Tracy schools and set up chess tournaments.
For his efforts setting up chess clubs and tournaments, the San Joaquin County Office of Education presented Langland with its Golden Apple award in 2009.
Even today, 19 years after he started setting up chess tournaments for Freiler and other schools, Langland still organizes once-a-month K-12 chess tournaments for 40–60 young people, drawing competitors from Tracy and other nearby communities, including Stockton, Manteca, Modesto, Brentwood and Livermore.
“My sons, Jordan and Steele, saw the trophies that I was giving out and began entering local and U.S. Chess Federation tournaments. I quickly then became the typical crazy nervous chess parent and my wife told me that I should get in and help before she went crazy watching me suffer. Soon, I was organizing or directing several tournaments a month.”
For Langland, seeing his family grow to enjoy his hobby in much the same way that he does has been a little like entering a dream world.
“Through chess, I have the best of both worlds. I love being a tournament director and playing chess. And now, to have the involvement of my family in chess tournaments and chess activities means everything to me. It’s been a slow pathway toward our family’s involvement in chess and it’s something that I never could have predicted, or even imagined,” Langland said.
“Chess is more than a hobby. It’s been an avenue for me and my family to reach out and touch people. It’s a way that I can share what I know about chess with kids and adults over a board, sharing a love of the game.”
His wife, whom the young chess players have nicknamed “Mrs. Tom,” often helps set up chess boards and collects the results of the tournament matches. She serves as a referee for kindergarten through fifth-grade matches. “She loves refereeing the games of the little kids and seeing their matches,” Langland said.
After years of playing chess, Langland’s sons—Jordan, 27, who lives in Tracy, and Steele, 26, who lives in Irvine — also have earned certifications from the U.S. Chess Federation as tournament directors.
Every spring, the Chess Federation holds three National Scholastic Championships for kids in elementary (K-6), middle school (K-8) and high school (K-12) Then, every four years, all three levels are brought together under one roof for the SuperNationals tournament.
Langland has been on staff for four of these enormous events where more than 5,000 players and their parents take over entire hotels and convention centers.
“It is amazing to see a huge hotel and convention center with every hallway, lobby and ballroom filled with kids and parents enjoying chess. Even arriving and departing from the airport, I saw kids playing chess games.”
Through the years, Langland has directed or helped oversee more than 1,800 U.S. Chess Federation officially rated tournaments and more than 200 local tournaments.
One of his all-time favorite tournaments was the 2017 SuperNationals event in Nashville, Tennessee, with more than 5,000 young people gathered under one roof.
“This was the first time that my sons were old enough to be tournament directors. It became a family affair as my wife, Dana, came along as our support crew. I was in charge of a section of 300 kids, dealing with touch-move complaints, kicking under the table and criers.
“Parents, kids and teams save up money all year to attend this event. It is certainly a high-pressure event for everyone. I try to calm them, but still enforce the rules. Seeing my boys working on the floor was a thrill and late-night room service was a special treat,” Langland said.
For years, Langland thought that his favorite chess memory came in 2016 when he won the tournament director-of-the-year award for that year. Now, however, he can say that the highlight of his career came in 2023 when his son, Jordan, won the same award.
“We’re the only father–son duo in which both a parent and a child have won the tournament director-of-the-year award.”
Years of study
It took Langland six years, from 2006 to 2012, to complete the five levels of certification — club, local, senior, associate national and national — to attain his full-fledged accreditation as a tournament director.
“The Bay Area has chess tournaments every weekend,” he said. “So that gave me the opportunity to achieve my certification more quickly.’
“The final test for the national-level certification is an essay assessment, equivalent to a college-level examination. Even though the official rulebook is more than 200 pages long, passing the rigorous test requires you to understand and apply the philosophies behind the rules in tough situations not explicitly covered by the rules,” Langland said.
Among a tournament director’s tasks are setting up the chess sets with their board numbers, placing notation sheets for recording the players’ moves, setting up computers and printers for pairings and providing the pairings.
The U.S. Chess Federation is the governing body for chess in the United States and each state has its own governance organization that reports to the federation. Since chess is so popular in California, the USCF split California into two states — Northern and Southern California.
In addition to his tournament-director responsibilities, Langland has been the president of CalChess, the governing body for chess in Northern California, for the past 14 years.
These days, there are very few adult exclusive chess tournaments, according to Langland. “There are many young people in the Bay Area and the U.S. who want to play chess. The kids have the time; the adults don’t. Adults seem to have grown busier and it takes a full day or two for a tournament.”
Langland has served as the chief tournament director for numerous national championships, but one of his career highlights — and a bucket-list item — was serving as the chief tournament director for the prestigious U.S. Open in Rancho Mirage, California, in 2022.
“This is a real test of a director’s abilities. Since this is truly an open event, players anywhere from beginners to grandmaster attend,” he said. “The event is played over a grueling nine days, so it also is an endurance event, not only for the players but the staff as well.’
“This U.S. Open was especially draining for me since this one was located in the desert two hours outside of Los Angeles during the summer. One of the most difficult parts of my job was I had to wear a suit and a tie every day. I have worked at the Lab for more than 30 years and never worn a suit and tie, but yet for the hobby I enjoy it was mandatory.”
Langland joked that he enjoyed the 2022 U.S. Open when it was over, calling it grueling and exhausting: “Even though I had 10 assistants, I was the first one in and the last one out. But I am totally thrilled that I did it.’
“Over the years, I am now a national tournament director, have directed more than 1,000 tournaments, served on many U.S. chess committees and I have enjoyed every moment. Chess is still fun and funny.”
