Why did NFL stars gather in June to play chess? It all began with Amari Cooper’s vision

Kyler Murray mulled over his lost pawn and strategized his next move.

But before Murray advanced his queen, Cleveland Browns receiver Amari Cooper extended a hand across the chess board.

“You won,” Cooper told the Arizona Cardinals quarterback at a Dallas-area arena on June 22. “I blundered it.”

“For real?” Murray asked.

“Damn, how I did that? Wowwww,” Cooper said. “I blundered a queen.”

Just an average NFL offseason night, right?

It wouldn’t have been unusual, say, on a Sunday in October, for Murray to compete against Dallas Cowboys pass rusher Micah Parsons, nor for Cooper to match wits with Tennessee Titans cornerback Chidobe Awuzie.

But when those bouts kicked off on a Saturday evening in June, the second-highest-ranked 18-year-old chess player in the country looked on and marveled.

“It’s like two alien-mated worlds, the chess world and the NFL world,” Shar Deviprasath told Yahoo Sports. “The chess world is in its own little bubble. Breaking out of that bubble is necessary to make it grow bigger.

“The bridge is getting closed.”

NFL stars playing chess isn’t anything new. From Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel to Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, players have long gravitated toward the 1,400-year-old game to hone their anticipation and decision-making skills. Some quarterback coaches and Power 5 college football programs even integrate chess lessons into their player development programs.

But rarely do four players who play four different positions on four different teams convene for in-person, “over the board” games as they did in this chess tournament. (Browns quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and free-agent running back Melvin Gordon also competed.) Rarely are chess tournaments staged in an arena capable of holding more than 2,000 spectators.

And yet: If Cooper and Deviprasath continue implementing their vision, each will become the norm.

“I want to bring more attention to chess so that I can have more people to play against,” Cooper told Yahoo Sports. “I can’t think of many things that I can do for hours at a time that I really enjoy doing.”

An NFL player and a 14-year-old walk into a Barnes & Noble …

When Cooper first drove his Lamborghini into a suburban townhouse complex in 2020, a 14-year-old’s parents were wary.

Was a Cowboys player 12 years their son’s senior really just driving him to … the neighborhood Barnes & Noble for chess lessons?

Deviprasath, then a ninth grader on the verge of attaining chess’s expert “national master” rating, told his mother he was going to coach Cooper.

“So first she Googles him and tries to understand,” Deviprasath said. “She honestly wasn’t believing him. Like – how does this happen?”

How indeed.

When the then-Oakland Raiders traded Cooper to the Cowboys in 2018, the 2015 fifth overall draft pick was ready for a change of football scenery.

He was less eager to leave the chess community he’d found at San Francisco’s Mechanics Institute Library. And Cooper wasn’t interested in competing only online.

So he began challenging Awuzie, a Cowboys teammate at the time, to locker-room matches. Cooper held an edge but saw Awuzie gaining. How could he stave off the corner?

Cooper asked his six-figure Instagram following for local chess hotspots..

“Hey I never knew you were into chess,” Deviprasath responded. “I play constantly every week.”

A spontaneous FaceTime call, online matches and chess club recommendations later, Cooper realized he’d discovered one of his favorite things: a new source from which to learn.

He asked Deviprasath to coach him — with one condition: “Don’t train [Awuzie].”

They met each Monday night for two to three hours at the Barnes & Noble near Deviprasath’s townhouse.

Four years later, lessons continue.

They’ve outlasted the Barnes & Noble, which closed in May 2023, and Cooper’s Cowboys tenure, which wrapped March 2022 when Dallas traded him to the Browns for a fifth-round pick as his salary outgrew their interest. Deviprasath worried then that the lessons and friendship had run their course.

Instead, he and Cooper began FaceTiming each Monday night as Deviprasath shared his screen.

“Then he came back to Dallas [each offseason] and it was almost like no difference,” Deviprasath said. “Our chess lessons have grown over the years.”

Cooper’s chess repertoire has grown, too, from roughly four “openings,” or strategies to approach the initial 10 to 15 moves of a game, to more than a dozen. Deviprasath has diagnosed Cooper’s preferred play style complete with strengths and weaknesses, queuing up thousands of puzzles to test how Cooper responds to each scenario and position.

“I picked [strategies] that fit his aggressive, attacking style,” Deviprasath said, explaining Cooper’s preference to chase down his opponent’s king rather than set up an elaborate, unfolding trap. “Attacking tactics, he gets those puzzles that normally other people around his rating take longer with.

“But in positions where it’s simple and coming up with the plan, he sometimes takes longer.”

Deviprasath has learned acutely about the way Cooper thinks; Cooper, in turn, has shared books from his library with Deviprasath and met his coach’s parents and grandparents.

They celebrated together when Deviprasath earned national master recognition in 2021 and an International Chess Federation (FIDE) Master title in 2022.

And they celebrated as Cooper’s online blitz rating (for games which last no longer than 10 minutes per player, and often fewer than five) rose from 1138 when they began training to a high of 1853 earlier this year.

His 1712 rating ranked in the top third of the 680,292 active players on lichess.org as of Wednesday.

“Right now in my chess journey, I feel like it’s very similar to when I was in high school trying to get (football) offers,” Cooper told Yahoo Sports during a sitdown interview this spring. “I wanted it so bad and I was working toward it.

“I feel that way in chess right now.”

NFL players have long learned from chess. But can chess learn from the NFL?

As Cooper and Deviprasath nestled into a Dallas café booth on April 26, their energy was palpable.

So too was their brotherhood, as they finished each other’s sentences and prodded their counterpart beyond humility.

They know their lens is unusual.

Cooper is an elite football player, fresh off his seventh 1,000-yard receiving season in nine years. The five-time Pro Bowler’s 9,486 receiving yards and 60 receiving touchdowns each rank ninth among active players.

Deviprasath is an elite chess player, his 2540 rating 90th best in the country among more than 77,000 players. His classical chess rating slots second among U.S. 18-year-olds and 14th among Texas players of all ages. In the increasingly popular online blitz sector, his 2497 rating tops 99.6% of active lichess.org players.

For four years, they’ve taught each other about their “alien-mated” worlds. Now, they ask themselves: What can the popularity of professional football teach them on their quest to grow the game of chess? Can they attract spectators, and perhaps one day broadcast deals, if they encourage the world’s best players to compete in faster-paced competitions like blitz chess?

“If chess is ever going to get money in it and become a spectator sport, it needs to be watchable,” Deviprasath said.

They laid the groundwork.

Deviprasath recruited two of the world’s 30 best chess players for an in-person blitz match between Vidit Gujrathi (2720, India’s No. 3) and Hans Nieman (2703, U.S. No. 8).

Cooper funded the super grandmaster match, also recruiting NFL players for a celebrity rapid tournament (15 minutes each) that would further draw an audience.

They cofounded Universal Chess Tour with Cole Blakeman, a U.S. Chess and FIDE tournament organizer who recommended attracting chess buffs with an open and scholastic tournament. Blakeman coordinated chess boards, timers, tables and more for the 362-member open tournaments as well as marquee events.

“I’ve had some very strong players play in my events,” Blakeman told Yahoo Sports. “But I haven’t ran something that had celebrities and super grandmasters.

“Trying to make it exciting for a live audience? That’s something I’ve never done before.”

Cooper, Deviprasath made statement move – but their game isn’t over

On June 22 at NYTEX Sports Centre near Dallas, Parsons got up from his chair, distraught.

He walked around the table for another vantage point of the electronic chess board.

A conciliatory Murray gave him a shoulder squeeze.

“You good?” quarterback asked pass rusher.

“No, I’m not good!” Parsons exclaimed.

He lamented his decision not to wear noise-canceling headphones, like Murray, or to invest more in sleep the previous night.

“Damn,” Awuzie laughed as he looked up from his own board to see Parsons’ loss.

Within the hour, Cooper’s 16th move cost him his queen and the semifinal game to Murray. Murray would last 68 moves deep into the celebrity bracket championship before Awuzie triumphed.

But as Awuzie hoisted the celebrity trophy, Cooper and Deviprasath knew that they, too, had won.

They’d brought more eyes to the sport, including 162,000 viewers of ChessBase India’s Niemann-Gujrathi stream (Niemann won the best-of-three, 2-1). They’d intermingled two worlds of avid fans and avid players, Cooper and Gujrathi even scrimmaging in a game that left Gujrathi saying Cooper “played so good.”

“I won of course, but he’s a professional football player,” Gujrathi said. “And for that, he played amazing chess. So I was really impressed.”

As the tournament wrapped, Cooper and Deviprasath knew they, too, would soon wrap this chapter of their chess journey. Deviprasath would soon leave home for his freshman year of college, orientation tasks already on his docket. Cooper soon would return to Browns training camp, on the cusp of his 10th NFL season.

But as Cooper considered what could lie ahead for Universal Chess Tour, and for his personal chess game, he knew that in many ways this journey was just beginning. More lessons, puzzles and theory books awaited. Solace lay in knowing his competitive juices would cling to their intellectual outlet long after their physical outlet eventually tapers. Determination lay in his goal to one day outshine his master.

Until then – and afterward, if the day comes – he will keep learning.

“The difference between me and [other NFL players Deviprasath has trained] is I don’t think they’re willing to humble themselves and be like, ‘I’m gonna let Shar teach me,’” Cooper said. “Every athlete wants to beat him.

“I really want to get better.”