BAYPORT, Minn. — No matter who you are, where you come from or what language you speak, chess can build bridges between all. Inside Minnesota Correctional Facility Stillwater Thursday, the game did just that. 

"I've played for about 20 years," Robert Kendell-Bey, incarcerated at MCF Stillwater, said. "I learned while being incarcerated."

Kendell-Bey was one of 40 men who participated in a chess tournament inside the facility. Chess is not a new game inside the prison – Kendell-Bey says many play.

"It's just a good game," he said. "I just want to play something cooperative."

But something like this hasn't been done before.

"First chess tournament that's taken place within a Minnesota Department of Corrections facility," Warden Bill Bolin said.

Bolin says having this tournament for the prison's population was an easy choice, considering what chess teaches.

"I think it gives an opportunity for our incarcerated men to share an experience amongst others that they probably have never interacted with, and again, really focus on some of their thought process, critical thinking skills, problem solving and then making good choices based upon that," Bolin said.

It's something Kendell-Bey agrees with. He says he doesn't enjoy the more competitive side that chess can sometimes bring out in people.

"The chessboard in here can be one of those bridges from the mean mugs and evil looks that we have been trained to display when we first come in here," he said.

This tournament was put on in partnership with The Gift of Chess, a nonprofit that focuses on bringing chess to incarcerated populations. All players Thursday will become certified members of the United States Chess Federation, and the top four players will receive a certificate and a free chess set.

Lon Newman is a volunteer who helped get the tournament to MCF Stillwater.

"Regardless of position, disability, race, culture, everybody can play chess," he said.

Newman says he hopes to eventually connect these players with players around the world.

"If we can get a Stillwater prison team to compete against, you know, Bulgaria," Newman said. "I mean, wouldn't that be fun?"

Regardless of who they compete against, Kendell-Bey says he appreciates the opportunity to play – and the opportunity to grow.

"It allows us the opportunity to take off the mask of prison and be in a space that's outside the cell blocks, where we can just be ourselves," he said. "It's not that we don't take moments to do that in a cell block, but up here right now, to be seen in a different light by outside resources, to have the opportunity to potentially engage with ranked players, I think it's important because it's inspiring and it generates the community that we want to cultivate in here."

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