STUDIOUS CHESS PRODIGY MAKING RIGHT MOVES.

Byline: HEIDI RIED 

Sitting at a table with his chessboard, Brian Havey, 12, played the white and the black pieces to show how he had beaten a chess expert. He had memorized every move of the game. A great memory, natural skill and a drive to study chess at least four hours a day is what he hopes will bring him to his goal: to become world chess champion.

Not only has Havey been playing chess for just one year, but he has already earned a chess rating of 1406 and is classified a C player. From the Gorman area, he started playing chess after he saw the movie ``Searching for Bobby Fisher.''

He augments his practice by reading books such as ``Ideas Behind Chess Openings.'' Havey is a self-taught player who relies on books to teach him every new move. To get ahead of the competition though, he studies more when he loses.

``When I lose, it makes me want to find the mistake and learn more about chess so I don't make the same error again,'' he said.

Gary Sauer, owner of the Valencia Chess Club, said that Havey has a lot of natural talent and a great drive to win. He takes Havey to all the chess tournaments and gives him some advice in the meantime to keep up his studying.

He admits though that Havey has beaten him at chess. ``I have a feeling Brian will go far. He's got the self-motivation it takes to study and keep up on his skills,'' he said.

Havey is grateful to Sauer for taking him to tournaments and supplying him with chess books to study. He thinks Sauer should take his own advice.

``I keep telling him that he could be a senior master player if he studied books, but he just won't listen,'' Havey joked.

Gary Kasparov, current world champion, is Havey's idol. Havey may soon get a step closer to Kasparov's level - he could become a master player by February.

Havey joined the Lancaster Community Chess Club and started to attend ``Chess for Kids'' in Valencia, run by Jay Stallings. Soon after, a friend convinced to him to compete and he took second place in his first contest.

After winning a few tournaments in Bakersfield at the Kern County Scholastic Chess tournaments, Havey decided to study chess every day. His rating increased from 956 in January 1996 to 1,226 in April. (The world champion has a rating of more than 2,800.) But, now, at 1,406, he hopes to become a B player soon.

He's already on his way. On June 9, he played at the Chess Palace in Long Beach, where he beat the top C players with a score 1.5 points above the highest B player.

Havey also loves to play ``blindfold'' chess and has played six games simultaneously and won every game in less than an hour.

``To keep up on strategy, I memorize five moves ahead and pretty much know what I am going to do up to the twelfth move of the game. After that, I make up my own strategies,'' he explained.

On top of playing chess, he has researched and written several reports about famous chess players. Home-schooled by his mother, math is his favorite subject.