Luke Harmon-Vellotti, top, the highest-ranked 9-year-old chess player in the United States, is among the competitors at the New England Masters Chess Tournament in Pawtucket. The event drew 44 players, some from as far as Germany, Israel, France and Ukraine.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

PAWTUCKET — They are drawn here by the competition.

There are four grandmasters. More than 20 masters. And some of the highest ranked players in their category in the world.

“All the local chess players say this is the best thing to happen to Rhode Island chess in their lifetime,” says David Harris, director of the Blackstone Chess Club, which is hosting the New England Masters Chess Tournament in downtown Pawtucket this week.

Harris and a few dozen locals usually gather in the To Kalon Club every Friday night to play. But this week, the club will share its home with Rhode Island’s first international chess tournament.

The players –– most of them in jeans and sneakers, clutching bottled water as last night’s competition began –– have come from across the globe for this. The flags that appear on the placards bearing their names represent Germany, Israel, France and Ukraine.

Timur Gareev, of Uzbekistan, acknowledges that he had barely heard of Rhode Island before this week. The 20-year-old with the scruff on his chin is an international “grandmaster,” the highest title awarded to players by the World Chess Federation.

“The competition here is strong,” Gareev says before taking his seat yesterday evening.

There are 44 players gathered in this quiet conference room with the large windows and brass chandeliers. They play two games each day — a morning and evening session. Games can span up to five hours, while others take just minutes.

The players include the state champions of New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The top-seeded player is the German Leonid Kritz, a grandmaster who is ranked 134th in the world.

Harris, who planned on simply watching yesterday’s competition, was called on to fill in for a sick player.

The 54-year-old Providence man with the shaggy hair and large glasses sat down just past 6 p.m. to face his opponent.

He was matched up against Luke Harmon-Vellotti, the boy from Idaho with the red baseball cap who is the top-ranked 9-year-old in the United States, according to his mother, who was standing in the hallway outside.

“It is a little intimidating, but I’ve had to play the number-two 12-year-old and managed to get through it,” Harris would later say.

Is he tempted to go easier on children?

“We have no mercy,” Harris says instinctively. “He’s just another opponent. You play against the board, not the person.”

The players compete for a first-place prize of $900. But there’s more at stake here than the money, according to tournament organizer and referee Chris Bird.

A player earns points with every win (half as many for a draw) that improve his or her ranking and the ultimate quest for master or grandmaster status.

“Everyone’s trying to get to the next step,” Bird says. “So they don’t necessarily have to win to do well.”

Luke, for example, says his goal is to win three or four of the nine games he will play this week. His mother says she traveled from Idaho to help her son prepare for an October tournament in Vietnam.

“These are really the best players in the country. He’s trying to get experience,” Ava Harmon-Vellotti said.

The games are open to the public.

But Dean Fachon and his 12-year-old son Neil are among only a handful of spectators walking throughout the room during last night’s competition.

The East Greenwich man, whose son competes across Rhode Island and Massachusetts, had never seen a grandmaster before this week. “They’re intense people and sometimes a little quirky,” he says, adding that they’re also extremely friendly after the games are over.

The Fachons paid particular attention to local favorite Jorge Sammour-Hasbun, of Barrington, who serves as Neil’s teacher.

Sammour-Hasbun said Rhode Island wasn’t on the world chess circuit before this week.

“When I’m [playing] in Vegas, people don’t even know where Rhode Island is,” he says. “Through this tournament, they’re learning.”

While the New England Master’s Chess Tournament ends today, the Blackstone Chess Festival Open begins tomorrow morning at the Comfort Inn on George Street.

speoples@projo.com