In a conference room at the Grand Hyatt in Buckhead this past Saturday morning, chess boards lined rows of tables. Kazim Gulamali sat in the middle of the crowded room surveying the board in front of him. Finally he moved one white pawn two spaces forward, kicking off his entry into the Georgia Peach Open. The next day, with eight seconds left on the clock, he finished playing the tournament's highest-rated player, grandmaster Ildar Ibragimov, who offered him a draw.

Kazim is only 15, but he already holds national chess titles and will represent Georgia in next week's Denker Tournament of High School Champions, where the best player in each state competes for $1,200 in prize money.

Kazim learned the game from his father, Mumtaz Yusuf, a native of Karachi, Pakistan. His mother is a fifth-generation Indian who grew up in Tanzania. The couple moved to the United States from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 20 years ago.

Kazim's talent may be rare, but in Georgia's chess community, his background is common. The game is bursting in popularity spurred by interest from a younger and more diverse group of Georgians.

Four years ago, the Georgia Chess Association had 75 members, 80 percent of whom were adults, said Daniel Lucas, free-lance writer and editor of Georgia Chess Magazine. Now it has about 400 members, half of them junior players.

Many of those new additions to Georgia's chess community come from around the world. Half of Georgia's top 20 players were born outside the United States, estimates Ted Wieber Sr., president of the Georgia Chess Association.

Georgia's second-highest-ranking chess player, Carlos Perdomo, moved to the state from Colombia a little more than two years ago.

Perdomo is spending his summer in an elementary school cafeteria surrounded by children, teaching chess at KidChess, a summer camp in Marietta.

"Chess helped [Carlos] join the country here and improve his English," said Wieber.

One reason for chess's international influence in Georgia is Atlanta's growth in immigration, said Lucas. That's the case for Perdomo, now 27 years old. He didn't move to the United States for chess, but because he felt that Colombia was no longer safe.

During one recent afternoon at KidChess, Perdomo moves quickly from board to board, playing three opponents at once. At a nearby table, Maria Carolina Blanco, Venezuela's top player, explains her moves in Spanish to third-grader Luisa Coutinho, while playing speed chess. Blanco, 23, a dentist in her homeland, was in town for the Georgia Peach Open.

"There's no doubt that it's a real melting pot," said Wieber. "It has always been much more popular outside of the U.S." Many compare chess to soccer, which is only starting to enjoy a surge in interest within the United States.

Understood around world

FIDE, the World Chess Federation, has 163 member nations and is considered by some to be the world's second-largest international sports association, after FIFA, the world soccer federation.

In countries like Russia, chess has long been well-respected, as attested to by the number of top players the nation has produced.

"If my father hadn't been Russian, there's a greater percentage I wouldn't have played the game," said Lev Shaket, second to Kazim among Georgia high school players. Lev, 15, also learned to play chess from his father, and now plays with his grandfather for practice.

Like soccer, chess doesn't require verbal communication to play.

"You can play someone, even if you don't know their language," said Ted Wieber Jr., Wieber's son.

Because the rules are standardized, players from around the world can play each other online.

"Through chess, I've met more nationalities than in anything I have ever done," said Jim Mundy, a north Fulton chess teacher.

More than 25,000 people from around the world pay to play chess at the Internet Chess Club. The service uses a color coding system to match up players at equal levels. Because members come from all time zones, players can get a game any time of day.

"It's a really neat aspect of chess that you come in contact with different ethnic groups, and you can play people from different countries," said Wieber Jr.

Developing skills over years

While he thinks studying and practicing chess are boring, Kazim is also no stranger to playing online. He is the No. 1 player of Bughouse, a four-player chess game with two boards, according to the Internet Chess Club.

"A lot of times I have to get on his case not to play Bughouse," said his mother, Kanize Gulamali. "I'll peek into his room, and when I see two boards on the screen, I know."

While they can't afford formal coaches, Kazim's parents want their son to be prepared for the six-day Denker Tournament.

Still, he has gotten this far with his father as his only coach. "He used to come up with all the moves in books, without ever opening up one," said Yusuf.

Yusuf taught himself to play chess while growing up in Karachi. He continued playing at a neighborhood park when he moved to Queens, N.Y., in 1983. He soon began taking his two sons, Tajwar and Kazim, then 3, with him.

"It was like a second home to us, that area," said Tajwar, now 17.

That's where the two brothers learned how to move chess pieces around, but it wasn't until the family moved to Georgia 10 years ago that Kazim's talent began to shine.

Chess wunderkind

At 7, Kazim started to accompany his father to the Atlanta Chess Center, playing the game more seriously. People took notice of his ability right away.

"It was a real scene," said Wieber Sr., "seeing Kazim in a coat and tie in the second grade with his father, beating older people at the center."

"He has a brilliant talent for the game," said Justin Morrison, founder of KidChess. "He sees the board beautifully. He sees things more deeply, more quickly and more accurately than anybody else."

Players at Kazim's level spend about 30 to 40 hours a week studying and practicing chess, estimates Morrison.

For his part, Kazim can't really describe how he's able to play so well without studying.

He lets his play talk for him. "He's beaten me twice," out of three times, said Perdomo. "I can't imagine how good he would be if he practiced."