January 17, 1999

NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: MIDWOOD; Chess Is This Teen-Ager's Life (Except for a Certain Boy)

Often spending five hours a day playing or studying chess, Irina, a sophomore at Edward R. Murrow High School, takes her talent seriously. ''When I have friends, it's because they're really important to me,'' she said. ''Everything else is chess.''

The dedication has paid off. Last weekend, Irina won the New York City high school chess championship for private and public schools, boys and girls. But, even more impressive, the achievement holds little weight for her.

That is because Irina is already the nation's reigning women's chess champion. ''For a week, I didn't step out of my hotel room,'' she said about the United States Women's Chess Championship in Denver, where she won the title last November. ''That's the life of a chess player.''

But Irina, who was born in Russia, is setting her sights higher than that title, too. What irks her about the victory is that she didn't have to play against men to get it.

Because the best women do not have as high ratings as the best men, top-tier national and international tournaments, which are open to both sexes, also have a women's competition, said Eric C. Johnson, assistant director of the United States Chess Federation. Irina is not yet able to enter top tournaments with men because of her rating, but soon hopes to qualify. After all, competing against the best men is necessary for her to improve her game. But Irina does not shun international play. She has traveled as far as India, Brazil and Russia for tournaments.

Irina's father, Boris, taught her to play chess when she was five. ''Relatively speaking, he's not bad,'' the 15-year-old said. ''He was my coach until I was 9. Now, of course, there's no point.''

As Irina was winning her title last weekend, the Murrow team, which has been city champions for 8 of the last 11 years, was taking second place behind Stuyvesant High School. Murrow will attend the nationals in South Dakota if it can raise the money to go.

Eliot Weiss, a math teacher at Murrow, has been coaching the school's chess team since the year Irina was born. ''Coaching Irina is like coaching Wayne Gretzky,'' he said. ''How do you coach Wayne Gretzky?''

Nevertheless, Irina is enough of a teen-ager to have a boyfriend, if a long-distance one. His name is Alik, an 18-year-old Israeli chess player, whom Irina met at a competition in New York in March. Both have huge phone bills.

When asked what country she'd like to visit next, Irina laughed. ''Unobjectively speaking, Israel,'' she said. KAREN MACKLIN

Correction: January 24, 1999, Sunday Because of a mechanical error, an article in the Neighborhood Report last Sunday about a Irina Krush, who recently won the New York City high school chess championship, included several scrambled paragraphs. Readers wishing corrected copies of the article may write to Production Quality Control, The New York Times, 229 West 43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10036, or phone (212) 556-1992. E-Mail: quality@nytimes.com. (Include a postal return address.)