Henry White has found an important corollary between two worlds that have dominated much of his time:

In chess, as in politics, power is found in the center of the board.

White, 42, is both a master chess player and Gov. Mark Sanford’s chief of staff, giving him a player’s seat at the table in both worlds.

But White has been a serious chess player since his days at St. Andrews High School in Charleston. He has been the governor’s chief of staff since July.

“Every piece in your arsenal becomes more powerful when you move to the center of the board,” said White, who also still carries the title of Sanford’s chief legal counsel.

“If you put a knight on the side of the board, he can only reach two squares. You put him in the center, he can reach eight.”

The theory is much the same in politics. The player who relegates himself to the fringes of the political spectrum can find it difficult to accomplish much.

There are limitations to the similarities, White said.

“There is one critical difference,” he said. “The rules of chess only allow your opponent to make one move at a time. In politics, and in life, more than one thing is happening at a time.”

That is certainly true for White.

Sanford plucked him from the State Budget and Control Board offices to be his chief legal counsel shortly after the governor’s 2001 inauguration. After Sanford’s first chief of staff, Fred Carter, resigned in February to return to Francis Marion University, Sanford named White and senior adviser Tom Davis co-interim chiefs of staff.

Sanford’s plan was to find a permanent replacement. But when Davis resigned in July to return to his family and law practice in Beaufort, White assumed the duties — and pressures — of both jobs.

White deflects credit for handling the Herculean tasks of both managing the governor’s administration and dealing with its many legal issues. He has a great deputy chief of staff in Swati Patel, White said, and the rest of the governor’s top staff handles many of the chief of staff’s duties.

White prefers to focus on the positives of the job, especially the chance to affect change.

“There’s such a wide range of initiatives and issues,” White said, and he helps the governor decide “which issues get priorities over other things.”

He and Sanford also share many traits. Both are prone to seeking new ideas and approaches. Both are deliberate. In fact, “deliberate” is the word Sanford said best describes White.

“He’s not knee jerk; he’s not reactive,” Sanford said. “It’s not by chance that one of his favorite pastimes is chess.”

Chess requires good players to anticipate an opponent’s moves, a skill White has mastered, Davis said.

“He considers more possible angles where things might go wrong or where concerns may lie that we haven’t fully hashed out,” Davis said. “He’s a good detail person.”

Sharing power and a title can be problematic for some, especially in the ego-driven world of politics. But Davis said he and White focused on the job, not the “pride of place.”

“We were both kind of put into positions that, to be known, really weren’t of our choosing,” Davis said.

Davis continued to focus more on advancing the governor’s proposals through a dubious General Assembly. White’s focus was on administration and legal advice.

The job — or jobs, in White’s case — can take a toll, especially in terms of hours away from family. He and his wife, Donna, have a 3-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter.

“It does weigh on you,” White said, from the time constraints to the pressure of working much of the time in the public eye.

“Everything you’re working on has the potential to be front page, which is a huge difference from inside a private law firm.”

Mess up in private practice, he said, and you tell the client you messed up.

“Here,” he said, “there’s scrutiny with everything you’re doing.”

Those pressures lead White not to promise he will keep it up for a second Sanford term, if the governor is re-elected in 2006.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to talk about anything past the first term,” he said.

While he is there, however, he will continue to use his strengths to help a governor he agrees with on many issues.

A former assistant attorney general under Democrat Travis Medlock, White said he would label himself a Republican if forced to choose.

“I don’t wear my politics on my sleeve,” White said. “I really try to focus on what are the issues and who has the best answers for those issues.”

And so he does not focus, he said, on the fact that he is the first black to become a governor’s chief of staff in recent state history. Records are unclear as to how far back the position has been called “chief of staff.”

“I’ve been blessed with a good education,” White said. “I’ve worked hard. I’ve met some good folks, been in the right place at the right times.

“I come in and just try and give the governor the best I can give him every day, then go home, rest up, and do the same thing the next day.”

Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com