Chess Cafe Culture

[John Foley]

There is a new cafe in super trendy Shoreditch, London which has people happily playing chess.
Ziferblat is a Russian chain with a pay-by-time business model.
Maybe this is the sort of place that could catch on - but is £1.80 per hour too expensive for chess players?
BBC report

[Gordon Cadden]

I was a frequent habitué of the "Prompt Corner" café, when living in Hampstead. This was a wonderful chess café, where the hustlers would gather on a week-end.
It occupied a prime position on the corner of Pond Street, and South End Green. In the 1930's, it was a bookshop, where a certain George Orwell worked.
Used to spend many a happy hour in this café. A Pizza Parlour chain made the owner an offer he could not refuse, and so the business was sold. The owner opened another café in Chalk Farm Road, called "Chequers", which was a popular chess haunt for a few years, until the owner died suddenly, of a heart attack.
Sean Hewitt is right. The average chess player is parsimonious, and will spend the entire afternoon supping a coffee/tea. It is just not economically viable to encourage chess players to play chess.
This new Shoreditch café is charging £1.80 per hour for chess players. A reasonable fee for Central London. How many members of this Forum would be happy to pay their fee ?

[Barry Sandercock]

I don't think I would, unless it was a short game !

[Jon Mahony]

Personally I’d pay that, in fact I might go up to 2 quid!

But yes, I think the only way to make such a business viable is to charge hourly for rental of the boards, and maybe an additional fee for clocks if players want to use them.

As Gordon says, most players will nurse one cup of tea the whole day, and even be very put out, when asked to put away their flask and plastic box of sandwiches.

However, how would the hourly rates be enforced? The only way I can think of is to have a timer for each table, running on a computer screen, and then when the hour is up, a member of staff having to go up to the players and ask them to either put more money in the kitty or leave - presumably it would be etiquette not to interrupt in the middle of a game, so if its been played at slow time controls, the café would be giving free half hours away all over the place. Not only that, but the process seems a bit clumsy.

Either that or some sort of coin-operated shutter over the chess sets, which closes when the players’ time is over - but that could result in the loss of fingers

How have cafes done this in the past?

[John Townsend]

It depends what chess facilities are provided. For example, does the house help to find visitors a suitable opponent? The fee does not sound too demanding if it includes tea or coffee.

[John Upham]

Could I take my own sandwiches?

[John Foley]

Once people start taking their own sandwiches, the café becomes somewhat less trendy.

[John Upham]

Once people start taking their own sandwiches, the café becomes somewhat less trendy.

You have yet to benefit from observing my sandwiches.

[John Townsend]

However, how would the hourly rates be enforced?

Here is one possible way. On arrival you could be handed a timed ticket from the till, then brought a coffee or tea. On departure you present your ticket at the till and settle up according to the length of your visit.

[Stewart Reuben]

Such a system as John townsend suggest worked perfectly well at the Chess and chequer club of NY 50 years ago.
Ali Amin (name correct?) who owned Chequers said that chessplayers were much too cheap to contemplate a venue based solely on a table charge.
When we last considered the idea, it was going to be a subsidised national chess centre. That came to nothing. In my youth there was the NCC and Gambit Chess Rooms. I presume the economics failed to work because of the expense of venues in London.

[Gordon Cadden]

Chequers was also the headquarters of "Chequers Chess Publications". They had the novel, but expensive idea of showing a diagram for each moved played. Do not know if Ali Amin (?) was directly involved with the publishing. Have a copy of "The Brussels Encounter". The names of William Hartston, Willi Iclicki, and Roger Lancaster, are listed.

[JustinHorton]

Chequers was also the headquarters of "Chequers Chess Publications". They had the novel, but expensive idea of showing a diagram for each moved played.

I've seen books like that - I seem to remember one on the Fischer-Spassky match that my local library had in Stevenage.

[Stewart Reuben]

The Larry Evans book of the Fischer-Spassky match was titled 'move by move'.
There was a German series with a diagram every 5 moves if I remember correctly.
In case people are confused: The Chess and Chequer Club of NY was in no way related to Chequers in London. The former was often known as 'The Flea House'.
Quoting myself in 'The Chess Scene' about the NY venue. 'First floor up it is, reverberating to the familiar smell of urine, and, visiting there in 1971, after a six-year absence, it seemed as if nobody had even left their seats during that time. I used to play up there regularly in the mid 1960s, hustling all-comers for 50 cents or a dollar at five-minute chess.'

[Kevin Thurlow]

"There was a German series with a diagram every 5 moves if I remember correctly."

Yes - it was titled "Weltgeschichte des Schachs" I think, and had about 300 noteless games of various top players. It had a solid red cover, and there are photos of Fischer getting off a 'plane clutching the volume on Spassky. This was of course pre-Chessbase.

On Chequers, Ray Keene commented that he didn't get paid the agreed amount when he wrote some books for Amin. I had asked him to sign one of the books, so he said, "I got paid half the amount, you can have half a signature!" So I have a Chequers-published book, inscribed, "Best wishes, Ray"

I also played in Amin's Chess for Peace tournament, which was supposed to have huge numbers of GMs and have a very large prize fund. Certainly, the former did not happen...

[Stewart Reuben]

The Chess for Peace tournament had an announced £50,000 first prize and no second. It was to have been supported by a Sheikh. Others billed it as the chess for war event. The support was withdrawn. It ended up as a much more modest event, still no doubt costing Aly Amin money.
Aly started many initiatives. Some were successful.