Smart moves: London’s new Chess Club bar

[Chris Rice]

This new members only "quiet bar" in Mayfair is opening on February 6 in collaboration with Malcolm Pein, to create an in-house grandmaster’s residency, and members can organise a lesson with a grandmaster or pop by for a game at any time in the upstairs bar. There will also be informal tournaments and exhibitions with the UK’s leading players.

Membership will be £450 a year. I wish the Experimental Group all the best though I fear they may be targeting the wrong audience for such an exclusive bar.

https://howtospendit.ft.com/fine-living ... s-club-bar

[Nick Burrows]

Bizarro!

[Dewi Jones]

Can i take a thermos?

[Jonathan Bryant]

Can i take a thermos?

Surely the key question is whether we can take our own sandwiches.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Potentially, the contacts that might be made by being a member of a club like that might actually repay the membership fee if it resulted in patronage and/or sponsorship. Find the right person with an interest in chess, or spark an interest in chess in the right person, and quite a lot could happen.

It does sounds more like the whole thing is being set up to potentially draw in money towards chess, and hopefully that will trickle down in various ways. With Malcolm Pein involved (he is name-checked in his London Chess Classic role), that will almost certainly happen.

Compare this to the ECF initiative(s) to get grandmasters turning out in local pubs:

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/chess-master-the-local/
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/hull-che ... the-local/

http://chessimprover.com/wednesday-in-t ... ith-keith/
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/1 ... andmaster/

(That last one must have been uncomfortable for Keith: "Professional chess players will be competing in Watford’s first ever grandmaster." Unfortunate typo there, well less a typo, more a completely nonensical sentence.)

[Andrew Zigmond]

£450 a year works out as £37.50 a month if budgeted across the whole year. In the grand scheme of things its not a huge sum for someone with a reasonable amount of disposable income. It possibly isn't an enterprise that's going to get the man on the street interested in chess, but then again I doubt that it's trying to be. As Christopher Kreuzer noted there are other initiatives available.

[Simon Brown]

If Malcolm is involved it's worth checking out. As it's near my office I'll drop in at some stage.

[Dewi Jones]

For the avoidence of doubt, I think it an admirable enterprise. It is chess players in general and their unwillingness to spend any money or be in any way creative with their hobby that I was taking the piss out of.

[Dewi Jones]

Can i take a thermos?

Surely the key question is whether we can take our own sandwiches.

Indeed. I for one will not be attending unless we can.

[Roger Lancaster]

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:

(That last one must have been uncomfortable for Keith: "Professional chess players will be competing in Watford’s first ever grandmaster." Unfortunate typo there, well less a typo, more a completely nonsensical sentence.)

Yes, the standard of journalism at Watford's local paper leaves much to be desired. As to the gist of this thread, I can see this might have some appeal to chess enthusiasts prepared to spend a little money. However, they are a completely different demographic to those who tolerate draughty church halls and complain intermittently about the level of ECF fees.

[MJMcCready]

A potential solution here (depending on how strong you are OTB) is to play for money, to hustle in the club. If it's £37.50 a month as mentioned above, then a stake of £37.49 a game should almost cover it, or maybe a fiver a game, first to eight wins is slightly better...

[Paul Cooksey]

However, they are a completely different demographic to those who tolerate draughty church halls and complain intermittently about the level of ECF fees.

I agree. The possibility of fine wines, Belgian chocolates and a tete-a tete with Ray is making the time Henley had a hole in the roof and it was snowing on my board seem entirely tolerable. But each to their own.

[Graham Borrowdale]

Paul, I am guessing you are too young to remember the sloping tables at the Maidenhead Library. Depending which side of the table you were on the pieces had a tendency to gravitate towards the kingside or the queenside.

[Matthew Turner]

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea. I really hope it is successful.

[MJMcCready]

Paul, I am guessing you are too young to remember the sloping tables at the Maidenhead Library. Depending which side of the table you were on the pieces had a tendency to gravitate towards the kingside or the queenside.

But in what sense did that influence, encourage or discourage castling preferences Graham?