Support Your Local Chess Club

There are a number of ways that people can get something out of chess, but to me, the best way is still the good old fashioned Chess Club. It's a place where you can meet people with a shared interest, watch and emulate more experienced players and learn to compete, and generally gain more information about the game. I believe that the advent of internet chess caused chess clubs to suffer as players found it easier and more convenient to play at home. This is unfortunate, as dwindling numbers of players at clubs, and less clubs, means that it is harder to find a social outlet for chess players to interact and express themselves.

In Melbourne, it appears to me that the trend is beginning to shift back in favour of clubs a little. The 2 main clubs, Box Hill and Melbourne have retained reasonable numbers for their events, and seem to be providing their members exactly what they want. The newer Noble Park Chess Club has grown to a reasonable size and seems to be attracting members of all ages and levels of experience, and the club must now be considered approaching the 2 biggest clubs in size and quality. There are also a number of clubs that are less central which are also providing a good service to the nearby communities, but there is always room for more.

Young and not so young, all are welcome at Glen Eira Chess Club

Over the past year, I've been working hard alongside my friend and work colleague, David Cordover to establish a chess club in our own neighbourhood. I live about 5 km from David and we set up a chess club near to our homes in nearby Carnegie. We'd found that many of the kids we'd taught were ready to join an adult chess club, but many weren't prepared to travel too far to do so. So while we have pushed kids towards the 3 clubs already mentioned, as well as others nearest to their homes, the kids near where we lived needed a place to play. As such we established Glen Eira Chess Club which started small, and has remained essentially a friendly, local, chess hang out. We meet on Friday evenings and for an hour the club is open to juniors and perhaps some adults who are just beginning the game, and then from 7 pm we run the adult club. So far, this has entailed a mixture of long play events and some less competitive evenings where we've played blitz, or just social games. As a founding member I might be biased, but I really enjoy the vibe of the club. While we encourage people to participate in events, there is no pressure to do so.

Tonight we started our second tournament of the year, a 7 round swiss with 3 qualifying places for our end of year club championship which promises a $1000 first prize. With 1 International Master already qualified from the first event, we expect the 9 player championship round robin to be a great event at the end of the year. For me, it is great just to play, and possibly to give something back to the chess community. I can remember as a kid going to local chess clubs and getting beaten by the adults who would then help me improve my game through analysis of the game. That was how I improved, taking those lessons on board. And I feel it my obligation, and in fact the obligation of all players to give back to the game to the next generation what we got out of it.

Tonight I was playing a young student of mine, Aaron, who is probably way better than I was at his age. However, the game turned on something that I remember learning about when I was quite young, an absolute pin.

I was black and a just a pawn up. Aaron had skilfully worked his way through the tricks that I put to him and could have thought about setting up drawing chances if it weren't for the fact that his rook is pinned. My next move was to add more pressure to the pinned piece with 1..Rd8. While white is currently stuck, black has the chance to improve his endgame chances by creating a passed pawn on the king side, and/or improving his king. In the meantime, should white eventually get out of the pin by playing e4 and Ke3 for example (that was what Aaron chose to do to remove the pin) then black always has the choice of exchanging all the pieces and leaving a pawn endgame where he is a pawn ahead which should be a win. This was the way the game went.

I have to say that for the first round of a swiss tournament there were a number of close fought games, including mine! A number of players took byes, including some of the higher rated players, so next week's second round should be interesting.

Glen Eira Chess Club

Ok, over the past few weeks we made some mistakes in the running of this chess club. We started to build a regular number of visitors each week, and seemed to have a good thing going. Then we moved venue to a nicer space. Unfortunately, we didn't get contact details for our members so couldn't let them know about this. As a result we lost some bodies from the new place. As a result of this, I have decided that the most important thing for a new club is communication, and I'll be trying to write a short, regular newsletter for members to keep them up to date. This week we came close to getting 20 people through the doors which is really the minimum number we will need as a starting point to build the club.

While the venue is excellent, it has a security issue. Carnegie Library, where we play, closes at 6 pm on a Friday, and people cannot enter the building without a key, or unless someone opens the doors for them from inside. This is another issue we will have to overcome if we're to stay at this venue. For the past couple of weeks we have had only a couple of people through the doors, but this week we had enough to start some small round robin events. These will take place over the next 8-10 weeks, with some leeway for players to make up games if they cannot come to the club one night. There are still spots available for anyone who wants to play, and if we get enough players, we can even start another group. The players were roughly divided into playing strength groups, and over the space of time, these groups should establish into an upper and lower group with promotion and relegation. While I like the swiss system, I still prefer the old round robin system for a tournament, and my mind drifts back to my junior days when I'd turn up at the club and there would be a noticeboard with hand drawn crosstables that were gradually filled in throughout the year. Games that weren't played were obviously counted as double zeroes and tournaments could last a whole calendar year! Those were the days :D

The first step in remedying a problem is in identifying it. We have seen the mistakes we've made, and will try to make amends and ensure they don't happen again. Starting a new chess club from scratch is something that everyone at Glen Eira Chess Club is learning how to do. And I've just noticed that our website hasn't been updated with the new venue, which is another job to do!

My first game in our round robin was against a talented junior who is under rated (as they all seem to be) and can probably hold his own at 1400-1600 level. This boy is essentially self taught, has received a minimum of private coaching and just likes to play. Again, this reminds me of how things were in the old days when I was a junior. I managed to win the game, but not without a struggle, and not without chances for my young opponent. Here's the game with light notes.




I had a really enjoyable night on Friday. The games were played in great spirit, things were hard fought but not taken overly seriously, and it was good just chatting with people through the evening. Anyone who wants to come down to the club are very welcome, and we can accommodate everyone from beginners to seasoned tournament players. Generally, the emphasis is on making the club a friendly place to play, but we will be holding tournaments for those who like things to be more competitive. And finally, we are open to ideas, so if you want to be a part of the club, or if you are already a part of the club, what do you want to see happening? We'll do our best to please as many members as possible.

Glen Eira Chess Club

Last night was the final one for Glen Eira Chess Club at its first home, Tucker Road Primary School. It was great of the school to offer us a temporary accommodation while we were looking for a place where we could call home. So we will next be meeting in 3 weeks time at the new venue of Carnegie Library, again from 6 pm for Juniors and then from 7 pm for adults.

Local news coverage

Last night, as a fun way of seeing off the old venue, the juniors played a Transfer tournament (Bughouse to those of you in the USA) while after we had a blitz event which was won by David Beaumont (his son Fitzroy had been part of the winning Transfer team earlier, with Michael Gershenzon). David, who has just competed in the Victorian Championship, is looking forward to other strong local players coming to the club. IM James Morris lives close to Carnegie, and David relishes seeing James come along to challenge his blitz prowess! It was all played in a fun spirit and was an enjoyable evening.

The new venue, Carnegie Libaray will see us start a new initiative that seemed to appeal to those who were at the club last night. We intend to make the club specialise in round robin tournaments, so members get to play a group of players near their own standard. This might take a bit of time to sort itself out, but it is different from most clubs who are running large swiss events. We envisage running small round robin events with maybe 6 or 8 players, and having regular promotion and relegation between sections. The concept of running a club like this is fairly new to us, so we're still trying to decide on the exact format, but it should be exciting. There should still be time enough in the year to run a regular swiss system tournament, and at some stage in the future we would like to get a weekender on the map. But you have to walk before you run, so establishing the venue, and building a membership is the first priority. As Carnegie Library is close to train and tram stops, and close to main freeways (Monash and Princes) it is a perfect place for players to come to.

David's: blitz winner Beaumont (right), sits next to club founder Cordover