In his aptly titled book Perpetual Chess Improvement, Ben Johnson designated “community” as the fourth pillar of chess improvement (the first three being playing serious games, analyzing your games, and practicing tactics). But it can be difficult to find or build that needed chess community. It is easy to find strangers with whom to play online, and there are plenty of coaches who will work with you virtually. But those one-on-one interactions don’t constitute community.
In retrospect, I think that I was seeking community, in a sense, when I started this blog. I had many things to say about my chess journey and many questions to ask, but no place to direct them.
I was thrilled when I learned that there was a chess club meeting weekly in the town right next to mine. My community! But did I rush out to join at the first opportunity? No, I chose instead to torment myself with anxieties about it. What if I’m the poorest player there? I had no shortage of other excuses: it’s in the evening, whereas I’m a lark who is starting to wind down when the club is ramping up. No one will want to play with me, and those who do will try Scholar’s Mate and other traps, checkmating me in under ten moves.
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At the same time that I was contemplating attending the chess club, people were encouraging me to go to a tournament. Actually I have wanted to sample the atmosphere of a large chess gathering like that ever since my first viewing of The Queen’s Gambit, but until today all I had done was look through the multitude of tournament announcements and come up with reasons why each tournament isn’t right for me. The time control is too short, the venue is inconvenient, it’s on a holiday weekend when roads will be crowded, etc, etc.
Eventually, two things galvanized me into getting out to the chess club. One was the realization that, if I was being this hesitant about going to a casual club meeting, I would never get myself to a tournament. The other was that I have had a dream of starting a chess club for girls and women in my town, and it was time to realize it. It would make sense to do some networking at the other club first. So I went! The networking was successful–having met the club leader that evening, it was easy to email him afterward and ask if I could publicize my women’s group on his club’s Facebook page. And even though I was anxious and overwhelmed that first night, I felt at home amid all the chess talk. Many members were full of tales of their recent trip to the Chicago Open and the cheater who had been caught there.
My second trip to the club was even better than the first, not least because the ice had been broken. I had heard that it would be a real joy (not to mention instructive) to play over the board and do an in-person post-mortem of the game with your opponent, and it was great to finally experience that. In the meantime, I had held the first meeting of my women and girls group, in a room reserved at the local public library. We had five at our first meeting, including a seven-year-old girl and her mother. It was marvelous to think that I might be helping to convey the joy of chess to a young girl.
These first small steps toward building community around my chess somehow gave me the push I needed to register for a tournament, finally. I will be attending the Chicago Class Open later this month. Expect a debrief in my next post 🙂
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