June 18th 2024

Today I went to my local chess club for the first time.

I’ve played a lot of chess online over the last few years. Like everyone else my age who plays chess, I watched The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix during covid, downloaded a Chess.com account, and have since played 9,396 online games of chess.

I got a bit addicted.

Eventually, I decided to translate some of that experience/addiction/enjoyment into a real thing, and so I Googled “Cheltenham chess club”, and went along to my first session tonight.

I enjoyed it. I played six games, won four, and lost two.

Playing “over the board” is a lot different. Weirdly you feel like you can see more, but also less at the same time. I initially played three games of “classical” chess with no time limit, and because I had unlimited time I could actually think through every move instead of just playing mostly on instinct like I do online.

It definitely made for a more high quality game of chess than I’m used to, and versus my first opponent I won two and lost one. He was a new guy to the club too, and about my age, so I feel like I’ve made a chess friend already.

I’m naturally quite an awkward, anxious person, so I took quite a lot of convincing (by myself to myself) to show up tonight, but I’m glad I did. The other guys were nice too. The second guy I played against wanted to use a clock, and that time-limited pressure got to me a bit, and after trading wins in the first two games, I lost the game with a stupid mistake that I wouldn’t have made without the clock ticking down.

Until tomorrow, I expect I’ll go again.

Jacn