The history of chess goes back almost 1,500 years, with details as intricate as the game itself. First evolving from the war game chaturanga, chess’ ancestral roots are found in India, where its popularity later migrated across Asia, and eventually to the Western hemisphere. Now, in local communities, chess has evolved into circles of union where aficionados may gather to share their passion and retreat from the hubbub of daily life.
Looking to meet new people who share his interest in the game, Camosun student and Nexus contributing writer Lane Chevrier was hard-pressed to find a chess club in Victoria. Looking to resolve his dilemma back in August, Chevrier started a club himself: Casual Chess Victoria, an in-person weekly group that gathers twice a week.
Chevrier says his intention with the club is to bring community members of all ages and skill levels together under one roof, and in front of a chess board.
“I call it ‘casual chess’ because it’s literally no experience necessary. You can never have played a game of chess before in your life. And you can come and I’ll teach you, and it’ll be pretty easy. I don’t want it to be some elitist club where people brag about their ratings and such,” he says. “I just want it to be people just filling out and playing a fun game of chess.”
Since the game’s inception, players have adopted a passion for the tactical strategies and cognitive skills chess requires. Chevrier says the variety of how games may develop is part of the fun.
“Chess is a very old game… It’s [one of] the oldest strategy games… But it’s a game that has so many millions of possibilities for how a game can unfold,” he says. “It’s easy to learn, but it’s difficult to master. And so there is a lot of room for some really exciting games.”
Since the boom of the internet, the average time spent online per individual globally has increased to nearly seven hours a day, with social media accounting for approximately 35 percent of daily online engagement, according to one study. Chevrier hopes to combat this by building face-to-face connections in concert with the collective enjoyment of one of the oldest strategy games in human history.
“In the current age of social media, there’s an awful lot of empty things grabbing our attention and a lot of things we spend time on that aren’t particularly productive, especially from a social standpoint,” he says. “And being able to find something where you can go to an actual place and sit down with people whose names that you’re familiar with, it brings us back to a sort of social standard that I feel like never should have been lost. There’s something really humanizing about being able to sit across from somebody who enjoys the same thing as you do and to share a mutual experience of connection with them, and especially when it comes to something like chess, which is very complex, there is a lot of opportunity for conversation. I want to pull people away from social media and get them back into in-person, human-to-human connection.”
Although Camosun currently offers clubs designed by and for students (including a chess club), Chevrier avoided attaching his club to the Camosun campuses. He says this decision was deliberate in fostering a larger-scale community network rather than one that is just student-oriented.
“[T]hat’s actually one reason why I wanted to keep it out in the community, because instead of booking a room in the college, for example, because I’ve had so much experience with being around people, but not actually being able to connect with them… I want to be able to open it up so that there’s as much opportunity for people to come from wherever and connect with other people without barriers,” says Chevrier.
Chevrier hopes to continue expanding the group to a greater Victoria chess audience; all he asks is that attendees RSVP beforehand. Information on the club is currently available at meetup.com/casual-chess-victoria and on Instagram account casualchess.victoria. The club meets Tuesdays at Bent Mast Pub from 5 to 8 pm and Wednesdays at Interactivity Board Game Cafe from 5 to 8 pm.
“I think that there definitely is an audience out there for chess, but it’s just a question of reaching them. And when you do find somebody who’s interested in chess, they’re generally really interested,” says Chevrier. “And so they’ll keep coming back, which is great.”