🔗 Share this article

Among the liveliest venues on a weekday evening in the East End's famous street couldn't be a restaurant or a urban fashion brand pop-up, it's a chess club – or rather a chess and nightlife combination, precisely speaking.

Knight Club embodies the surprising fusion between the classic game and the city's dynamic evening entertainment scene. It was started by a young entrepreneur, in his late twenties, who launched his first chess club in the summer of 2023 at a more intimate bar in a nearby area, a short distance from the present location at Café 1001 on Brick Lane.

“My goal was to create chess clubs for individuals who look like me and those my generation,” he said. “Usually, chess is only placed in spaces that are full of senior individuals, which is not diverse sufficiently.”

On the first night, there were just 8 boards shared by sixteen people. Now, a “successful evening” at the regular Knight Club will draw about two hundred eighty attendees.

At first glance, the venue feels more like a DJ event than a chess club. Cocktails are flowing and music is in the air, but the game boards on every table aren't just ornamental or there as a gimmick: they are all in use and encircled by a line of onlookers eagerly anticipating for their turn.

Jimmy Ifenayi, in her mid-twenties, has frequented the club regularly for the last four months. “I possessed no knowledge of chess prior to I came here, and the first time I ever played, I competed in a game against a expert player. It was a quick victory, but it left me fascinated to study and keep playing chess,” she noted.

“The event is about 50% social and 50% participants actually wishing to engage in chess … It is a nice way to relax, which doesn't involve visiting a typical nightspot to see others my generation.”

An Activity Reborn: The Ancient Game in the Modern Era

In recent years, chess has been cemented in the cultural zeitgeist. Its appeal of online chess proliferated throughout the pandemic, making it one of the most rapidly expanding internet games globally. In popular culture, the streaming series a hit show, as well as Sally Rooney’s recent novel a literary work, have created a certain iconography associated with the sport, which has drawn in a new generation of players.

But much of this recent attraction of the chess night is not always about the intricacies of the play; rather, it is the ease of social interaction that it enables, by pulling up a chair and engaging with someone who may be a total unknown individual.

“It's a brilliant clever disguise,” said one organizer, founder of Reference Point in London, a bookshop, library, coffee house and bar, which has hosted a well-attended chess club weekly since it began several years back. His aim is to “remove chess off a pedestal and make it feel like billiards in a casual pub”.

“It is a really easy tool to get to know people. It kind of takes the weight of the need of conversation from interacting with people. You can do the awkward bit of introducing yourself and talking to someone over a game instead of with no kind of context involved.”

Growing the Community: Chess Nights Beyond the Capital

Elsewhere in the UK, Chesscafé is a recurring chess event held at a city cafe, near the downtown area. “We found that people are seeking places where you can socialize, socialise and have a fun evening beyond visiting a bar or club,” stated its creator and coordinator, a young leader, in his early twenties.

Alongside his associate Abdirahim Haji, 21, he purchased game sets, created flyers and began the chess club in the start of the year, during his final year of university. Within months, Singh said Chesscafé has expanded to draw over one hundred youthful players to its gatherings.

“A chess club has a particular connotation associated with it, about it being reserved. Our approach is to go the contrary direction; it's a convivial party with chess involved,” he said.

Discovering and Playing: A New Generation of Players

Among numerous attendees, chess clubs are an entry point to the activity. Zoë Kezia, 27, is picking up how to play chess with other attenders of chess night at Reference Point. Her interest in the pastime was piqued after an pleasurable night moving to music and playing chess at a previous Knight Club's occasions.

“It is a unique concept, but it functions well,” she said. “It encourages in-person interactions instead of screen-based pastimes. It's a no-cost third space to meet strangers. It's inviting, one doesn't need to necessarily be skilled at chess.”

Kezia humorously compared the popularity of chess among young people to the facade of the “ostentatious intellectual”, an effort to simulate braininess while projecting the appearance of “coolness”. Whether the chess trend has cultivated a genuine interest in the sport is not something she is quite sure about. “It's a positive trend, but it’s largely a trend,” she observed. “When you're playing with people who are really serious about it, it quickly turns less fun.”

Competitive Play and Togetherness

It might all be a bit of fun and games for individuals looking to use a game set as a networking tool, but competitive participants do have their place, albeit off the main party area.

Lucia Ene-Lesikar, in her early twenties, who helps running Knight Club,says that more skilled players have established a competitive ranking. “Participants who are in the league will face each other, we'll progress to early rounds, semi-finals, and then we'll eventually have a champion.”

A dedicated player, in his twenties, is a serious competitor and chess instructor. He joined the competition for about a year and participates at the club nearly weekly. “This is a welcome option to engaging in intense chess; it provides a feeling of community,” he said.

“It is interesting to observe how it becomes more of a social activity, because in the past the only people who played chess were people who didn't go outside; they simply remained home. It is usually only a pair playing on a game board …

“What appeals to me about here is that one isn't actually facing the computer, you're facing real people.”