Chess club

A chess club is an association whose purpose is to take care of chess. Club chess players are organized either in independent clubs or in the chess department of sports clubs. Chess clubs and departments are also united in chess federations.

The organization of chess life in clubs - instead of the long dominant game in coffee houses - has a long tradition in German speaking countries. After the First World War, the clubs were especially for the revival of the chess team is crucial.

Chess clubs usually have a weekly club night, are aligned on the different simplified internal chess tournaments, but also the opportunity for free play. They usually take part in the team competition of the chess federations. A team is usually made ​​up of eight players and players. Small clubs are only a team, while the biggest clubs with ten or more teams participate in organized play mode.

In the German tax law, the promotion of chess in accordance with § 52 paragraph 2, point 21 of the Tax Code is a charitable purpose.

In Germany there are about 95,000 active chess players who are organized into approximately 2,700 chess clubs. Under the German Chess Federation, there are in each state one or two national associations. The associations in turn are further divided into usually after the regional principle in districts and counties.

History of Chess Clubs

Beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment

In European cities, London and Paris chess clubs already existed in the 18th century in connection with the respective leading coffee houses or restaurants where chess was played. The oldest club of its kind was in Slaughter 's Coffee House. In the 1770s, there is news of two new London clubs, one of which was founded in 1774 Parsloe 's or London Chess Club was closely associated with the name Philidor. In the German -speaking chess was maintained in private circles, reading societies and coffee houses. The oldest Berlin Enlightenment society, founded in 1749 Monday Club, referred as the first German club in his 1787 club statutes explicitly written on the game of chess: Besides the chess game is not tolerated in the club no other game. In 1803 a circle founded by Johann Gottfried Schadow a chess club in Berlin, which existed until 1847. Members of these clubs were at that time mainly officials, nobles, merchants, and officers. However, these early chess clubs had no long-term stock.

Oldest existing chess clubs

The world's oldest still existing club is the Zurich Chess Club, founded in 1809. In Germany, this is the Berlin Chess Club in 1827, which included, among others, Paul Rudolf von Bilguer, Tassilo von der Lasa and Heydebrand and Emanuel Lasker. In the Netherlands, since 1822 the Amsterdamsch Schaakgenootschap. The first chess club in Austria was founded in 1857 in Vienna Chess Society, its successor, the Vienna Chess Club was dissolved in 1938. Today, the oldest existing ( since 1877 ) Club is Grazer chess society.

The 10 oldest German chess clubs:

Club competitions

In the 19th century tended chess clubs, since direct competition was difficult because of the physical distance, partly to measure across national boundaries forces in correspondence games. This promoted the study of the chess theory and especially the openings. The next step was the creation of the first national chess organizations, in which merged the clubs. Gradually, the modern chess team made ​​out. In a number of countries today there are leagues multistage systems. At the top of the leagues is which consists of sixteen teams Chess Bundesliga in Germany since 1980. Every year, a European Championship clubs will be held.

Women in chess clubs

The participation of women was late possible. A first short-lived "Ladies Chess Club" was launched in 1847 under the name The Penelope Club in Kensington, West London. The first German women's chess club was established in 1886 in the Ströbeck, which followed two years later another women's club in the Alsatian town of Colmar. The gender segregation was attenuated in the subsequent period. The first German " men's club ", who received a woman, was in 1885 the Munich club. Later, the existing clubs partially separate ladies tournaments and women's teams have been set up in the frame.

Workers in chess clubs

The layer of workers was initially ruled indirectly in the clubs bourgeois character that was connected in addition to the existing social barriers with the height of the required membership fees. At the beginning of the 20th century brought the first workers chess clubs. These organized for an independent workers chess clubs play operation and national individual and team championships.

Chess clubs in the era of National Socialism

In 1933, the chess organization has been brought into line by the new Nazi rulers. All chess clubs had to join the Greater German Chess Federation or were dissolved. Jews had to be excluded from the clubs.