Wednesday 11 January 2017

Visiting the local

Another significant between UK chess and Australian chess is at the club level. League chess is still a big thing here, and in Yorkshire, some clubs exist only to play league chess. In Australia inter-club (as it is called) is much rarer, and only happens in the very big cities (and does not happen in Canberra at all).
It was at one of these clubs, Ilkely, that I visited tonight. The 1st team was playing a league match, while the seconds were playing away at Bradford. Fortunately there were a few other member sin attendance, so I had the pleasure of playing some friendly rapid (3 wins and a loss if you must know). In the meantime the home team was trying to save the match as they were 1 down with 1 to play.
But I didn't see the end of the match, because I partook in another English chess tradition. I headed of to the pub for a pint or two, only catching up with various results as other players wandered in. A perfect civilised way to spend the evening.

No comments: