Fly on the wall: A night with the Chess Club

As I walk into a dimly lit side room of Campus Club, I am struck by two things. One: It is 15 minutes into the Friday night meeting of the Princeton Chess Club, and the members have already decimated half a dozen pizzas. And two: The questioning stares of 20 or so people make me very conscious that I am the only female there.

But it only takes a few minutes for the members to ignore me and focus on the reason they’re all there — the six or seven games of chess that are going on simultaneously. The club is made up of a surprisingly diverse group of guys, ranging from a 10-year-old to a MAT 203 professor.

Co-president Jack Hutton ’13 says that the club does three things: plays for fun, competes and works on other events and community outreach. The club, it turns out, was founded in 1896, when a group of Princeton men formed a team to play against Harvard, Columbia and Yale. It has been in and out of existence since then. Hutton reckons that, in its current form, the club has been active for five or 10 years.

Currently, the club is riding a wave of success — they just won first and second place at the Princeton Collegiate Open, the second-largest college team tournament in the nation. In addition, the A team won the Eastern Team Championships and are Division III Pan American Intercollegiate Team co-champions, the latter of which they are preparing to host at Princeton this year. They host lectures on topics such as “Mathematics and Chess” and run a prison outreach program in Trenton, where five club members play against 60 prisoners. “It’s intense,” says Hutton, “but everyone enjoys it.”

The main goal, however, is clearly to play for fun. Some games are very intense, with the players staring intently at the board in complete silence. But most involve a good amount of teasing and friendly banter. The players give each other pointers, and onlookers roam around, checking out the various games and chatting about plans for the Pan American Championship coming up. Two members get into a heated debate, which is unintelligible to me due to the large amount of chess jargon used, but it ends in laughter.

George Liu ’15 says that these Friday night sessions are usually informal, a place for chess newbies and masters alike to improve their game. Liu has been playing chess since ninth grade and says what he likes about the game is that “there is always room to improve.” Michael Lee ’15, who has played since the first grade, agrees, adding, “It really rewards the work put into it and is a lot of fun!” Lee is interested in studying computer science, reflecting the general dominance of math-science-engineering departments, though there are humanities and social science concentrators sprinkled among the group.

Liu and Lee fall silent, and the three of us observe the various chess games going on. I admit that I don’t know what’s going on, and the 10-year-old, who has also wandered over, offers to give me a rundown. I assume he is part of a school program and is here to observe — until he gives me an incredibly fast yet detailed explanation of how the pieces are moving. When I ask how he knows so much, he admits he’s been to national competitions before. Awesome. If I didn’t feel inadequate before, I certainly do now.