LA CHESS CLUB
Apt 503 Lounge
Los Angeles
Aug. 22, 2024
My mother thinks I’m a chess prodigy. I don’t have the heart to correct her. Like most dutiful Eastern European daughters, I had a chess tutor before I turned 10. For almost two decades, I believed I was a brilliant player because I had never lost a game against my parents. Thankfully, I have been and continue to be dispelled of this notion — most recently at the illustrious LA Chess Club last Thursday night.
That morning, I tell my friend that I’m attending the LA Chess Club. “Their online presence is so horny,” he remarks with disdain. He’s referring to their Instagram account, which cheekily posts sultry photos of gorgeous women playing chess. The social club — which was invite-only the night I visited — champions itself as a “place where hot girls thrive.” It also doubles as a singles mixer, a reprieve from the monotonous and punishing ritual of online dating. The game is free for women, while men pay a staggering $100 for entry. (This racket doesn’t offend me personally, but if the gimmick of playing chess with hot women is being commodified, shouldn’t the hot women also be compensated?) My (female) friend frequently attends the meetups and describes it as “speed dating where a man ruins your ego over a chessboard.” Fine by me. I love playing games.
I arrive at a mysterious industrial building in Los Angeles’s Koreatown — a setting so unassuming that I wonder if I’m in the right place. But sure enough, four flights of stairs lead to a spacious loft, and I’m guided to a room where men play chess, bathed in purple light with an expectedly beautiful woman serving open bar. There’s a DJ in the background, bouncing over a turntable. I challenge a kind-looking man to a game, and he obliges. He’s endearing and chats with me about hometowns and surfing while we play. I win, and he timidly excuses himself to the next room.
“You need a plan. You can’t be pushing pawns around,” my next opponent tells me. I’m on my second game of the night, which is considerably less friendly. My opponent is an older man and a skilled chess player. He’s not messing around. The game is quick and curt. There’s no inkling of flirtation, which I appreciate. When I ask him a personal question, he deflects — I have a weak pawn structure, he points out. Our chess game quickly evolves into a lesson where he counsels me on strategy and chess openings. “Develop! Castle! Attack!” he chants from across the table, to my amusement. He easily defeats me for two games before growing bored of my amateur antics. “You keep pushing pawns around; it’ll be a miserable game,” he moans, at the prospect of a third match. I shake his hand and wish him luck as if he had just broken up with me.
My final opponent tells me he’s a beginner, a fact I protest after he swiftly beats me. We make the requisite small talk about chess and our families. It resembles the stilted, coy conversation of a first date, only with a competitive undercurrent. When the banter winds down, we renew our focus on the game. I tell him I’m a writer. He tells me he has never finished a single book. “Even in high school?” I ask. “I used SparkNotes,” he says, shrugging. Both he and the game are losing my attention; my defeat is imminent. The qualities I admire in good chess playing are often the same I seek out in romantic partners — thoughtfulness, wit, and patience. I wonder if skilled chess players are too rigid, too calculating, too logical to be true romantics. When this one wins, he proclaims: “You’ve got some serious skills!” I look up at him. It’s a lie, but the best pickup lines often are.
