Charlottesville Chess WWW Page
Despite a lack of active grandmasters, masters, and experts (we have one,
Ruth Donnelly. Oh, and then there's newly re-activated Rick Callahan...),
the C'Ville
area has two, perhaps three, fairly active clubs, one coffee
house featuring
a weekly chess night, a game store featuring a weekly chess night,
and one bookstore/cafe occasionally holding tournaments. Note that this information was valid in the mid-90's, things may have changed since then...
Contents:
Club Meetings
Meets Monday nights at about 7:30 in the basement of St. Marks Church at the
corner of Ivy and Alderman (go in through the door with the lion above
it, then through the door and down the stairs in the other side of the
room).
Attendance ranges from 6 to nearly 20, with most
players ranging in strength from USCF 1400 to 1600. Newcomers are welcome.
There is no membership fee. Bring a set or clock if you have one.
Note that the Charlottesville Chess Club is grateful to St. Marks
for the use of their space.
Tournaments and Team Matches
The C'Ville club is trying to coordinate itself enough to play
a match against a team from Richmond. Interested C'Villians are
welcome to stop on by at one of the next few club meetings if
they'd like to participate.
A match against the U.Va chess club was played on Monday,
October 21st (1996). U.Va won the close contest, 6.5 - 5.5.
Pre-match details are
here .
A crosstable may be posted later on...
On Friday, August 11th, 1995 five members of the C'Ville Chess Club traveled
to distant Harrisonburg for a match against the SVCC and were routed 1-9.
Further information
is available.
The U.Va and C'Ville clubs collided on October 25th, 1995. The U.Va
club got some experience, while the C'Ville club could still probably use a match
victory. The results are here.
This new club is based out of the new game store on the downtown mall
(in The Game Place, in York Place, located near the ice-rink end). They are
USCF affiliates, and meet on Tuesday nights at the store between 6 and
9 pm. Also, a chess tounament is scheduled for September 27th. See
the
store for details (and feel free to blow a few bucks on Magic cards
or some such thing
while you're at it).
C'Ville doesn't have the Dupont Circle of D.C., the Washington Square of
New York, or the Harvard Square of Cambridge. Being a quiet academic
town/City in Central Virginia, it does have a permissive concealed weapons
law and a population of individuals who might not take kindly to someone
bothering them while they are playing chess with their cronies. On the
downtown mall, Miller's and Mudhouse have chess sets available for their
patrons, as does Barnes and Noble on Barracks Road. Chess is also played
at the Espresso Corner, on U.Va's corner. Bring a chess-playing
friend, and have a nice safe game...
Barnes and Noble Bookstore Cafe
Recently Barnes and Noble has been occasionally sponsoring
(non-rated, just for fun) tournaments in their cafe. You won't find
details about when the next one is here, you'll just have to go to
the cafe, buy some munchies and a beverage and a chess book or two,
and find out for yourself...
The Espresso Corner - Wednesday Nights
The Espresso Corner has had notices up indicating that chessplayers are
particularly welcome on Wednesday nights between 7 and 10pm, and there
were a couple there on June 5th,1996. While chess can be played there at
any time (they have two sets), Wednesday night chess at the Espresso
Corner could really take off. It also could help them sell coffee...
There are several book stores in Charlottesville, and most of these have
some chess books. At least three good book stores are located on the downtown
mall (Blue Whale books is said to have a good collection of used books),
while the Barnes and Noble on Barracks Road has a large collection
of chess books.
Do support the local economy and local chess and check out the Game
Place
(in York Place) store on the downtown mall.
Failing that, note that
heading up to Northern Virginia doesn't help as much as one might expect.
Good alternatives are to head in to the
U.S. Chess Center
in D.C. and get one there (about $20 for a tournament-quality
vinyl board and plastic pieces), or
to order one from the
U.S. Chess Federation.
If you're going to play chess at any of the above clubs, the Star
Trek, Simpsons, or Civil War chess sets are not the best choice.
This page created by rfh2y at virginia dot edu on 3/13/95, last updated: 9/1/97
(also minor tweeks 12/2000)
Feel free to send updates or corrections to the above address.
Caveat: The page maintainer no longer resides in Virginia (or even DC),
so the above
information is certainly somewhat out of date (though there haven't been
any complaints yet...). Also, the whole page could disappear
at any time without warning and owes it's current existence to the kindness of U.Va's CS department...