Benefits of Joining a Chess Club: What You’ll Learn

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If you’re looking for a way to improve your chess skills, joining a chess club is a great option. There are many benefits to joining a chess club, including:

• Learning new strategies
• Improving your problem-solving skills
• Meeting new people
• And more

I am positive that joining a chess club will not only help you improve with the game but also help you realize things beyond the board. It is about why you play, something that a lot of experienced chess players seem to forget. A chess club really has a lot of benefits.

In this article, we will discuss the top four benefits of joining a chess club and what you can expect to learn.

1. You will get hands-on access to many chess accessories.

There are many chess accessories that can help us to be better. Whether it is a chess book, DVD, or an app there are many ways to get better.

Joining a chess club can give you free access to premium books, learning materials, chess clocks, electronic boards, etc. that are not easily accessible.

The items may be part of a pool of things that club members can utilize and share with other people associated with the club.

If you are trying to learn on your own, you will have to purchase any of these materials personally. Even playing chess on the internet requires you to pay for an internet service provider.

Sometimes it is good to have a personal board/clock/book that you can touch and use to improve on.

By using club equipment with other chess players you can share the cost of these materials and improve together with them.

2. You can find better opponents that will push you to the next level

This is huge when joining chess clubs. Opponents are underrated in helping you become a better player.

In any sport, constantly challenging yourself against stronger opponents will see you learning from them, and ensuring you are thinking more strategically and carefully about your moves.

You will naturally be more focused on avoiding blunders and mistakes and get an idea of how another person plays in games and tournaments.

When playing online, you are most often paired with another player at a similar level as yourself, or at least in quite a tight rating range.

In a local club, there will most oftentimes be players with a wide range of abilities and different skill levels. Try to seek out more experienced and better players to have fun in trying to compete with.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t win, you will often learn more from the mistakes you have made, and this can be a better way of learning and adapting your strategy and knowledge and taking the positives out of when you lose.

Once you join a chess club and start playing you will find players that are around your level, these are usually the ones that you play with the most. As you play with new players in this chess community, you will have track of their progress and how quickly they are improving, not to mention probably making new friends.

There will be plenty of cool people to find and play chess with, and in a single game, you may learn something you had never come across before.

3. You get to meet experienced players

Chess clubs are home to experienced and sometimes, professional players, this makes sense since it is a home of chess.

There are even events where a local chess club will bring a grandmaster for the members to interact and be involved in a fun tournament.

Meeting these kinds of people is hard in real life, and joining a chess club will provide you with this opportunity.

Sure you can still meet such people online, but it will not be the same. If you meet an experienced player in real-time with your group they can personally tailor tips just for you. They can show you their cool stuff and advice before games. This is something that you can’t get online unless you are paying for a premium consultation.

Talking of which, another cheap way of getting some one-on-one time with a grandmaster and learning a great deal about chess to take your game forward is this video course from GM Garry Kasparov.

Since the chess website’s algorithm is matching you with an opponent of similar ability it is hard to find better players to get a real challenge.

In a chess club, strong players are more than willing to entertain beginners that are just getting started in chess and can generally do so without fear of losing rating points in these matches.

4. You get to keep your passion for chess

Last but I think is the most important. Passion is essential for success, it is rare that someone will excel on something they find hard to remain interested in.

Joining a chess club will expose you to meet people you can travel with on your improvement journey together.

When you attend, you will meet friends and share valuable experiences with them, perhaps in teams, memories that can go beyond the board.

When you are a college student you are likely to remember the experience more than the lectures, it is the same in a chess club.

Most of us do not seek to be professional players, we want to play because we like the game and want to share it with other people.

It is the same as joining a chess club. You will improve together, play tournaments with other clubs and have all these wonderful experiences. You will not only improve but it will make you remember how fun it is to be with people that share your interest. You are likely to be playing for decades if you have a solid chess club that you enjoy hanging out with. 

Conclusion

If you like chess and are still wondering about joining a chess club this article is a sign that you should do it. There are so many benefits to joining a circle that shares your passion and interests. You will have access to club chess sets, you will meet strong players with differing styles, and the best thing; keep your passion for the game. 

If you are still contemplating then why not just do it and reflect afterward?