Simone Robert and Isabel Münter, who met through their work at a design and development studio, created Pawn Chess Club, which welcomes players of all levels to events at downtown hotspots such as Casetta and Metrograph, after noticing a dearth of beginner- and women-friendly chess spaces in Manhattan. At the same time, a number of non-traditional chess events have launched around New York City, bringing the ancient game to a chess-curious crowd, who may be more enticed by the potential to flirt over a chessboard or dress thematically than by the opportunity to boost their rating.Ī chess player at Purgatory Bar plans their next move during the Queers’ Gambit event. Recently, the game has been further popularized by the pandemic success of The Queen’s Gambit, a slew of TikToks celebrating the game’s “dark academia” aesthetic and scenes of gossiping over a chessboard from this season’s Real Housewives of New York. Recently, the world’s top chess federation, the Fide, announced a range of restrictions on transgender players, including a ban on trans women competing in their women’s chess events, pending a review which could take two years. Discriminatory assumptions that cis men are inherently better players than women is a longstanding issue. In top tier international chess, a patriarchal perspective dominates.

These settings are typically dominated by seasoned, older male players who approach the game with a severity that can be intimidating to outsiders. Notable New Yorkers and visitors to the city, including Marcel Duchamp, Stanley Kubrick and Howard Stern, have been playing at storied institutions such as Marshall Chess Club and Chess Forum for decades. In Union Square, Bryant Park or Washington Square Park’s Chess Plaza, local chessmasters command checkered tables, ready to play or teach a lesson for a few bucks.

New York City is inextricably linked with the game of chess, which has been played in its parks since at least the 1940s. Savannah Gibbins, left, and Chase Worther play a game of chess during Queers’ Gambit at Purgatory Bar. The club’s Instagram tagline is “pawns r trans” and a percentage of the bar’s profits for the night is being donated to the community organization Black Trans Liberation. At Queers’ Gambit, however, chess is inclusive, with a dedicated learners’ table, a general willingness to share knowledge and the potential for “enthusiastically consensual” flirting and cruising. “Most players are cis men, and they are often visibly afraid of or disturbed by me and won’t play,” explains Niki Cross, a long-term player and genderqueer environmental justice attorney who founded the event earlier this year. This is Queers’ Gambit, a chess night which partially came about in response to its organizers’ experiences in the broader chess scene. The mood is celebratory: players tease one another (“I’m gonna bonk your knight so hard!”) and take frequent breaks to chat, giggle and sip vodka and vermouth spritzes. Lit by pink, blue and purple “ bisexual lighting”, underneath fake vines, many wear “chessy looks”: pants fashioned from checkerboard fabric, black and white prints, plentiful mesh.

In the depths of Bushwick, at Purgatory Bar, a crop of Brooklynites gathers at outside tables to play chess.

Chess rally