About the club

Our mission

To gather regularly to play and study chess, to promote chess in our schools and communities, to build good sportsmanship and character, and to offer a place of fellowship for everyone who enjoys the royal game.

Our story

We began in 2013 around a table in a Battleground coffee shop, with a handful of players and a few sets. Scott McInnis founded the club and kept it going week after week, and the tables kept filling up.

Before long we needed a real home, and found one at Lewis Recreation Center, where we still meet every Wednesday. Since then we've run full tournaments, welcomed players of every rating, and hosted grandmaster Alexander Shabalov, a four-time U.S. Champion and Hall of Famer, who gave a lesson and then took on the whole room in a simul.

A club that started over coffee now has a permanent home, a rated event most weeks, and the same open invitation it had on day one: there's a seat here and someone to play.