New York is a city closely linked to chess. Suffice a few facts: it is the city that hosted the first world championship in 1886, repeating as the venue on several occasions, the last in 2016. The first three world champions also died there, Wilhem Steinetz (1836-1900), Emanuel Lasker (1868-1941) and Jose Raúl Capablanca (1888-1942).
In their clubs, such as the well-known Marshall Chess Club, the one who was the only American champion who died Icelandic played, Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) and even the film director Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999).
In Central Park and Washington Square Park there are tables with boards where many people play chess daily, and there are even bets with professionals. Footage from the movie ‘Desperately Seeking Fischer’ was also shot there. Even in their day they played from the aforementioned Fischer or the world champion himself, Magnus Carlsen before contesting the 2016 championship.
Another place where the Norwegian Carlsen played in New York was the headquarters of the UN where he offered a simultaneous. By the way, the United Nations officially recognized the International Chess Day. Also the city knew the exploits of a little Nigerian refugee local winner in the noble game.
But on this tour of the city of skyscrapers, you should stop by a shop, Chess Forum (Chess Shop), whose owner, Imad khachan, 54, a Palestinian refugee born in Lebanon, opened its doors in 1995, at 219 Thompson Street, as a game store and rooms, to specialize in the more than millenary game of chess.
Khachan argues that this place “is part of the puzzle that is the image of New York.”
The place has several tables where strangers to each other, crowded their tables to become opponents who play chess, debating plays and also about each other’s life. The cost is one dollar for one hour of play, being free for children and the elderly.
But the COVID-19 pandemic, which swept through New York, has also had its consequences. After a temporary closure, it reopened at reopening, restricting gaming space to just two tables set up on the Greenwich Village sidewalk in good weather.
The impact of the coronavirus has been devastating in business terms “we are down 80 percent, this is a catastrophe.”
But its owner does not give up, “a true captain stays on deck, or saves the ship or sinks with it”, so he wants to contribute “in this time of need, to the city that gave us an opportunity and home”.
He keeps the doors open and now depends on the purchases and also the donations that come to him from his website. For Khachan, the chess community is his family so thinking about them keeps him strong. “I will not disappoint”, sentence.
A past documentary about the store, titled ‘The King of the night’, lasting just seven minutes, has received more than 185,000 views.
