LCCC Back! New Club Tournament Announced and Chess Can Be a Problem!

The Livingston County Chess Club meets every Monday night between 

4pm and 10pm 

at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Green Oak Mall in Brighton, MI. 

Stop in for some friendly chess, good food and 'refreshments'. 

Everyone of all ages and playing strength are welcome to attend. And free lessons to all beginners!

I want to open by thanking everyone for starting the official 2025 LCCC grand opening with a bang! Twenty-six players were here last Monday night. 

Hope to see everyone return again…..and again!

Just for fun, we will be having our first ever LCCC Dice Chess Championship starting next week. Don’t worry if you never played it before. Few of us have. 

The tournament is free to enter, and the simple rules will be posted here soon and available at the Club for the duration of the tournament. 

So, don’t worry. Just play and have fun putting some gambling and “LUCK” into your chess match.

Now, some history about chess;

If you think chess has always been pure….or thought to be pure, your humble scribe has some news for you.

Chess has more skeletons in the closet than Bluebeard, Blackbeard, Machiavelli and Captain Kidd put together!

If you dig into the 6000 years of chess history you will find that the game itself was thought of as a menace to religion, morals, home life and politics.

In 1118, Zonares, Head of Justice for the Emperor wrote from his monastery that all clergymen who departed from virtue by playing chess shall be banned from the church!

His quote was, “"Because there are Bishops and clergy who depart from virtue and play chess, dice or drink to excess, the Rule commands that such shall cease to do so or be excluded; and if a Bishop or elder or deacon or subdeacon or reader or singer do not cease so to do, he shall be cast out: and if laymen be given to chess-playing and drunkenness, they shall be excluded."

He would not be in favor of our upcoming tournament!

French employers in the 1800’s would often require their apprentices to promise in writing that they would not play chess, either on the job or in their off time.

Chess may have gained a bawdy reputation because it was once used as a ruse by a suitor to gain access to his lady’s bedroom. Chess players and minstrels were permitted visit the maiden in her chambers in order to “entertain her” with game or music.

The ladies of the time pondered ways to obtain a knowledge of chess in order to be able to “be courted” more often.

Norsemen took it a step further. Prospective suitors for the hands of their daughters expected them to play chess with the men of the family in order to determine if he was a worthy prospect.

The game also made problems for families. Baldwin IX, Count of Flanders, beat up his wife when she beat him at chess. In revenge, she later refused to pay a fine for him for a small crime, and let him stay in a dungeon to cool off…for 13 years!

Chess indirectly helped with the birth of the USA! George Washington it is said, won the Battle at Trenton because the British General Rahl was so deeply absorbed in a chess game, that he put a note warning him of Washington’s approach in his vest pocket and continued playing!

Playing chess can be a problem it seems.