First a little background on me, I'm rated 1775 blitz on chess.com and 2020 on lichess.org. I have zero OTB experience and want to gain some so I can play some local tournies and hopefully find players to play and analyze games with.

I live in a small city with an even smaller chess club and went to my first meeting last night. Played a few people won some games and lost some, but there were a few things I didn't enjoy about my experience. Played an older gentleman who during a game took a takeback without asking then the guy who runs the meeting said perhaps you should tell him that you play like that. Anyways we play and he takes several takebacks throughout the game. I didn't take any even when I got my knight trapped. Later in the game I'm trying to save a draw as his king is a little exposed and after he makes a move I pick up my piece to make my move and he quickly takes back his move before I can make my move.

I don't mind losing, in fact I went seeking better players but I didn't really enjoy this game and the only analysis I received all evening was either wrong or simply an "I'm slightly better here" in a drawish endgame. (I think I could have traded down and held a draw but I blundered instead so I guess he was correct)

Sorry if this is long-winded my questions are is the behavior of the older gentleman acceptable and do you think I should stick it out or try to improve some other way. Also I was surprised by how poor my board vision was compared to online and how much it bothered me to have people stand behind me while I play.

I've never been in a chess club. But that sounds terrible to me. I'd never play that guy again.

Do they not abide by the touch rule? What is the point of playing in such an irl organized fashion if the actual game is laced with rules vagueries (sp)? You could just play online lol. Which...defeats the purpose of wanting to play otb.......

I can't stand people who angle or outright refuse to play by rules of any game or sport. ****ing losers. If you can't respect your competitor and play by the rules then you suck at chess and should quit playing until you learn the rules and build your rating back to its inflated level.

I've seen plenty of blitz that's clock-move instead of touch-move, but takebacks after the fact are totally WTF.

Clock move is standard in my club for blitz as well. So, basically touch any piece or move a piece and take back... whatever, but when you hit the clock it's locked down.

You see it with Carlsen and other guys on the blitz videos as well sometimes.

Thanks for the feedback guys. The club was very informal and games were played without clocks and the touch rule was not in effect. Which is a shame because they would be in tournaments so part of the appeal of going was to get used to these aspects. The guy doing constant takebacks bugged me a little but when he saw me moving a piece and quickly took his move back that really irked me.

Sounds like the old guy's senile and other are cutting him some cut slack for that? No serious player would try to get takebacks, informal blitz games between friends aside

The only problem is attendance is so low that I don't think I could get away with not playing him. Last night there were 2 adults present and 3 kids and I think that's pretty much what I can expect numbers wise give or take a few.

Fun story, while playing a young child he made a move which allowed me to fork his king and rook with my knight, before I made my move he sort of gasped when he realized what he did. Just enjoyed the live tell having never experienced one before.

It sounds to me like this particular gentleman considers games at the club to fall into the category of "informal games between friends". Which isn't entirely unreasonable if knows, or has reason to believe, that his opponents feel the same way. It IS unreasonable to keep it as a default assumption against unknown opponents though.

I would be open to informal games where we discuss the game as we played and allowed takebacks while discussing drawbacks to the particular move or to point out better ones. This just felt more like I don't want to lose to an unknown. As a first timer attending this club it just didn't feel very welcoming. After I beat someone and left the room for a drink I heard someone chastising the person I beat. Also when I started playing the older gentleman I was able to capture a pinned pawn and someone said told him to be careful as I had already beat so and so three times.

Yeah, it does not sound like you found a very welcoming club. That's unfortunate, and I hope it doesn't put you off from pursuing live OTB play.

What wlrs said, they aren't taking the games too seriously. If you hang around the chess club a while, though, you will probably find some people who do want to play harder/treat it like a competition game.

I wonder if poker players are better at this? I know when I **** up otb I don't show any kind of reaction once I notice it. I saw Anand's "biggest blunder" video and the pain and agony displayed on his face was really quite noticeable. lol. Of course I'm making an assumption here that he doesn't play poker - which is a pretty big assumption.

But yeah kids will also tend to wear their emotion on their sleeves.

On the other hand, a couple months ago I was helping run a scholastic tournament, and the two best fifth graders in town were playing each other. One of them was up a rook and three pieces for the other's queen, and the queen was stuck on the back rank. The kid with the edge played his bishop up to a square where it was "hanging" to the queen... except that if the queen took it then he had mate in two (rook to back rank, queen to back rank, rook takes queen mate). Immediately after playing the move, he let out a pained gasp, and hung his head in his hands, then held that position for about thirty seconds until his opponent played queen takes bishop - at which point the pained look on his face immediately turned into a huge grin as he lifted up his head and eagerly hammered out the rook check.

So kids may "wear their emotion on their sleeve" a lot of the time, but don't just automatically trust those little imps, is my point, I guess.

I appreciate the replies from everyone, and I hope my post didn't come off as whining. I realize this club doesn't owe me anything and I know the guy who runs it gives a lot of his time to scholastic chess and other tournaments. I guess I was caught off guard by a few things and a little disappointed that my experience didn't live up to my expectations. I will continue to attend and try to keep an open mind.

Unrelated P.S. I know that Curtains posts here so if you see this Curtains. I'm a subscriber to your videos and really enjoy them. I was looking forward to the day you got paired with Kingscrusher in the 5 min ICC pool so was really disappointed that he ducked you.

Sounds like:

1) Dude has the OLDS

2) Local chess club with informal games

I don't have tons of experience with this but it's going to be a mixed bag unless it's a club that puts on rated tournaments with many serious players. On the one hand I wouldn't let OLD takebacker drive me away from the club, but on the other hand, if I didn't find people at the club better than me unless they had to take back moves, I'd probably just never want to go.

For full disclosure I basically don't even chess and have never stuck with any chess club I've been to. But I'm pretty sure that has more to do with my own enjoyment (or lack thereof) of chess vs. what you're talking about. I have seen a huge difference in what a "chess club" entails ranging from "this is not a chess club but some random dudes playing random games together with no rules" to "every meeting is a different format USCF tournament of some sort and everybody is pretty serious."

That chess club sounds terrible and I'm sorry you're stuck with it. Others are not that way.

You didn't specify, but I'm going to assume these games with the "older gentleman" were skiddles games, and not rated tournament games. If it's the former, this is no big deal. If you're trying to become a tournament player, i would suggest you don't take any moves back yourself as this will create bad habits. I routinely allow people in skiddles games to take back their moves, and in fact would rather they do that and hopefully keep the position a bit more critical, than blunder and not resign when they are dead lost. The exception would be if they are a student of mine. I wouldn't want my students to develop bad lazy thinking habits.

The fact you mention that you don't mind losing is interesting. After seeing various juniors come and go, I've noticed something common about all of the ones who ended up getting good (over 2200). They all HATED losing, but had the resilience to be able to lose without being driven to quitting, which is a very common phenomena in chess clubs with people playing their maiden tournament. Instead, they get motivated to improve. As Arnold would say, you must work through the pain! If chess is just a recreational and social outing for you, I don't see a problem with your attitude. But if you desire to improve, then I do. Sometimes people "claim" they don't mind losing as a rationalization or ego defense. After all as games go, chess is bar none the one most closely linked to intelligence.

The only advice I would give you is to join and play as many OTB tournaments as you can. Be respectful of the other players, especially those higher rated than you are who can be the most benefit to your improvement. Stronger players will often give you suggestions, do postmortems with you, etc, as long as you don't take them for granted or insult them by forcing them to play to mate, etc. And don't get discouraged if you have a terrible first few tournaments. I've seen jaws drop from guys who were in the 1800 or so range in online speed games, or even decent OTB blitz players, then got creamed and saddled with a 1400 provisional national rating in slow rated chess. It's an adjustment. If you have the necessary intelligence and desire to improve, it will happen, so long as you also have the emotional resilience to tolerate the early losses, sometimes to people significantly younger than yourself, lol.

I still struggle with the people standing behind me, coughing, moving around in my field of vision, rudely postmmorteming at the board beside me instead of leaving the room, etc, which is why I don't play very many local tournaments anymore. Usually the larger ones are directed a bit better and these issues aren't as much of a problem.