IEU Chess Club: an insight into the club
MADRID - Back in 2015, there was no such thing as a chess club in the Madrid campus of IE University. Nevertheless, Karan Khosla, a chess lover and a 4th year BBABIR student decided to form the Chess Club for the benefit of the Madrid student community. Initially with the founding 5 enthusiastic members, the Club announced about itself through posters, ads on Campus Groups, as well as Club fair events. Now, the club boasts a weekly average of 15 active members and several occasional players.
The Chess Club offers matches for all player levels (beginners and intermediates) in sessions held every Tuesday on campus. The club also offers chess classes for beginners, taught by the President himself.
The matches are developed in accordance to the level and knowledge of every player. Thus, it’s not a problem if the newcomer is an advanced player or just has entered the world of chess. The club is always there to help.
The club’s members engage in internal competitions to upgrade their skills and abilities. Moreover, the Chess Club participate in the Director’s Cup, a competition held between different Madrid universities. The possibility of participating in the competition always remains on the table for newcomers, as its popularity is increasing exponentially.
Albeit the interest, the chess class states that “not everything is a path of roses.” Despite the ever-growing mixture of different players’ levels, the club states that it would like to have more active players to build the variety of challenging play-styles to avoid monotony.
Furthermore, the Chess Club notes that it lacks some of the resources needed to complement the rising demand. Currently, there are only three chess boards to play and with the increase in popularity, the members note that “it would be fantastic to purchase a couple more.”
“Sometimes when they see there are only three boards to play, people need to wait for their turn. And if they don’t want to wait, they just leave,” stated a 2nd year BBA member.
President Khosla remains very optimist about the future of the club. Every month, more and more students are willing to form part of the chess community. Even now, he says that IE has provided with new equipment, although some members do prefer to bring their own boards. Also, the club took a big step to engage Master’s students, who have showed great interest in playing against their undergraduate counterparts.
The chess club is a great opportunity to learn the universal board game and to work on improving strategic skills within a friendly community. The sign-up process is located on the Campus Groups page and remains available for everyone interested to play the game.