The Brantford Chess Club is one of the oldest and longest running clubs in the city.
Rob Gashgarian, who has been the president and treasurer of the club for the last two decades, talked a bit about its history and his involvement.
“Recently, we’ve been doing some digging into the history of chess in Brantford with the help of a Toronto-based chess historian…he has given us evidence of a Brantford Chess Club as far back as 1878. We haven’t yet had a chance to dig any further, but he has provided us with some interesting places to search,” he said. “As far as my involvement with the club I first started attending back around 1979. Aside from moving out of the area for about ten years, I’ve been part of the club consistently [since the early 90s] and I have been the president for the last 20 years. Throughout those years, we’ve hosted some significant provincial and national tournaments.”
However, Gashgarian has had a passion for chess for the majority of his life and eventually finding out about the club.
“I learned chess when I was around seven or eight, but I didn’t really continue with it. Then when I was about 20, I taught my younger brother the game, and he started beating me…so, that’s when I got into chess again…reading books and studying the game. Then, I stumbled across a notice about the Brantford Chess Club that used to meet at the old YMCA on Queen Street,” said Gashgarian. “I started going there, and it took me about a year and a half to start winning games with any kind of consistency. I was getting better [and] learning from the members… [and they] would guide and help me. So, I’ve tried to pay that forward throughout the years,” he said.
After moving away from Brantford for a decade, Gashgarian devoted more time to studying and playing chess.
“By the time I left Brantford around 1983, moving closer to Toronto, I was a far more competitive player [and] I could hold my own against some of the top guys, and then that’s what really got me into weekend tournaments….I simply studied it more during that time and got to a reasonable level. But I started late, so I knew I was never going to be that good…[in order to progress], you have to have lots of talent, and lots of teaching and coaching. From about the mid-80s to the mid-90s that was of my peak playing period,” he stated. “Now I play, but I’m not as studious as I used to be, but I still enjoy the game, and still find its depth very intriguing. I’ve played for over forty years and I’m not even close to mastering this game [and] haven’t played the same game twice.”
With Gashgarian at the club’s helm, he has helped host several tournaments in the last several decades in Brantford.
“The yearly tournament held on the May long weekend is called the Ontario Open [which is] a semi-formal championship, but it’s an open tournament, so it’s not an invitational-type of event. We hosted it in 1994 and again in 2004 and 2015. I was the lead organizer for the one in 2015 where we had 130 participants, including grand masters from across Ontario as well as Canada, the United States and other countries,” he noted. “For the one that we’re holding in 2025…we are looking at getting several grand masters from around the world. We’ve got one of them confirmed so far, and we’re waiting to hear from others if they want to participate. But we’re aiming for about 250 people this year [with a] $10,000 prize fund.”
Nevertheless, Gashgarian and the club continue to do outreach efforts to grow its membership and the appeal of chess.
“It’s strictly a yearly membership [and] it’s pretty inexpensive for a fairly good cross section of people. We are always trying to grow our membership, [however, and we continue to] do outreach in the community including hosting events like the one out at Harmony Square during the summer….for people just to drop in [and] play some chess with us,” said Gashgarian. “We also host a couple of tournaments outdoors in the summer, one for raising money for the Food Bank, and then one for the club itself. We also have a program running out of the library which is drop in and play. We have also done outreach in a couple of schools around Brantford. I’m at Brantford Collegiate Institute, helping there [and] one of the other members is at Pauline Johnson Collegiate…but we want to continue to do more outreach.”
With the continued outreach, Gashgarian explained the importance of getting more people involved.
“We could get more women players involved; it would be great. I think right now we’ve got a decent youth aspect, and that’s always important with any club. Usually sometime around late high school, [we see that] some chess players start to get more focused on post-secondary education …then they go to about 28 after they’ve done their schooling [and] established themselves a little bit…and that’s when we see them come back to the game,” Gashgarian explained. “Without that group, there’s no new club because the older players are passing on. We’ve got a decent core going right now [and I want to] bring in lecturers here throughout the year [and] build up a store of more equipment [to help grow the club.]”
The club also boasts a history of good chess players, including Alfred Napierala and Helmut Tanz.
“They didn’t do a lot of tournament play, but they enjoyed just playing at the club. Both of them were solid players and between them they were club champions 24 times. We have since named the club champion award after both of them,” Gashgarian said. “These are the types of members I was referring to before…who would sit down and talk about the game afterwards and help other members get better. They were always very personable and decent gentleman.”
However, Gashgarian believes with the legacy of chess, the Brantford Chess Club will always attract members.
“It’s just one of those games that when we do any kind of public event, it’s got a certain appeal because so many people are familiar with it, even if they’re not a master or they aren’t competitive players….people [still] know how to move the pieces at least. And we do an event in the park in the summer [with] big outdoor sets. And people will come over to us…[reminiscing when] they used to play in high school and they’ll sit down and we’ll play and talk, and they’ll bring their kids over to participate,” he noted. “It’s a [universal] game that people have had exposure to at some point of their lives…and the beauty of the game is you can give it anything you want; if you want to play [competitively] or just fun playing chess whether your good at it or not.”
