San Diego chess club makes adult friendship easier
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Deep in thought. Photo: Claire Trageser/Axios
One answer to the loneliness epidemic in San Diego may lie on a chessboard.
The big picture: There are your classic chess clubs with rankings and tournaments, then there's Chess & Social.
- It focuses on the social more than the chess and has grown to 430 members in two years.
How it works: The group meets at bars three nights a week, with extra events on weekends.
- Members pay $20 a month to play as much chess as they want.
- You check in at their reserved area, approach a friend or stranger and ask for a game.
- They also have other board games if chess isn't your speed.
On Sundays, they also have drop-in classes to learn to play chess for $22.
No losers: The point is about meeting other people and having fun, not dominating your opponents, founder Mark Laturno told Axios.
- "Probably 25% of people have started learning a month or two ago," he said. "There are also a lot of people who are really good, but this is definitely a space of being super comfortable."
Flashback: In 2024, Laturno responded to a post on Reddit asking if anyone wanted to play chess.
- He and that player, Aidan Ryan, started meeting in a bar once a week, and soon other people started joining them.
- It grew from there into a regular group and expanded to more bars.
Inside the room: It can be hard to make friends as an adult, and Laturno mostly wants his club to help with that loneliness.
- "Even at a mixer, it can be nerve-wracking to cross the room and say hi to somebody that you've never met before, but if you're asking somebody if they want to get a game in, they're not going to say no," he said.
- And then once you're playing, you don't really have to talk much unless you want to.
Regular member Kevin McCann told Axios making adult friends is even harder than dating.
- "Because at least with dating you have apps to help," he said.
- He's been coming to Chess & Social almost since it started and said he is good friends with other members, and they hang out beyond the chessboard.
No winners: Your record at Chess & Social isn't important, a newer member, Josue Alvarado, told Axios.
- "I do OK, but there was a guy that I played with last week and he just demolished me. I felt like I had no chance," he said. "And then today, we did a quick game, and I ended up getting a win over him, so it felt nice."
Why chess and not checkers? Laturno said there's something addicting about the game.
- "There's something about it that's so repeatable but so impossible to master, but it feels so good when you do get better," he said.
