IU Chess Club looks to gain students

Ten years after the IU Chess Club disbanded, two students, sophomore Anthony Howell and junior Tom Rosenbaum, decided to bring it back.

It all happened last spring at local restaurant El Norteño, where the Bloomington Chess Club met on Tuesdays until recently, when they relocated to the Irish Lion.

The IU Chess Club sponsor, Juan Soto of the Spanish and Portuguese department, met Howell and Rosenbaum, and proposed the two start up a university chess club.

“I am a chess player myself, and when I first came here in the ‘90s, I had a lot of trouble finding the chess club,” Soto said. “I found a Web site, but it was pretty much dead. It had not been updated in some time. I wanted to bring a chess club back to IU, but I needed students to resurrect it. Then I found out there were some students meeting at the Indiana Memorial Union.”

After Howell and Rosenbaum started the club, Soto rebuilt the Web site last spring.

This semester, Bruce Bundy, the club’s secretary, allocated a grant through IU. Now they have enough money to buy boards, chess pieces and clocks.

“Students have always met and played chess at the IMU, but there hasn’t been a club here for a while,” Rosenbaum said.

This semester, the club hopes to hold tournaments. While there has not been a chess club at IU for 10 years, there has not been a chess tournament for 30.

“This year will be really exciting,” Howell said. “This year, we got the sets and the funding, and we can start traditions like weekly tournaments every Wednesday.”

The club has already scheduled a public tournament for Saturday, Nov. 22.
As a player, Soto said there are many benefits to playing chess.

“Besides the obvious, memorization, organization, decision-making, concentration, it can be very relaxing or very intense so it can be such a rush for some players,” Soto said. “It gives students the chance to compete in tournaments and represent Indiana University in competitions at inter-collegiate tournaments, where Mexico competes in competition as well.”

There are optional dues to join the chess club.

“It’s just for fun stuff,” Rosenbaum said. “We really encourage amateurs to come by and play. If someone doesn’t know how to play, I will stop playing my game to help them learn the basics.”

The first call-out meeting is at 7 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Indiana Memorial Union Commons.

There is also a second-eight-weeks chess class offered this semester through the College of Arts and Sciences taught by Steve Volan. The class will focus on the basics as well as chess history.