Chess Meetups in Brisbane

Just returned from a 2 week vacation in Brisbane though this time there was no chess event lined up for me. There was indeed a Wendy Terry Memorial (25th-26th May) though the dates (and travel requirements) didn't match well with my city accommodations and return schedules.

However, thanks to the Brisbane Chess Meetup organizer, Matt, we could still get some chess in. He has been running such meetups in various coffee cafes 5 or 6 times a week. As of current, the schedule is as such:

Wednesday 12 pm at June’s Cafe, East Brisbane.
Thursday 6pm at the Royal Hotel, Nundah.
Friday 11am at Chocolate Moments, Albert St, Brisbane City,
Saturday from 9 am West End Park Cafe at Montague Road.
Sundays from 11am  at The Gardens Cafe at Roma Street Parklands.

For updates to the meetups, you can check https://www.brisbanesocialchess.org.au/

So visitors to the fine city of Brisbane could just saunter in for serious or fun chess games (with or sans clock).  Of course there's the Brisbane chess club which opens Thursday 7pm at Ipswich Rd, Woolloongabba but that was kind of out of the way for us.

After doing some serious chocolate shopping on Adelaide Street last Friday, we checked out the Friday meetup at Chocolate Moments.

The venue of the first meetup we went.

A Fischerandom (or 960.Freestyle whatever) game starting...

The meetup was supposed to run from 11am to 1pm but we were still hacking about at close to 3pm.

We also decided to go to the next meetup over on West End, the next day, and we have yet another cozy cafe where the games are played outdoors again (in 22-25 degree weather it's really nice) and yet shaded.

I was told that the chap on the right specializes in arcane gambits. Here he unleashes 1 e4 c6 2 b4!? against this young Asian boy and the game turned into a sort of King's gambit after Black played ...e5 later at some point and White continued with f4.

Once again, the games (and subsequent chess chat) lasted more than the allotted time and we made our way back at close to 2pm (usually the meetup starts at 9+am).

Anyway, here's one game I played against Ben and I think the variations we missed on move 10 and 20 were pretty interesting.