Checkmate is cool

Chess was long regarded as the least popular of games - about as fun as a maths test and as modern as a fax machine. According to the cliché, frowning old men wearing horn-rimmed glasses and sporting a beard and pipe would puzzle for hours over their complex strategies. But now millions of young people in Germany have discovered a passion for a board game that is some 1,500 years old. In big cities like Berlin and Hamburg, this analogue pastime is all the rage - not only in chess clubs but increasingly in trendy cafés and pubs, too. 

But why? The Netflix effect is partly to blame: the successful series “The Queen’s Gambit” made many young people realise just how cool chess players can be. German grandmasters such as Georgios Souleidis, Sonja Maria Bluhm and Lara Schulze also stream their brilliant moves on social media, attracting tens of thousands of followers. At the same time, the internet is being deluged by countless chess memes, the maxim appearing to be that it’s finally okay not to take the game - or yourself - quite so seriously. And then we have wunderkind Vincent Keymer, who recently won the Freestyle Grand Slam in Weissenhaus at the Baltic Sea - scooping some serious prize money in the process. The 20-year-old is testimony to how young chess players can become idolised stars. And with around 95,000 members, the German Chess Federation is one of the world’s biggest - proof of the popularity of a sport that involves no risk of tennis elbow or tearing a ligament.

Tough times for some of the older and more experienced players (whether they have a pipe or not): talented youngsters of primary school age have them checkmate in just a few moves after countless hours of practice on an app. What is then needed is excellent impulse control, as chess is a brutally honest business. No algorithm can rescue you and no filter can conceal your lack of ability. And that’s precisely what makes the game such an authentic life experience. So, get the board out, move your pawn forward and keep your fingers crossed that nobody’s filming you when you’re defeated in three minutes.