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Denver's chess club is among the oldest of its kind in the nation

"We're like in the secret club, you know, like the mafia."
Credit: Darren Rode
The Denver Chess Club meets once per week. It has been around since 1859.

DENVER — In the bowels of a bishop's base, the battlefields are built for kings and masters like Brian Wall.

"I'm 63, but I'm still swinging," Wall said.

Wall is the president of the Denver Chess Club, a group that sets up matches every Tuesday night in the basement of the Hope Fellowship Church in south Denver.

"Because we can't talk about chess to everybody," Wall said. "So when we do, it's like a special treat. We're like in the secret club, you know, like the mafia."

Fourteen-year-old Noah Segal and his little brother Jacob joined a few months ago.

"It's nice being to play so many more people," Noah said. "I have a much more diverse arsenal of opponents to just being able to play my brother."

For every minute they spend on the board, their mother Stephanie Segal is trying not to be bored. She crochets and reads while dozens of chess games go on around her. Wall calls her and others who have to wait for a loved one, chess widows.

"I may look bored, but I'm enjoying my quiet time," Stephanie Segal said.

The Denver Chess Club has been around since 1859. Wall believes it is one of the oldest chess clubs in the nation.

Credit: KUSA

"Chess is like a beach for anyone to go and enjoy it in his own different way," Wall said.

Noah likes the variety of players within the club.

"You see kids seven, eight years old. My brother's eight years old. There's another kid in here who's seven and then you see people all the way up to their eighties," Noah said.

Stephanie thinks this is a good experience for her boys.

"I love coming here every week and seeing just such a variety of people from different ages," Stephanie said.

But, of all the people that come every week, none of them are like Bob Teitelbaum.

"I'm not a member, never joined," Teitelbaum said.

Yet, he's been coming here to just watch the chess matches over a span of more than 30 years.

"Oh, I enjoy the game. I've enjoyed the game since I was a teenager," Teitelbaum said.

For Teitelbaum, this is like a free ticket to Coors Field every week.

"Hell, you know, you fill stadiums with people who watch games," Teitelbaum said. "So, it's just a different kind of game."

Credit: KUSA

It's the kind of game that Wall still loves to teach.

"I love seeing girls beat boys and children beat adults because it makes them so angry, you know," Wall said while laughing.

He calls it the pain of thinking versus the pain of losing.

"Some people get so mad when they lose; it just ruins their whole evening," Wall said.

If you want to find out more about the Denver Chess Club, click or tap here

Wall is proud to run a club that is still making moves after 159 years. He hopes to double the club's membership in the coming years.

"Somebody said, chess is the drug and I'm the pusher," Wall said.

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