OSLO: You may come for the beer but you will most likely stay for the chess. Ten minutes from Oslo's principal railway station is The Good Knight, the world's first chess pub. Opened exactly four days before Magnus Carlsen's defence of the world title against Fabiano Caruana in 2018 (the World No. 1 got word of the opening and showed up for the private opening), it has inexorably grown over the better part of the last decade.
On its shelves, there's a lot of chess literature (books about Jose Raul Capablanca, Viswanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov and Carlsen himself have their own space). Chess motifs and photographs of different world champions across eras adorn its walls. There's even a photo of Savita Shri, a 19-year-old Chennai WGM. The place is so into chess even the beer dispensers are in the form of a knight or a rook. In fact, on Monday, when the The New Indian Express visited the pub, Norway Chess' Open tournament was going on.
The pub itself is inexorably linked to Carlsen. The place's co-owner is Kristoffer Gressli, a former employee at the Norwegian Chess Federation. The World No. 1's first coach — GM Torbjorn Ringdal Hansen — is a business partner. And Carlsen is also an occasional visitor to the pub. Gressli picks up the story. "Every other Thursday, we do have a trivia night and Carlsen, when he's here, takes part," Gressli says. "He usually wins that as well."
Why a chess pub? "When I quit my job, I just knew I wanted to do something around chess," Gressli says. "I thought I could open a store with my friend (Hansen). The original idea was to sell training classes, books and chess sets. That's when another friend suggested 'a chess pub.' Because, with a pub, you could open it for at least 16 hours and not just eight to 10 hours. Five months later, we opened the place."
What really helped Gressli and Hansen was that the chess boom had already hit Norway thanks to Carlsen's first world title in 2013.
Chess and alcohol aren't natural bedfellows, but "after a few beers, Norwegians suddenly aren't as introverted," Gressli smiles. "We kind of knew that it worked at a small scale, but we were eager to see if it would work on this large scale. We have room for 100 players here. It actually works, so that's quite fun to see."
On this particular Monday, the beer isn't flowing and the till is quiet as the Open tournament demands perfect silence. On 40 tables inside the pub, chess boards are in various states of action. GMs, FMs, IMs and some untitled players are all featuring. At its peak, it can house 220 people — it has done so on many nights. It was like that when Carlsen defended the world title against Caruana in 2018, weeks after it opened. "Just people celebrating a goal in football," Gressli says. "That's how it was like when Carlsen won."
But that still explains only a part of how a chess pub in the middle of Oslo's Central Financial District managed to carve out a distinct identity. To explain the concept, Gressli dips into that well worn stereotype of Norwegians being 'introverts'. Having something to do — in this case moving a 'piece' on the board — helps fill the pauses during conversations. "There are no awkward silences," Gressli adds. "There are a lot of thematic pubs here (in Oslo). There's an arcade-based pub on the opposite side of the road. There are bowling themed pubs as well."
Gressli, who doubles up as a recognised FIDE Arbiter as well as with a rating of in the 1800s, narrates a story of how the perception of chess has changed. "There was a time, say 15 years ago, when we used to go to pubs with chess boards. Those days, people there didn't like it. They told us to 'close' it. Post Magnus, people want to join in. They have asked us 'can we join?'." It kind of explains why every major hotel chain has a couple of chess sets at the lobby for people wanting to play a quick game.
There's now a very real fear about what happens to the country's chess industry once the 35-year-old walks away from the game but for now, he's a one-man cottage industry.
Here's an example. Whenever the World Rapid and Blitz Championship happen across a five-day period around Christmas, Norwegians gather around TV sets to watch one of their greatest ever sportspersons (usually win). Gressli says that has now become a Christmas tradition. One report a few years ago said that 20 per cent of all Norwegians (more than a million) live streamed that particular tournament to watch Carlsen. So, it's no surprise to note that the pub has all the equipment on hand to live stream Carlsen.
Outside, a famous Norwegian GM is waiting on one of his wards. Simen Agdestein, winner of nine Norwegian Chess Championships and somebody who coached Carlsen when he was a kid, is hoping that one of his students will win and become the next big thing.
Needless to say, The Good Knight will live stream it.
Results (Rd 1; Monday)
Open: Alireza Firouzja bt Magnus Carlsen, R Praggnanandhaa bt Wesley So (Armageddon), D Gukesh bt Vincent Keymer (Armageddon)
Women: Bibisara Assaubayeva bt Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh bt Ju Wenjun (Armageddon), Zhu Jiner bt Anna Muzychuk (Armageddon)