A new home for chess players opens up in Gurugram!
A new chess club is launching in Gurugram called the Espresso Defense Chess Club. It is launched in partnership with the beautiful cafe space called Cut Coffee Paste that envisions to make this a regular weekend chess club open for all! 15 chess sets will be placed for chess enthusiasts from all across the city to come and play over the board! The club is being launched with a Rapid Tournament on the occasion of International Chess Day! Read more to know about the story behind it and to register for our launch event
Chess Clubs & Spaces in Mumbai
There are three amazing spaces for chess players and enthusiasts currently run in Mumbai by the ChessBase India team. The Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club, the Ambit Chess Club and the Temple of Chess - each with a different energy and structure of its own, but with a shared goal of supporting the chess ecosystem. These spaces have grown over the years and have been an amazing journey for not just us but a lot of the players as well!
The Inception: Chess Club in a Mall
Back in March 2022, we launched the Phoenix ChessBase India Chess Club at Phoenix Marketcity, Kurla. We have been hosting a chess club every Saturday for 100 players for three years now! With our week-long biannual chess camps, simul events with strong players, FIDE Rapid events, monthly prize money events and strong-seeded annual events, we have seen the chess community in the city thrive here.
A chess library: Temple of Chess
With our chess club being open only on Saturdays, we felt the need to have a space for chess lovers to gather, prepare/study chess, play, or watch any tournament together on all days of the week! With the generous contribution of Mr. Deodatta Modak with 1000+ chess books and magazines, we launched a beautiful and spiritual space in August 2024 called the Temple of Chess in Vidyavihar, Mumbai.
Chess in a Corporate Office: Ambit Chess Club
Earlier this year, in Jan 2025, we launched the Ambit Chess Club in the cafeteria of Ambit Pvt Ltd, one of India's premier providers of financial advice and capital. Ambit has been one of the prominent supporters of chess in India with GM Vidit Gujrathi as their brand ambassador and they took a step further in nurturing the chess culture of the city by providing their office cafeteria for hosting a chess club on 1st and 3rd Saturdays every month! It's a space for 30 players and we host a chess tournament every session with no entry fees and a prize fund of Rs.10,000 completely sponsored by Ambit.
Launching a space outside Mumbai
Every time we launch a new space in Mumbai or host our chess camps or annual events here, we are flooded with comments and requests to open a space in other parts of the country. We have always wanted to more spaces to nurture the culture of chess across the country, and with this in mind we are pleased to announce the launch of "ESPRESSO DEFENSE CHESS CLUB" in Gurgaon in partnership with ChessBase India. When we received a message from Cut Coffee Paste, a cafe situated in Gurgaon, to host a weekend chess club for the chess community, we were delighted to jump on the thought and vision of it to make this happen!
The Man Behind this beautiful thought and space!
All it took was a text from Harsh Sirohi, the Founder and CEO of Cut Coffee Paste, to create this beautiful vision of a chess club in a cafe! Harsh has been a chess player and fan himself, and he always wanted to host a space for the community to come together and enjoy the game of chess and have fun. All of this while sipping on their favorite beverage or grabbing a bite!
He came up with this unique name of our chess club and had a wonderful thought to share that led up to this name, "Espresso Chess Club"
I have always felt like the better player is always the one who can defend better, which is why we have defenses named after great players. Similarly, Espresso is the first thing that comes out of coffee beans. No coffee can be made without Espresso, as no great player can be without a good defense system. Thus a perfect match!
“Espresso Defense”
And whenever life throws a curveball at you, defend it with the world's two most beautiful things, chess and coffee ❤
Kartik speaks about what made him feel connected to Harsh's vision:
Harsh comes across as someone extremely passionate about chess. His vision of wanting to provide a space for lovers of chess to feel at home, goes very well with our own mission of growing the sport. It truly was a no-brainer to partner with him.
I hope, together, we are able to give the people of NCR something special.
Our Role
The team of Cut Coffee Paste will be the brawn of our chess club. They will manage this beautiful space and the logistics of the events and club sessions hosted at the Espresso Defense Cafe! ChessBase India will be the brain of our chess club by helping with planning and organizing the chess aspect of the space by managing the chess sets, tournament formats and registrations. Together with the power of our brain and brawn, we hope to curate a beautiful community for chess lovers in Delhi and NCR regions!
Be a part of our Launch Event
We are launching the Espresso Defense Chess Club on 20th July 2025, on the occasion of International Chess Day with a rapid tournament for 30 players!
Cut Coffee Paste has sponsored the prize fund and we now have the tournament without any entry fees. The total prize fund is Rs.5,000.
We would love to see you all at the Espresso Defense chess club!
Click Here to Register
Where to come?
The cafe is right next to the famous Guru Dronacharya Metro Station!
Address: Cut Coffee Paste, Guru Dronacharya Metro Station, Sikanderpur, DLF Phase 3, Sector 26, Gurugram, Haryana
Important Links:
|
A new home for chess players opens up in Gurugram!
@ 19/07/2025 by Vidhi Karelia (en) |