The favourite nooks to play chess for the city's chess players

In 2013, Shawket Bin Osman Shaon, a young resident of Mohammadpur saw some senior citizens playing chess at Shyamoli playground in the city's Shyamoli area. Out of curiosity he started going there every day and started playing.

Back then there was a shadowed place for the chess players at the north side of the playground.

"I learned the basics of the game when I was little, but I didn't continue playing. In 2013, I started to play chess regularly with the brilliant senior players in Shyamoli. And now I am a national-level chess player," Shaon said.

Shaon is the secretary of the Mohammadpur Chess Club, which has 150 members. The monthly fee is Tk100.

The legacy of chess playing in Shyamoli is more than 20 years old when the playground was just an open plot filled with sand. In 2016, the players decided to form a club to give this a name, so that they could participate in tournaments. That's how the Mohammadpur Chess Club was formed. Now starting from 10 in the morning, players occupy the chess corner of the ground till 10 in the night.

"When the playground was going through a renovation in 2019, we sent an application to the city corporation office to give us a corner to play. That's when Mayor Atiqul Islam agreed to this and made us these five concrete tables in this corner," Shaon said.

Not just in Shyamoli, chess players in the city play on the lakeside at Dhanmondi 32, at Hatirjheel and Mirpur as well.

"The thing with chess lovers is we can play anywhere anytime, all we need is a good partner to play with," said Md Shakil, who started chess playing in Dhanmondi 32 in 2009. Now there are 25 regular players who start playing chess starting from 11am till 10pm.

"The keepers of the Bangabandhu Museum and police officers also play with us here after their duty shifts. In fact, sometimes rickshawalas and day labourers also sit with us to play," Shakil said.

You will find every kind of player starting from grandmasters, national and international level players, police officers, retired government officials, rickshaw pullers, labourers, and tea stall owners to school-going children in these chess gatherings. Jean Nesar Osman, son of the prominent writer Shawkat Osman plays chess in Shyamoli regularly.

'My father Shawkat Osman taught me chess'

"I was 5 or 6 years old when my father Shawkat Osman taught me how to play this game. After learning the basics from abba, I played with my elder brother, seniors from the neighbourhood, uncles and friends," said Jean Nesar Osman, film-maker and the son of Shawkat Osman, the famous Bangladeshi writer.

In a maroon shirt, with a chessboard case on his back. Jean Nesar Osman was playing chess with another regular player at Shyamoli. He was singing, and reciting poems while planning his chess moves. Being the audio-visual head of an NGO in Mohammadpur, this playful genius sits with the players of Shyamoli after his office hours in the afternoon.

In 1975, Nesar Osman went to the Pune Film Institute for higher studies in filmmaking and there he played with his hotel mates. In 1979 he graduated from there and got back to Bangladesh.

"That was the last time I played chess before starting again during the pandemic in 2020. It was a lockdown; no one was getting out. So out of boredom, I started playing chess online," he continued.

When the pandemic slowed down and people were getting back to normal life, Nesar Osman visited the Bangladesh Chess Federation in January 2022, where he met Sohel Chowdhury. Mr Chowdhury invited him to play in a competition the next day in Manha's Castle at Green Road in Dhaka.

"I paid the entry fee of Tk1,000 and there I saw the chess clock for the first time in my life. When the game started, I was a mess, continuously forgetting to press the clock and write the notations that I learnt the previous night on the internet," Nesar Osman said.

Now after a year and eight months, Nesar Osman is a member player of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and his chess ranking is 1261.

There are many good players that come in the Shyamoli playground, he plays with them. "Also sometimes I play with children as well and lose deliberately so the kids do not feel sad. I remember one day, a young boy of 7 or 8 years old, when he beat me in chess he ran to his mother and said, 'Look mother, I beat the record-holder player.' I still remember how happy that boy was that day."

A retired defence officer vs a commoner

In 1984 Habibullah, a 20-year-old young Dhakaite went to Rangamati to meet his friend. The chess-enthusiast friend mocked Habib saying that he could not play chess despite living in the capital city.

In the next seven days, he taught Habib the rules of chess and Habib was so mesmerised by the game that he stayed back for 15 days in Rangamati. "It was like an addiction and from that day, he could not beat me in chess," Habibullah said.

"After getting back from Rangamati, I went to the Chess Federation office to play. From that day, I started going to the federation where I paid a Tk10 entry fee and played with players," Habib said while playing in Shyamoli with the retired defence officer Gias Uddin.

"Habib bhai is an amazing player, he beat me four times today already," Gias Uddin said. After retirement, he visits the playground every day. "I am unemployed now, with nothing to do. Here I meet with people my age, young kids and play with them. It feels good, at least the time goes by."

The duo meets in the playground almost every day and beat each other at chess, "otherwise they cannot sleep at night," others said.

'I play in the morning after school'

Jihan, a young boy of 14/15 years old was playing with another boy of his age in the famous chess corner of Shyamoli. They had an audience of boys of similar ages. "After school, we come here to play because in the afternoon the uncles play, we do not get a chess board to play," Jihan said.

Sometimes they visit the corner in the afternoon as well, before their tuition classes begin. "I get out an hour before my tuitions begin, to play chess here," another boy said.

They play with the seniors as well. Shakil, a 10-year-old boy has a reputation of being a good player there.

Tea, jhalmuri sell because of the chess players

Before leaving the ground that evening, Giasuddin paid Tk200 for tea at an adjacent tea stall. "Because of the players, our tea stall sells well," said one tea stall owner in Shyamoli.

Sabuj, a grocery store owner at Barek Mollar moar in Mirpur 2 says it the similar. "During midday, there are not many customers. So I bring out my chess board and play with anyone interested," he said while playing with a rickshaw puller who parked his rickshaw and was playing chess.