I am sitting here in New Jersey at a chess camp with my son. The instructor (a well known chess instructor) is teaching the class of enthusiastic and talented students in some of the finer points of chess. Obviously even though I understand the words and can see the board he uses, I realize that I cannot 'see' as much as most of the kids in the class. Instead, my mind wanders to other matters that seem to be at play in this part of the country where chess is concerned.

Loudoun County neighbors Fairfax County. So what? Well, the truth is that chess interested in Loudoun has been boosted by the high level of activity in Fairfax at both the scholastic and adult levels. Witness the recent USCF tournaments in Sterling for example. For those of you that don't know, Leesburg Chess Club was started by Larry Hughes (assisted by Lloyd McLaughlin) several years ago. It was the ONLY thing in Loudoun County at the time that I was aware of. Later, separate from LCC, Raymond Duchesne was asked by his wife to lead up the chess club at the Carver Senior Center in Purcellville to support the interest there. We'll stop the history here for a moment.

What they have here in New Jersey is a chess ecosystem. Actually, you could call it a joint New York/New Jersey chess ecosystem after a fashion since they intermix so much - especially in the tournament aspect. However, they are still a good example on which to understand what I believe is happening to Loudoun County.

When a chess club first starting in Loudoun County, it consisted mostly of casual chess players or previously serious chess players that enjoyed playing casually. Separate from that were chess clubs in schools that were invisible to the county in general but may have been lightly aware of each other. At some point, some parents like myself became aware of Leesburg Chess Club (LCC) - mostly through search engines like google.

The parents came in three types:

1. My child doesn't know how to play chess. There is no school chess club to teach it and I don't know it either.

2. My child knows how to play chess but I don't but there is no school chess club to support this activity.

3. My child has outgrown the school chess club and me so he needs better opposition.

In all three cases, LCC was basically the only place to go for those living in Leesburg through Sterling.

What do we have today? We have really different flavors of chess players in Loudoun County.

1. Casual chess players - from the original types that gravitated to LCC.

2. Serious tournament players - either from prior history or casual players that started to love serious chess competition.

3. Kids/parents that want to learn chess.

4. Kids/parents that know the rules of chess but no more and are looking for more help.

5. Previous tournament players that don't want to get back into tournament chess but do want a challenge on occasion.

It all started pretty simple and has grown to a good mix of different players with different motivations and goals. As such, they are all looking for different ways to get where they want to go.

As more kids know chess, more school chess clubs pop up. When more kids in more schools play chess, what happens?

The kids that really enjoy the game want to know more and play harder opposition. Some end up going the USCF (US Chess Federation) route and get into semi-serious tournament chess rather early. Others find the LCC and go from there. Actually, a lot of them find the LCC since it scores well in the search engines on the web.

Along with the ever greater numbers of players is the corresponding increase in competitive players. Some of them WILL be kids. Some of the kids WILL have parents that want them to do well or to grow in the game. Chess books in the library will get borrowed and even chess books at the book stores or amazon will get bought.

What have I not mentioned? Chess instruction.

Eventually, you will get capable chess players thinking that they can make a few extra bucks on the side by teaching chess. In a mature and large enough market, these capable chess players will include some masters. As to whether they make good instructors across the board is a discussion for another time.

If there is enough critical mass, there will be a few companies that may have several instructors. Yes, companies. Why? That is because they want to build a system that will allow them to hire or contract chess instructors and send them out to schools or other organizations.

Think about piano playing instruction and you can find good and bad individual instructors as well as companies that provide good and bad music instrument playing instruction. Sterling has quite a few of those. Yes, music performance playing is also another world where there is serious competition so don't tell me that it pollutes the purity of piano playing for its own sake.

This outgrowth of skill instruction by a instructor is a natural part. In the old days there would be apprenticeship under a master if you could get it. Now, it is an exchange of dollars for instruction in a skill. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with teaching chess for free. In fact, I'd laugh if someone offered to pay me for giving his kid a few tips. I've taught free at my son's school as well as helped a few kids that seemed to need help or encouragement. However, I am hardly a good chess instructor. The one aspect of my instruction that is positive is that it was free. The biggest mistake is that if I were to presume that just because I taught freely that all instruction has to be free.

Let me be the first to say it. When there are enough kids or schools in an area that want chess instruction, expect a company to come calling offering commercial chess instruction purposes. There is nothing illegal in that. In my opinion, there is nothing immoral in it either. In fact, there are parents like myself who are glad that there are other options at all. As someone else put it, there is nothing wrong with teaching chess for money.

Which brings us back to the recent events. There are several different dimensions to this action, some clear cut, some not so
obvious.

Before I go into some of the details, there is a bit more history.

At some point, Raymond (of the Carver Center Chess Club) met with Larry and they agreed that combining their efforts would be best for everyone. Carver Center Chess Club members were welcome to join LCC's activities at whatever Starbucks they happened to be meeting at. Not that a special authorization was needed to go to Starbucks. All you had to do was turn up and donate a dollar to the LCC plastic jar. LCC's members could then go Carver Center's Thursday night meetings and pay the now $2 per adult price to enter the facilities. In a sense, there was a pseudo merger of LCC and Carver Center's chess club although no legal documents were signed nor were they needed. This was all based on a handshake agreement between two parties to encourage and jointly announce and hold events. That's why you hear about activities at the Carver Center on the LCC meetup.com website.

As far as I know, that agreement is still in place. However, given this most recent event and the details I reveal below, I cannot help but wonder where that leaves things.

From a legal standpoint, there is a Terms of Use page for meetup.com. There is one sentence there that helps clarifies things. It says:

Additional eligibility requirements for a particular Meetup Group or Meetup Alliance may be set by the organizer of the Meetup Group or Meetup Alliance (in each case, an "Organizer").

However, we need to deal with more than just a legal standpoint. We need to look at it from a community standpoint.

The website is not just a website. It is also a mailing list/forum combination. When there are enough people that join on the website and turn up at Starbucks or Carver Center to play or learn chess, the website becomes an indivisible part of the whole. The standards that most believe apply are those not just of the legal owner of the website, but those that have contributed to the website in terms of sharing games and techniques, announcing events, organizing and coordinating stuff for everyone. A sense of shared ownership develops, which is beyond the legal ownership. What emerges as a result of all these activities is the development of a community standard - even if that community is virtual. In this case, not only just virtual, but in person as well since many of us meet face to face frequently. This community standard becomes a sort of social contract.

There have been many (including corporations) that have failed to understand this concept of community standards and expectations. LCC may have been started with the intent of just having a good chess game every once in a while but it has grown into something much larger and more complex. It has also spawned off things which were never intended.

There might be something else that may not be generally known. I know this for a fact as I was called by the Carver Center several months ago.

Why did an employee of the Carver Center call me? Some of you may know that the Carver Center had been holding chess time for many home schooled kids once a week during the school year. They came up with the idea of supporting chess even further by creating a chess program during the summer for kids. They needed an instructor and one of the applicants was one particular Hercules del Mundo. So, they called me and asked me what I thought of him as an instructor for children in the game and I gave them my opinion.

The end result of their process was that they scheduled chess classes for the summer and hired del Mundo to teach. Every student in that class is a child. It costs $40 for six sessions and I am sure that the Carver Center does not pass the whole fee to an instructor. In fact, I wouldn't work for that nominal salary even if I were capable of the job. Technically, this is a local government thing so I am sure you could dig up the financial particulars.

As part of this class, offered to the kids that feel that they need instruction, Mr del Mundo created additional after class material on his own time and effort and made it available for those enrolled kids. Those materials are also tuned to the specific lessons being taught. If I were the Carver Center, would I want open access to those materials when it may mean lower enrolment? Would I want one of my instructors to give away class materials which are related to my classes?

In effect, denying the instructor of a community program for kids the use of a specific communications channel has consequences - intended or not.

The end result of recent events has had some positive results. The is now further diversification and variety. That I believe is good for chess as a whole. There is now an Ashburn Chess Club with a somewhat different emphasis. There are now alternate channels of communication and alternate priorities.

Loudoun Chess' motives and goals are clearly stated on this website. From my perspective, there will probably be more gains than losses for the community in the long run.