Company Chess Club Workshops
Opening Gambit.
Have you always wanted to start a company chess club but aren’t sure how to go about it? Perhaps, you already have a chess club up-and-running but are wondering what the next move is for your club members? If you are part of a group of enthusiastic aspiring chess players who play friendly chess at lunchtime and would like to get other colleagues and team members involved, why not get things moving with a fun and entertaining Chess Workshop that caters to players from beginners to advanced. An inclusive workshop – with valuable insights and takeaways- that will fire the imaginations and passion of both serious and casual members of your club.
Chess is now officially cool!
The game of chess has undergone an unprecedented Renaissance in recent years, thanks to online playing platforms (lichess.org/ chess.com), TV Series such as The Queen’s Gambit and global controversies such as the Carlsen-Niemann dispute which Elon Musk felt the need to weigh in on. Listen to my take on the latter debacle on RTE’s Drivetime
Opportunities to play in Ireland and Internationally.
The chess world is absolutely rocking all over the world, not least in Ireland. The Irish Chess Union Calendar lists opportunities to play all kinds of chess tournaments somewhere on the island of Ireland virtually every weekend. What many members of company chess clubs may now be aware of however, is that there are also opportunities for your company club to play internationally.
Represent your company at the European or World Corporate Chess Championships.
If you have a bunch of dedicated and passionate chess aficionados in your company why not consider entering a team for the FIDE World Corporate Chess Championships? This online event led qualifying company teams to a final showdown in New York 2024, Or the European Union Corporate Championships, an over-the-board chess event, which takes place in the last weekend of every November most recently in Paris in 2024.
Embrace your inner warrior. Become an expert player.
When I founded Chess Bud Ireland in 2019, I set about developing a chess curriculum that aspires to take an adult beginner from unrated to 2000 Elo in 3-4 years. My curriculum encompasses all aspects of the game and is designed to build chess knowledge incrementally so that students can measure their progress and learn how to train themselves.
Path to Excellence.
Chess Bud Ireland is ready and willing to assist your club members to prepare for and play in the 2025 editions of the aforementioned international events. Not only would I train you for these competitions, as your coach, I would also be able to play for your team and lead you into battle, should you so wish.
Establish short-term and long-term goals. Be realistic. Manage your expectations. Then Dare to Dream.
Competing in European or World Corporate Championships might at first seem like a distant dream. None of your club members are chess professionals after all and you and your colleagues doubtless have deadlines, responsibilities and full schedules. Developing your company chess club is, however, something that your company club members can work towards in their spare time. For instance, I can facilitate in-person workshops or online classes on Saturdays. I also have a flexible schedule for delivering online classes (Monday- Friday) that can be recorded and played back by club members unable to attend owing to work commitments.
The first move.
First things first, I would suggest your club gets the ball rolling with a Chess Bud Workshop. That way you can evaluate my potential as a coach and mentor for your club members.
Don’t forget…
Every Master was once a Beginner…
And every CEO was once a Rookie!
Let’s Play Chess!
IM Mark Quinn, PhD
Founder, Chess Bud Ireland
Book a Workshop!
- Fill out the form below for a Chess Club workshop. Let us know what days or times would best suit your company club. Note: Chess Bud can accommodate Company Clubs that can only meet or host a workshop on a Saturday. IM Mark Quinn also provides high-level continuous training to groups in fun and highly engaging online classes. Online sessions involve analysing student’s games, solving puzzles and playing friendly games against club members and practice simuls against IM Mark Quinn in Chess Bud’s dedicated playing platform, the Chess Bud Portal.
- Tell us as much as you can about chess in your company, i.e. how many players you have across the organization. If you are unsure of the current chess standard of your colleagues, get them to set up a free chess account on lichess.org The rating they receive after playing six rapid games (10 minutes per person) will indicate whether they are complete or experienced beginners or intermediate or advanced players. If you need any help with working out the level of your club members, just send Chess Bud a list of the anonymous handles your colleagues play under and Chess Bud will evaluate their play and let you know their current standard.
- Workshop Options: If you have a significant number of players who would like to learn the game from scratch, as well as experienced beginners, intermediate and advanced players, we recommend two separate workshops. For instance, Mark could take the complete beginners for a morning session and then the more experienced. expert players in an afternoon session.
- We tailor workshops to cater to your Club. Chess Bud will come back with a proposal of how the workshop might work on the day and how it would cater to players of diverse levels.
- Chess Bud Workbook: Two weeks before the workshop take place you will receive a workbook in pdf format with tactical chess problems, middle-game plan-formation challenges and essential endgames to analyse and solve. The workbook will contains separate sections for players all levels in your club (i.e. complete beginner/ experienced beginners/ intermediate/ advanced). Club members can tackle these puzzles individually or in groups at lunch-time in the lead up to the workshop. The idea is to encourage team members to analyse together, so they can learn from each other and share ideas. Many hands make light work 🙂
- Group Analysis, Feedback and Insights: During the workshop, participants will be encouraged to present their solutions and ideas to the Workbook problems. Analysis of these exercises will take place on a large demonstration board or meeting room white board during the course of the workshop. Club members will be encouraged to present their solutions, to explain the thinking underpinning their choices and to ask as many questions as they like. Particular emphasis of these group analysis sessions will be on the specific thought processes that strong chess players use to assess a position, the criteria they use to draw up a series of potential moves, then how they ultimately decide on one specific plan. All participants in the workshop, regardless of their current standard will hopefully benefit from insights gained from exercises designed to improve strategic and lateral thinking.
- Play, Analyse, Experiment: Practical playing elements will be a key aspect of the workshop, with participants getting to try out new openings and dangerous attacking ideas and/or take part in a simultaneous display etc. For these playing sessions, club members will be grouped according to strength (i.e. experienced beginner/ intermediate or advanced) to that they can have the most fun and get to play to win!
- Deliberate Practice: Expert Feedback. In the final phase of the workshop, we will analyse some of the games played in the practical playing sessions and offer advice on how individual participants and the entire group can continue to develop their game.
- Review the Workbook Solutions and the Workshop Content for two months on Lichess. Immediately following the workshop, Chess Bud Ireland will set up a lichess study containing the solutions to the workbook. This study will also include 10 deeply annotated master games selected to help your club members to expand their opening knowledge. Anyone participating in the workshop can play through solutions or games if they have a lichess account. Only your company club will have access to this study and it will be available for two months. A designated Chess Club member should compile a list of the names of the lichess accounts of colleagues participating in the workshop. Chess Bud Ireland will then invite them to become members of the Lichess study.
Workshop Fees:
Full-day (7 hours): €800 + expenses – max 30 participants
Half-day (3.5 hours): €450 + expenses – max 30 participants
Chess Bud Ireland will provide all the chess boards, sets & chess scoresheets required for the workshop.
The above fee includes a specially designed bespoke Workbook (PDF) which will be emailed to you 2 weeks before the Workshop.
Expenses:
Petrol: €0.50 per kilometer (for schools situated 20km beyond Kilkenny)
Lunch/ Dinner: €15/ €30
Lodging/ BB: where overnight is required
IM Mark Quinn: Playing & Coaching & Career
After representing Ireland in many Junior World championships, I gained the title of International Master of Chess at the Istanbul Chess Olympiad in 2000. While completing a PhD in the School of English, Drama and Film in UCD, I taught chess in many Dublin schools as well as giving one-to-one classes. A number of my individual students including Ryan Rhys Griffiths (FM, 2352 Elo) went on to play for Ireland at Junior and Senior Level. I began playing for Kilkenny Chess Club in the Leinster Leagues in 2001 and subsequently moved to the Marble City with my family in 2019. I founded Chess Bud Ireland in September 2019 and gained the title of FIDE Trainer in 2020. During the pandemic, I offered free online classes while on the PUP scheme and, post-pandemic, I resumed teaching chess in schools, as well as organizing in-person Kids Camps in Kilkenny, Dublin, Cavan, Monaghan, Cork and Kerry. Most recently, I was head-coach to the Irish Junior Chess Squad during the European Schools Chess Championships held in the University of Limerick in June 2024. I have my own third-party public liability insurance and am regularly garda vetted by the schools I teach in. I am currently ranked 5th in Ireland on the International FIDE rating list with an active rating of 2379 Elo. In September 2024, I became captain of the Kilkenny Armstrong Cup Team (Division 1/ Leinster League ) and am currently on a score of 5.5/6 on Board 1.
Teaching Philosophy:
I often teach students of mixed level of standards and am a big believer in integrated learning. My goal is to make classes informative and insightful while also light and fun. My role is to the fire the imaginations of students regardless of their age and make them aware of the magic of chess but also their own unique potential, whether they decide just to play chess for a few weeks or to make the game a bigger part of their lives going forward.
Let’s get the ball rolling!
Please fill out the form below and I will let you know my availability and give you a quote.
Alternatively, text me on 085-1526889 and I will give you a call!
Let’s play chess!
IM Mark Quinn
WORKSHOP BOOKING FORM