Orange City Fl Info?

Chess Clubs
1

I’m 60, retired and coming off a 20 year absense from tournament play. Just moved to Central Florida in February, I lived in Orlando for a few years during the late 70s and was a member of that chess club – a lot of fond memories, though I only remember one or two of the players. During the 80s I played a lot in NYC, mainly at the Marshall, and worked my way up to the low 2000s.

Anyway, I know there are some chess clubs around here and I’ll be joining them. Also planning to play and study a lot of chess in retirement.

If I can get back in halfway decent playing form I’m planning to travel to the larger USCF tournaments and would like to link up with local players looking for someone to share expenses with (probably around November or December because I’m too rusty to compete right now).

Also, as I live alone now, I’d be more than willing to have opponents come to my house for informal games, or a rated match through one of the local clubs.

It will be good to start playing again. In the old days I played too much, then became too involved in club administration/politics and, for two decades or so, didn’t realize how much I missed being a tournament player.

2

There are several active clubs in the central Florida area. Maybe start with the Florida Chess Association web page, and click the links for Central Florida from there: floridachess.org/

3

Thank you, Fromper, fine advice and exactly what I’ve been doing. The past week or so I’ve left messages and have written Emails but haven’t gotten any response yet. I twice visited the Deland Chess Park but haven’t found any chess players at it.

Still, I’ll keep plugging and hopefully will get through to somebody soon. If not I’ll find a tournament to enter before long and will start making contacts that way.

I was hoping to get directly in touch with some Central Florida chess players who might read and respond to these forums.

4

Exactly two years since my last post in this topic I can say with certainty that the Orange City Fl area is pretty much skittles land when it comes to chess playing. My local chess friends are generally a few B and a couple of A players with the rest around D, or below. There’s a Deland Chess Club which is really a social group that meets at the main library for a few hours on Saturday afternoon, a local Wendy’s Sat night and Sunday from 1 p.m., the local senior center on Wednesday afternoon, and a Books A Million on Tuesday night, all of it skittles games. I’ve set up a Tuesday morning - 2pm slot at the senior center to play one of the A players in a back room, and that – other than playing at my house (which I’d like to avoid for right now) – is turning out to be the best option.

I’m glad to say that at the ripe age of 62 young my game, even after a twenty year period of inactivity, has sprung back to mid-1900s (I was an expert through the 80s though my listed rating floor is 1700). But I realize it will never go much higher if I can’t play experts and masters.

There’s some rated tournament activity in Daytona, which is a good northeast drive from here, and three chess clubs at Gainsville, much farther away to the northwest, but they don’t seem to have much rated tournament activity that I’ve been able to come across. The best bet appears to be Orlando, with at least one rated G-75 tournament per month at the Orlando Chess and Games Center (run by 2400 Alex Zelner) but the fine facility seems mainly oriented to chess instruction over competition. Another club in St Pete half a state away, and seemingly much more tournament activity in South Florida, mostly in Miami or it’s suburbs. That’s a very, very long drive from Orange City/Deland.

Thankfully the U. S. Open is being held in Orlando this year, around 50 miles from my living room. I’ve registered to play the full 9 round, one slow game a night section, and I’ll be staying at the hotel it’s being held in. Yes, this is kind of ruinous but it gives me a chance to lose some really fine players. :open_mouth: :laughing:

Anyway, getting back to the point of this thread I started a little over two years ago, if you live in the Orange City/Deland/Debarry part of Florida, and want to play in decent rated tournaments, you have to be willing to do a lot of driving, and probably some staying in hotels or motels.

– Naturally if you’re going to stay in the hotel the event is being played at there’s little point in staying local, a slightly higher transportation price gets you to Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, New York etc & etc, which I’m hoping to do next year.

– – I was toying with moving to a more active city, probably Dallas (NY is too costly, and probably other very large cities would be as well), and I may still do so. The main Dallas chess club sounds a lot like New York’s Marshall, which I miss a lot, and of course has a lot of rated events activity. I guess there’s at least one more relocation left in these old bones. :slight_smile:

5

Is there a Ray’s Pizza two blocks from the Dallas Chess Club?

6

:laughing: Okay Steve, you convinced me, I loved that place!!! Haven’t found a decent pizza or bagel place since I left Brooklyn. Packing already, costs be damned, it’s back to NYC for this kid. :smiley:

7

There are usually 6-8 big weekend tournaments per year in Florida, and generally about half of them are in Orlando. In fact, there was one this past weekend in Orlando. Living about a 3 hour drive south of there, I missed that one - I can’t make the trip for all of them.

If you’re serious about moving, but want to stay in the mild Florida weather (we don’t break 100 degrees in the summer like they do in Texas), southeast Florida is actually pretty good these days for chess. There are 3 clubs in northern Broward and Palm Beach counties that have rated games every week, plus a few skittles groups.

8

Thanks for the info, Fromper. I lived in Orlando from 77-80 and liked the city and my fellow chess players very much; I remember being especially impressed with the main library. In chess I came to know several very good players, some of whom I’d later meet at the larger Manhattan tournaments. Ironically I haven’t seen any of them since moving to Orange City in Feb of 09; but then I hadn’t played in any major tournaments up to now. And, no doubt, several have since moved to other states.

What your saying is exactly what I was considering, moving to a suburb just outside Orlando, playing in all the weekend tournaments held in the city and allowing myself two or three trips a year to participate in major tournaments held in other cities. That also keeps me close to most of my family, which I’d prefer.

I’ll have to see if Ray’s Pizza ships orders out of state. :open_mouth:

Hope we get to meet over the board. :slight_smile:

9

Hi JPD
If u r still looking for player nr orange city I get into deland Friday mornings at 9am or so and can play till noon— expert rating I live in n.e.lake county-- thanks dwl