If you are ever wandering near Parking Lot C at Washington Lake Park in Washington Township, you may stumble across a chess board banner hanging from a tree.
At a picnic table next to it, you will spot Mark LoGrande, a 44-year-old chess enthusiast who wants you to sit down for a game.
“I always wanted to have a place to play in a park. Like in New York, you can go to a park anytime, and you can pick up a game. (But) there’s just not a place for that here,” LoGrande said, who grew up in Brooklyn. He believes people should be able to find chess players playing in public parks.
LoGrande, a respiratory therapist at Jefferson Hospital who resides in Washington Township with his wife and kids, decided back in May to try to fill this gap for himself and other chess lovers in the community. Fittingly, he named his social group Chess in the Park, which holds regular meetups in Washington Lake Park. Occasionally, he hosts spur-of-the moment meet ups when he is in different areas. In early August, he posted on his Facebook page that he was set up in Lime Kiln Alley Park in Bordentown in Burlington County.
LoGrande sets up in a cozy, shaded area surrounded by trees. For at least four hours, he sits with his chess boards and waits for people to play him or to set up games for other duos to play.
Four chess enthusiasts playing two consecutive games at a Chess in the Park meetup.
LoGrande has loved chess for practically all his life, like many chess enthusiasts. He learned how to play as a child, but his real passion did not develop until he was in his teens, working as a janitor at his elementary school.
“During downtime, the janitor – kind of like ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ – was playing chess, and I took an interest to it. So I really learned from him,” he said.
In his 20s, after he moved to South Jersey, he became more involved in chess and began competing in tournaments. He used to be part of the Woodbury Chess Club and would play in some of the tournaments there.
Soon after, online chess became more accessible and popular, so LoGrande switched to primarily playing chess on chess.com. Over time, he missed playing with others in person.
“I wasn’t able to get my schedule to work with tournaments that I wanted to go to, so I figured I would just (host) it and put it on my schedule, so then I could guarantee I could be there,” he said.
Chess in the Park has had a slow, but steady, start. After LoGrande decided he wanted to create a social club that was all about being in nature, connecting with others and loving the game of chess, he posted about his club on the website Meetup and in local event Facebook groups.
Currently, his Meetup page has 54 members signed up, and his Facebook page, simply called Chess in the Park NJ, has 51 followers. LoGrande posts about upcoming meetups in advance on both pages.
“We get about five or six people through the entire time I’m here on an average day,” he said. He typically stays at his picnic table for a minimum of four hours. “The average person plays four or five games.”
While some regular participants are LoGrande’s friends, new people have joined, too, and they have become friends with LoGrande, or at least good competition.
“People who are local and into chess, if it’s convenient for them, they’re going to show up, because a lot of them are pretty passionate about it,” he said. And he hopes more passionate chess enthusiasts will continue to find his group and come out.
If you are new to chess or have not played in years, do not worry – beginners are welcome and encouraged to come by and learn to play or observe the game.
“It’s a lot like playing an instrument, because once you get through the difficult portion of learning it, you’re vested into it,” he said of how many people tend to develop their passion for chess. “You’ve put all that energy into it, and now you’ve reached a level of competency where you can enjoy it more. It’s not as much of a struggle. I think people that have went over that hump are going to be chess players for life at that point.”
In addition to many chess players loving the strategy component of the game, there are several other benefits.
Unlike most games, chess does not require verbal communication. This makes chess a game without a language barrier and can connect people despite their background or native language. (LoGrande notes that he does enjoy social chess and chatting with opponents, too).
Chess requires focus, concentration and deep calculation skills that can often be meditative, since a player is focusing on one thing at a time. LoGrande said the frontal lobe development of chess players’s brains is comparable to monks.
“(Scientists) study the MRIs of monks, and they put weight on their brain, like actual cerebral cortex thickness from meditating,” LoGrande said. “The same thing happens to a chess player when they are playing the game and are deeply calculating variations and staring at the board for quite some time.”
Playing chess, LoGrande said, can mimic other life experiences and prepare players for better navigating situations in their personal lives.
“In a game, you most likely will definitely make mistakes, and you’ll realize immediately after that you made the mistake,” he said. “But the game is not over, and you have to keep playing.”
“You have to deal with the emotional feeling of the mistake, but then decide that you’re going to focus on the present again.”
While LoGrande is focused on the present, he is still thinking about how Chess in the Park can expand in the future.
Earlier this summer, LoGrande hosted a Losers Walk tournament, where losers of each game needed to take a lap around all of Washington Lake Park. This friendly competition meshes chess with fitness, which LoGrande is also passionate about.
He said the participants in the tournament were his friends, which was still fun, but not what he was hoping for. In the future, he would like to try it again with more participants, or at least another kind of competition that blends chess with exercise.
Another goal for Chess in the Park?
There are several picnic tables clustered together in the Lot C area he sets up at, and LoGrande would love to see “all the tables with two chessboards on it, people playing, hitting the clocks, just going at it.”
Follow Chess in the Park NJ on Facebook or on Meetup at the following link for more updates and to get in touch with LoGrande: www.meetup.com/meetup-group-fmhxomvv.
Mark LoGrande, founder of Chess in the Park, marks his territory in public parks by hanging up a chess board banner. When he is at Washington Lake Park in Washington Township, he sets up near Parking Lot C.
