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Earlier in the week on Wednesday 25th March 2026, I was very pleased to attend the inaugural meeting, the “First Move” of the Inner West Chess Club held on the first floor of one of the best cocktail bars in Sydney, Huelo! This is a casual chess club – the meeting of new and old friends over chess, with nibbles and drinks!

The host for the night was my mate Swanny, chess tragic and the owner, with Kosta at the bar mixing drinks for us throughout the night!

I’ve previously played against Swanny on my channel, and it is thanks to him that the Inner West Chess Club has finally launched. I thank him again for giving me permission to not only attend, but to also capture some video and photos for my channel and blog. Huelo only opened three years ago – check out the interesting interview and write up of Swanny published in Boothby magazine around that time.

The Inner West Chess Club announcements are on Instagram: @inner.west.chess.club. The next meeting is on Wednesday, 8th April 2026 starting at 6 PM. I’ll see you there! 🤩👍

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Those of you who follow my channel and blog will know that I received a ChessUp 2 smart/electronic chess board some time ago. I’ve published a few videos so far (five, including this one) which have been demonstrations, and to be frank, I have found the ChessUp 2 a little difficult to review. The reason for this is that I think that my personal aesthetic sense isn’t quite tickled the right way by the ChessUp 2, but that’s a me problem, and not anything wrong with the board. So to be fair, I’ve spent quite a bit of time using the board with other (normal!) people, to try to get a broader understanding of how others see and perceive the board.

The launch of the Inner West Chess Club was a perfect opportunity and I used it for all my games on the night, as well as had the other guests play against each other using the board. The feedback (almost universally positive!) was extremely helpful and I’m now ready to formally record my review when I have some time!

Insights regarding the ChessUp 2 after playing many games OTB at the club, and from feedback from my opponents, some of which was unprompted:

• The clock function through the built-in screen is excellent. This is both in use during the game, and with setting up the game. Many players had different preferences (3-min, 5-min, and 10-min games), and some wanted increment, and others did not. The ChessUp 2 made selecting the preferred time control smooth and very easy.
• Once again, the TouchSense technology worked extremely well. Although the promotional material notes that this allows the legal squares to be lit up when a piece is touched, this was immaterial in practice when playing over-the-board against people who knew the rules. Instead, TouchSense allowed for the very natural sliding of pieces AND for the board to remain extremely responsive. Normally there’s a trade off: if the board is set with very low latency, it could incorrectly detect a move when a piece is slid over an earlier square in a move (especially with the rooks, queens, and bishops) as the board doesn’t know whether the piece has been released.
• There were, however, a few occasions of board misdetections though, and I’ll talk about this in my formal review.
• Unless I’m doing something wrong, it seems that the ChessUp 2 has fixed sides. When my opponent and I wanted to switch colours, we couldn’t just set up our boards with the respective coloured pieces, but had to rotate the board or switch seats. This seems like an oversight by ChessUp as it should be something that can be addressed easily in software.
• The on-board recording of games that could be accessed later by the app, was fantastic. This worked flawlessly.
• It was noted by a couple of people that the queen piece and the king piece are somewhat indistinct, especially in a lower light environment. In practice, this did have an effect on a couple of games.

Quick Win #111

One of the things about playing over-the-board is that it is genuinely a bit different to 2D chess on Chess.com! Most of the people I chatted to on the night described the same thing. Overall, I was happy with my performance though I did lose more than I won! I flagged quite a few games playing blitz against better players: but I had enormous fun, and more than a few times, I was in a pretty good position at the point of my clock running out of time! 😅

This game early in the night was a classic chess noob Quick Win with checkmate in 9-moves! My opponent beat me in the second match, so I’ll have to showcase this one! I think they hadn’t warmed up yet: it was their first game of the night, they were caught in the flow of playing in a blitz-like manner (despite it being a 10-min game), they hadn’t quite oriented themselves to “3D” chess, and were a bit enamoured with the ChessUp 2 (thanks ChessUp! 😂).

They led with the tricky Bishop’s Opening (1. e4 e5 2. Bc4), to which I responded with the Two Knights. Against their light square “pyramid”, I immediately opened the centre with (4… d5). Although I didn’t quite expect it to work, I had my eye on their exposed f2-square so (7… Qd4) and then fully charged the bishop-queen battery with (8… Bc5). Unfortunately for my opponent, I think that they just didn’t expect an early mating attack and diagonals do look different in 3D vs 2D! Good game, GG!

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[Event "Inner West Chess Club Inaugural Night"]
[Site "Inner West Chess Club @ Huelo Bar"]
[Date "2026.03.25"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Mr F"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[TimeControl "600"]
[Termination "vitualis by checkmate"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/4Di34oHU3G/analysis"]

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 {Bishop's Opening} 2... Nc6 3. d3 Nf6 {Where available, I
usually go Two Knights if nothing else is obvious} 4. f3 $2 {[%c_effect
f3;square;f3;type;Mistake;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true][%c_arrow
g1f3;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;from;g1;to;f3;persistent;false] Hmm... the
pyramid of pawns is a mistake, and also an indicator for me that my opponent
might be susceptible to a Quick Win attack  $1} 4... d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Bxd5 Qxd5
7. Nc3 Qd4 {[%c_arrow
d4f2;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;from;d4;to;f2;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f2;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;f2;persistent;false] Let's create the
opportunity for a quick win  $1} 8. Bd2 Bc5 {[%c_arrow
c5f2;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;from;c5;to;f2;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f2;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;f2;persistent;false,c5;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;c5;persistent;false,d4;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;d4;persistent;false]
The battery is charged  $1} 9. a3 $4 {[%c_effect
a3;square;a3;type;Blunder;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true][%c_highlight
a3;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;a3;persistent;false] I think my new mate
hadn't quite warmed up to the playing yet, was caught in the flow of playing
quick moves, and hadn't reoriented to a 3D board (versus playing online), and
missed the attack  $1} 9... Qf2# $1 {[%c_effect
e8;square;e8;type;Winner;animated;true,e1;square;e1;type;CheckmateWhite;animated;true,f2;square;f2;type;GreatFind;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true][%c_highlight
f2;keyPressed;alt;opacity;0.8;square;f2;persistent;false] Good game, GG  $1} 0-1