Chess in Vienna: clubs, coffee houses and tournaments
Viennese chess still lives in the coffee house. Clubs of the Wiener Schachverband meet on a fixed weekday at Café Frey, Café Merkur or Café Kreuzberg, in pensioners' clubs and school buildings, and play their league matches from autumn to spring. Companies, the opera and the police field teams of their own, while bars, the main library and neighbourhood centres in Mariahilf, Neubau and Josefstadt set out boards for anyone who walks in.
Clubs 49
Places to play 73
Tournaments 21
Staff and pupils 15
Lessons 9
Chess960 in Vienna
Chess960, known in German as Schach960 or Fischer-Random-Schach, has left no trace on a Viennese board in the pages behind this directory. The federation's pages and the club sites that were read mention neither Chess960 nor Freestyle chess, and a search for a Viennese Chess960 tournament found only explanations of the rules and online events.
The variant shuffles the pieces of the back rank into one of 960 starting positions, so prepared openings are of no use from move one. Until a club or a café in Vienna sets up such a game, it can be played online at ch960.com.
For the period these entries cover, no dated Chess960 game on a physical board in or around Vienna is on record.
Reading an entry
Entries are built from pages a reader can open for themselves: the club register and the address directories of the Wiener Schachverband, the league tables of the Viennese club and works championships, the FIDE list of rated tournaments, the Chess Unlimited calendar of open meeting points and the own pages of clubs, cafés and schools. Each fact carries the day its page was read.
Lists start with the entries whose evidence is newest; their order is not a judgement of any place. Where no page answers a question, the entry says "not stated by sources". The status lines, the three marks given to sources and the limits of the directory are explained on how the entries are checked.
Has a club evening moved to another café?
Viennese clubs change their coffee house or their pensioners' club now and then, and a new league season can move the club night to another weekday. If an entry has fallen behind, or a club, café table or tournament is missing, write a short note with a link to the page that shows it.