Trickster Magazine

For centuries, chess was treated as a gentleman’s game. Women were welcome to play only in drawing rooms or amongst themselves, but formal clubs across Europe and the United States were male-only well into the early 1900s. When the first Women’s World Chess Championship finally took place in 1927, the men had already been competing for the title for more than forty years. Today, women still make up only a small fraction of rated players worldwide. Many women never receive the encouragement to keep playing, and the culture around chess can still feel difficult to break into. Culturally, the game still tends to carry a reputation for seriousness and elitism. In Helsinki, a group of women decided to stop waiting for the culture of chess to change and build something of their own instead.

Sexy Chess Club was started by five organizers: Elisa Wallin, Milja Lassila, Anna Harju, Monica Rannikko and Anni Saikku, and what began as a small gathering has grown into one of the city’s most charming underground traditions. On Tuesday nights the club hosts its regular game night, where anyone can come by to play. Some people arrive with friends, others on their own, but games tend to form soon once the boards are set up. Over time it has become a steady meeting point for women in Helsinki who want to play chess in a more relaxed setting. Over the past year the club has also started organizing pop-up events in different parts of the city, setting up games in places that normally have nothing to do with chess. The idea behind it is to bring the game into spaces where people already are, and make it easier for newcomers to sit down and try it.

On International Women’s Day, the club feels like a reminder that sometimes the most effective way to change a culture is simply to create a new one. We sat down with organizers Anna and Milja to talk about community, failure, and why a chessboard might be the best social technology ever invented.

The club has been running for about two years now. In the beginning we played a couple of times at Jackie’s, and then from there we moved to Harju 8. The idea for the club originally came from Elisa. She played chess herself and went to different chess events, where she noticed there weren’t many women there. The atmosphere was also very competitive, and the social side was missing. She thought it would be nice to create a space where women could just play together.

Things started to move pretty quickly after that. Once we moved to Harju 8, our core group began to form. At first there wasn’t really a clear vision. For the first year we pretty much just met every week and played with a small group. Only later did we start to really think about what this could become.

Pretty soon it felt like the club started to grow on its own. We wanted to create a low-threshold space where people could learn the rules of chess and play without pressure. Word spread through friends and suddenly more people started showing up. Then restaurants and different venues began reaching out to us to start hosting our club with them.

A lot of it has happened very organically. The timing helped too. After the pandemic people really wanted spaces where they could meet up in real life again. Helsinki is small, and in a way everyone knows everyone, but here you still end up meeting people you wouldn’t normally cross paths with. That’s been the best part. Sexy Chess Club takes the edge off the usual serious chess atmosphere. On a typical Tuesday there are beginners figuring out the pieces, regulars debating openings, people hanging around with drinks, and the occasional eruption of laughter when someone makes a truly awful move. Nobody’s treating it like life or death.

You can literally just show up. We’ll guide you to a table and help you get started.

We always try to host in a way that makes it easy to come alone. We help people find opponents and introduce them around. It’s really important to us that everyone feels welcome.

The first time can feel like a big step for people, so we try to make the threshold as low as possible.

Chess has a reputation for being very serious and rigid, and we want to break that. Here you can play with a bit of humor. It doesn’t have to be so intense.

In Finland people can be quite afraid of failing or looking like they don’t know something. But here that’s completely fine.

You can also just come and hang out. If you’re not in the mood to play, you can watch. Chess is actually surprisingly dramatic when you follow a game, it's a great spectator sport. We’ve seen some really beautiful friendships form through the club. People who met here now spend time together outside of chess too.

Elisa came up with it early on when the idea of the club first appeared. It has a tongue-in-cheek vibe. We’re not taking ourselves too seriously. There’s also a bit of “girls’ night” energy in it.

Sometimes we laugh about the idea that in a hundred years archaeologists will be trying to interpret the name.

It’s a bit provocative, but in a playful way

It also pushes back against the traditional image of a chess club, something very serious and formal. We wanted to show people that this can also be fun.

At the same time, we’re not trying to undermine people who take chess very seriously. There are plenty of clubs for that. What we offer is more like an entry point.

I remember the first time I learned how the pieces move at Jackie’s. I was surprised by how addictive it was. At one point I went into a full chess craze, watching videos and studying games. It’s easy to get pulled into it.

For me, the biggest moment was when I started seeing the board differently. Your understanding grows and suddenly you realize you’re thinking ahead in the game.

But the best lesson is actually about failure.

Exactly. You mess up constantly in chess. But the game doesn’t end just because you made a mistake. You adjust and keep playing.

That’s one of the most beautiful things about it.

Once a woman came up after an event and thanked us. She had just moved to Helsinki and said she had never felt so welcome in a new city before. That really stayed with me. That’s exactly why we do this.

The community aspect is definitely the most important thing.

Chess is such a simple game, but it brings people together who might otherwise never meet. There’s something really beautiful about that.

Chess clubs have never been the easiest scene for women to get in to, and that legacy hasn’t entirely disappeared. Spaces like this change the atmosphere in small but meaningful ways. Here, no one needs to prove anything. You are welcome to just show up, take a seat, and enjoy the game. That’s worth acknowledging on International Women’s Day. Credit goes to Elisa, Milja, Anna, Monica and Anni for building something that makes room for more women around the board. And judging by the growing number of players pulling up a chair on Tuesday nights, they’re not the only ones who think it was overdue.

Interview by Sofia Erman 
Photography by Eva-Liisa Orupõld