Does casual chess even exist anymore?

And now for something completely different.

I played quite a lot of chess in my youth, but then I got bored of it. About ten years ago I started playing again, and found my love of the game rekindled.

In the era of the modern internet this is very convenient, as you can very easily play against people from all over the world.

However, while that's nice and all, at least for me personally nothing beats playing the game in real life, with a real board, and real people in the same room, with whom to have casual conversation and socialize. It's so much more enjoyable and relaxing when the other person is not just a completely faceless person on the other side of the world, and when you can actually handle the pieces and look at a real board, and there's no time pressure so you can think and play at your own leisure, while having an amicable conversation with your opponent and possibly other people in the room.

Hmm... Did I say "relaxing" because "there's no time pressure"?

Well, scratch that, because such a thing doesn't seem to exist.

Here where I live there are two chess clubs (well, three if you count one exclusive to grade-schoolers). However, if by "chess club" you envision some kind of dedicated place that's open all day and where people can just go at any time it's open and just casually play with random people (with or without clocks), you'll be sadly mistaken.

These clubs, both of them, do nothing else than to organize mini-tournaments once a week. They literally do nothing else. They have no other programming, no other activities, nothing. If you go to their websites, that's literally the only thing they do. If you ask the chess club organizers eg. via email if they organize anything else besides these weekly tournaments, the answer is a resounding "no". No casual play, no teaching, no game analysis, nothing. Which is crazy.

And it's not like these are tournaments using time controls of eg. 1 hour per player. No. You'll be lucky if you get 15 minutes per player (with no increments, of course). By far the most common time control is 10 minutes.

I absolutely hate playing chess like that. It's exactly like playing online, and there's literally no reason to go there to do the same thing: It's completely impersonal, there is no talking (if you tried to talk everybody else would start staring at you angrily), there is no discussion, there is no game analysis, there is no casual conversation, there is no socializing. It's just play your 5 or so games, in complete silence, and that's it. Under tremendous time pressure most of the time, which just sucks all enjoyability from the game.

I went to one of the clubs for a time (about six months), and several times I asked if it would be possible that instead of playing a tournament we could just play casually random games, without clocks. The people looked at me like I was crazy. What a preposterous idea.

In fact, during the last months that I attended the weekly tournaments, I just started losing all my games by time. I just silently refused to be pressured by the clock and just played at my own pace. And, obviously, I ended up losing almost all my games by time, even those where I had a clearly winning position. Zero points in every tournament, every week. I didn't care. It was my silent protest against the clocks.

I eventually stopped going because it just made no sense.

Playing with clocks just destroys the enjoyability of the game, and makes no sense. It may make sense in a tournament, but not for completely casual playing. Yet, apparently, there exists no such thing in the modern world as playing chess without clocks. It feels like the whole concept has completely disappeared from the face of the world, even though the game has been played in the past without clocks for literally centuries.

Try eg. finding a single YouTube video where people play chess without clocks. I dare you. You won't find one. (There may well be, but they are really difficult to find. I have tried.)

I have actually been wondering if many young people believe that clocks are mandatory in chess. After all, they might have never played without one, so they might get the impression that it's a mandatory part of the game.

"Fine, the chess clubs might only play mini-tournaments with clocks, but surely there are other player groups where the playing is more casual and more social, and where they are completely willing to play without clocks?"

You would think so, but at least here there appears to be no such player group. I have searched and searched, I have sent emails to people running these chess clubs asking if they know any such groups, I have asked in the club itself, and I have got no affirmative answers. (I have got several answers to my emails, but none which would point to some such group.)

It's so frustrating. As it so happens, I play weekly with a group of Magic The Gathering players, and because the game is played without any clocks (because that would be essentially impossible), the playing is nice and relaxing. There's no time pressure, you can freely take your time, nobody is pressuring you to play, and while it's other people's turn you can have casual conversations.

No such luck with chess.