England

England’s chess history runs deep — from the coffeehouses of eighteenth-century London to the golden era of Staunton, from the eccentric brilliance of Penrose to the modern generation shaped by the internet. This is a country where chess has always lived in the culture, quietly, stubbornly, without the state backing that other nations enjoyed. English chess is club chess, pub chess, weekend congress chess — a grassroots game sustained by love rather than funding.