Home › Blog › Chess in Montreal: Clubs, a Chess Café & Where to Play
Montreal founded Canada's first chess club in 1844, and 50 years later a world title changed hands in the city. Emanuel Lasker won his tenth game against Wilhelm Steinitz there on 26 May 1894 and became world champion. Today most of Montreal's casual chess runs through 1 club, Blitz Bishops, which puts boards out 7 days a week: 2 free nights in bars, then 5 days at its own chess café on Rue Sherbrooke Ouest. This guide covers the chess clubs, chess cafés and chess bars in Montreal now, and the history underneath them.
I run Checkmate IRL and play most of my chess in Berlin. Montreal is an easy city to drop into: you walk in without booking, pay CAD $5 or nothing at all, and there's a free blitz tournament most evenings. Around that there's a brewpub night, library workshops and a chess association that teaches kids, and the chess venues in Montreal on our map add park tables across the island.
"Organized chess began in Canada in 1844 in Montréal," says the Canadian Encyclopedia, with the founding of the country's first chess club. The Montreal Chess Club got its Thomas Workman trophy for the club champion in 1890, merged with the Westmount club in 1908, and took its old name back after a fire in 1924.
For its centenary in 1944 the club played a match against Quebec City, won it 6 to 4, and held a banquet at the Plaza Hotel. From 1955 to 1965, high-stakes games were played in a restaurant on Rue Sainte-Catherine. The old club had declined by the late 1960s, with brief revivals in 1972 and 1979.
The 1894 world championship between Wilhelm Steinitz and Emanuel Lasker was played in 3 cities. Games 1 to 8 were in New York, 9 to 11 in Philadelphia, and 12 to 19 in Montreal, which sponsored the match.
Lasker clinched it in Montreal with his tenth win on 26 May 1894. The final score was 10 wins, 5 losses and 4 draws.
The Quebec Open began in 1965 at the Centre NDG with 48 players. In 1972, the year of Fischer and Spassky, 744 players turned up at École Père-Marquette, the biggest field in the tournament's 1965 to 2000 archive. That September, 2 rival opens were played on the same Labour Day weekend.
In 1977 the Quebec Open moved to summer at the Cégep du Vieux-Montréal, and a 17-year-old Yasser Seirawan tied for first. Reshevsky finished half a point behind Igor Ivanov in 1980, Gulko won in 1992, and Montreal's own grandmaster Alexandre Lesiège won in 1997 and 1998 and shared first in 2000.
From 10 April to 7 May 1979, Montreal staged a double round robin for 10 elite grandmasters with an average rating of 2622. Karpov, Tal, Spassky, Larsen, Portisch, Timman and Ljubojević all played. Karpov and Tal tied for first. The Canadian Encyclopedia counts it among the strongest grandmaster events ever held anywhere.
Kevin Spraggett was born in Montreal on 10 November 1954 and became a grandmaster in 1985. He reached the Candidates in 1985 and again in 1988, when he beat Andrei Sokolov in Saint John, and lost to Yusupov in the 1989 quarterfinal in Quebec City. He won 7 Canadian Closed titles and 8 Canadian Open titles, and Wikipedia says he's widely considered the strongest Canadian-born player in chess history. He has lived in Portugal since the late 1980s.
Quebec chess runs through the Fédération québécoise des échecs (FQE), based at the Maison du Loisir et du Sport, 7665 Boulevard Lacordaire. It rates tournaments, keeps a games database going back to 1873, and publishes the provincial tournament calendar. The 2026 Quebec Invitational Championship was played at its building in August.
Blitz Bishops is the centre of the casual and rated scene. It says it has more than 500 active players and has organised more than 320 events, and it runs the Montreal Open every Labour Day weekend. The old Iconoclast Chess Club Meetup group, 827 members strong, now sits under it.
Strong players turn up too: the top of its classical rating list includes 2 IMs, Krishna G V Sai (2363) and Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte (2347). The listings are in French and English, so expect both at the boards.
BB Chess Club & Café at 1525 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest is Montreal's chess café and the home of Blitz Bishops. It's open Wednesday to Saturday from 18:00 to midnight and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00. There's no booking: you pay CAD $5 at the door, or nothing with a BB Pass membership. We couldn't find the pass price on its homepage, so ask.
There's a food menu, and some nights a DJ or live music. The club calls chess "un sport social".
Most evenings there's a free, unrated blitz tournament from 19:00: Windmill Wednesday, Tempo Thursday, and Late Night Friday Forks, which starts later, at 21:30. You sign up on ChessPass. The club's testimonials describe beginners being shown how the clock works on their first night.
On Mondays Blitz Bishops plays at Bar Fitzroy, a billiards bar at 551 Avenue du Mont-Royal Est. Chess runs from 18:00 to midnight, entry is free, and the Monday blitz tournament starts at 19:00. The address comes from bar listings, so check before you go.
Tuesday's chess bar is Memento Brasserie Artisanale at 2471 Rue Saint-Patrick, in Pointe-Saint-Charles on the Lachine Canal. Chess runs from 18:00 to 23:00 and it's free. The Tuesday Memento tournament starts at 19:00 with 5 rounds and 12 places, so sign up early. As with Fitzroy, the address comes from bar listings, so check before you go.
L'Espace Public, a brewpub at 3632 Rue Ontario Est in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, has run "Les soirées chess" on Wednesdays from 18:00. When the weather allows, the boards go out on the terrace. The latest listing we found is from June 2026, so check before you go.
Café Pi at 4127 Boulevard Saint-Laurent was for years the city's casual blitz café, open until midnight, and it still turns up in searches for a chess café in Montreal. It has closed. A forum thread asked in 2022 whether it had shut for good, and one reply said its regulars had moved to Parc de la Bolduc. For a chess café in Montreal today, head to Sherbrooke Ouest.
The chess club most visitors want is Blitz Bishops, and its café is the clubhouse. Beyond the nightly blitz, it runs a 12-session adult course with CM Jérôme Genzling on Thursdays from 19:00 to 20:30. A 12-session block was already under way in October 2026, so ask when the next one starts. Contact details, the Discord and the Instagram are on blitzbishops.com.
If you searched for the Montreal Chess Club, that's the 1844 club in the history books. The name later passed to a chess room at 3423 Rue Saint-Denis, and we couldn't confirm that an adult drop-in still runs there. For an evening game, Blitz Bishops is the place.
Outdoor chess in Montreal is seasonal. From December to March the parks list skating and skiing, so plan park games for the warmer months.
The clearest spot is Parc Daisy-Peterson-Sweeney on Rue Charlevoix in Little Burgundy, by the Lachine Canal path, where the city's own park page invites residents to learn about chess. Chess'n Math has also run city chess workshops at the park chess tables at 4900 Avenue Van Horne and 3500 Avenue Girouard.
The Montreal venue map lists more park tables across the island, from Hochelaga to Verdun and LaSalle. We haven't checked them on the ground, so bring a set and a friend.
Browse all chess venues in Montreal.
For rated tournaments you'll need an FQE membership. Most of the Blitz Bishops events take sign-ups on ChessPass.
| Day | Where to play |
|---|---|
| Monday | Bar Fitzroy (free, from 18:00, blitz at 19:00) |
| Tuesday | Memento Brasserie Artisanale (free, from 18:00, blitz at 19:00) |
| Wednesday | BB Chess Club & Café (CAD $5, from 18:00, blitz at 19:00) · L'Espace Public (from 18:00, check first) |
| Thursday | BB Chess Club & Café (from 18:00, blitz at 19:00) · BB adult course (19:00) |
| Friday | BB Chess Club & Café (from 18:00, late blitz at 21:30) · The Yellow Door (every other Friday, 17:15) |
| Saturday | BB Chess Club & Café (from 18:00) · Chess'n Math Saturday Club for kids (check the term) |
| Sunday | BB Chess Club & Café (10:00 to 18:00) · Le Prévost library workshops (November) |
| Montreal | Berlin | London | New York | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oldest club | 1844 (Montreal Chess Club, Canada's first) | 1827 | 1828 (Simpson's, now a restaurant) | 1915 (Marshall Chess Club) |
| Casual café scene | BB Chess Club & Café, 2 bar nights | En Passant | Pub chess nights | Marshall Chess Club café |
| Outdoor chess | Park tables, warmer months only | Mauerpark, Hasenheide | FourCorner Club (Saturdays) | Washington Square Park |
| Club infrastructure | 1 club runs the week, FQE-rated events | Large, casual-led | Massive, league-driven | Massive |
| Elite events | 1894 world title (games 12 to 19), 1979 Tournament of Stars | Limited | London Chess Classic | US Championship region |
| Famous player | Kevin Spraggett (born here) | Lasker | Staunton | Fischer |
| Vibe | Bilingual, blitz every night | Raw energy | Heritage | Hustle |
Montreal hosted the last 8 games of the 1894 match. It got the ending.
Where can I play chess in Montreal? Blitz Bishops runs chess every day of the week. On Monday it's at Bar Fitzroy and on Tuesday at Memento, both free from 18:00, and from Wednesday to Sunday it's at BB Chess Club & Café, 1525 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, for CAD $5 at the door. L'Espace Public in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve has also run a Wednesday chess night.
Is there a chess café in Montreal? Yes. BB Chess Club & Café on Sherbrooke Ouest is open Wednesday to Saturday from 18:00 to midnight and Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, with a food menu, music some nights and a free blitz tournament most evenings. Café Pi on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, the old chess café, has closed.
Is there a chess bar in Montreal? Yes, 2 of them on fixed nights. Blitz Bishops plays at Bar Fitzroy on Avenue du Mont-Royal Est on Mondays and at Memento Brasserie Artisanale in Pointe-Saint-Charles on Tuesdays, both free from 18:00 with a blitz tournament at 19:00. L'Espace Public, a brewpub on Rue Ontario Est, has hosted chess on Wednesdays.
Is there a chess club in Montreal that visitors can join? Yes. Blitz Bishops is open to walk-ins with no booking, and its café doubles as the clubhouse. The original Montreal Chess Club, founded in 1844, was Canada's first chess club and its Thomas Workman trophy dates from 1890. For kids, the Chess'n Math Association on Rue Saint-Denis runs a Saturday Club for ages 5 to 14; check its site for the current term.
Are there chess tournaments in Montreal? Yes. Blitz Bishops runs rated events through the season, including Blitz Bliss on 30 October 2026 and the Take 5 classical on 13 to 15 November 2026, and it organises the Montreal Open every Labour Day weekend. The 2026 edition was at Collège Stanislas in Outremont.
Can beginners play chess in Montreal? Yes. The evening blitz tournaments at Blitz Bishops are free and unrated, and it runs a 12-session adult course on Thursday evenings. City libraries hold free workshops too, such as Bibliothèque Le Prévost on Sundays in November 2026 for ages 8 and up.
What happened in Montreal chess history? Emanuel Lasker won the 1894 world championship against Wilhelm Steinitz in Montreal, where games 12 to 19 were played, clinching it on 26 May 1894. In 1979 the city hosted the Tournament of Stars, where Karpov and Tal tied for first, and Montreal-born Kevin Spraggett went on to play in 2 Candidates cycles.
We've mapped the chess venues in Montreal in the Checkmate IRL database, from the BB café on Sherbrooke Ouest to park tables across the island. Browse all chess venues in Montreal.
Playing elsewhere? Try Chess in New York, Chess Bars and Chess Cafés, or Chess in Paris.
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