Chess in Warsaw, from café tables to FIDE evenings
Warsaw chess runs on a dense tournament calendar. The Hetman club plays FIDE-rated rapid and blitz evenings week after week, the YMCA on ul. Konopnickiej keeps seasonal tournaments going and a Saska Kępa café hosts Sunday rapid. Cafés in Wola, Mokotów, Śródmieście, Targówek and Białołęka hold weekly café tournaments, company teams meet in a league at the SGH library, and clubs and chess schools teach children in the city, Otwock, Grodzisk Mazowiecki and Marki.
Tournaments 52
Clubs 51
Where to play 106
Lessons 27
Company teams 19
Chess960 over the board in Warsaw
Chess960 has a small place in the Mazovian calendar. The association’s calendar for 2026, published in December 2025, lists two Chess960 championships with UKS Rakovia as organiser: a Warsaw championship for juniors at the end of March and a Mazovia championship in early June. They appear as calendar lines with a date given, no report of either event has been found, and no club, café or league in the area offers Chess960 as a regular game.
In Chess960 the pieces behind the pawns start in one of 960 shuffled orders, so opening preparation gives way to thinking from the first move. Between such events it can be played online at ch960.com.
Chess960 events found for Warsaw, with the dates the calendar gives:
- Warsaw junior Chess960 championship — 29 March 2026
- Mazovia Chess960 championship — 5 June 2026
How the lists are kept
The directory holds 125 entries, 125 of them current or waiting for a newer trace. They draw on the Mazovian chess association’s club list, calendars and reports, the central register of the Polish Chess Federation, the FIDE list of rated tournaments, the ChessPoint directory, a café tournament platform, the company league’s reports and the clubs’ own sites, read between and .
Inside every list the newest dated trace comes first; no place is graded, scored or moved up for anyone. A fee, an hour or an entry rule that no page gives reads “not stated by sources” instead of a guess. The source marks, the two status lines and the limits of the directory are set out on how entries are verified.
Know a club, café table or series that is missing?
Warsaw timetables change with each school year, café tournaments come and go, and league seasons start and stop. If an entry here is behind, or a club, school or series is missing, send a short note with a link to a page that shows it.