Magnus Carlsen Helps Put Oslo’s First Chess Pub on the Map
Magnus Carlsen turned up for the private opening of The Good Knight, the world’s first chess pub, after word of the new venue reached him in Oslo. The place opened four days before his 2018 world-title defense against Fabiano Caruana, and it has stayed tied to his presence ever since.
The pub sits about ten minutes from Oslo’s principal railway station. On Monday, during the Norway Chess Open tournament, it had 40 tables inside and room for 100 players, with capacity rising to 220 people at peak times.
The Good Knight and Carlsen
Kristoffer Gressli, a co-owner and former employee at the Norwegian Chess Federation, said the idea grew out of a simple plan to sell chess material. “When I quit my job, I just knew I wanted to do something around chess,” he said. He had first imagined a store with his friend Torbjorn Ringdal Hansen, a business partner and Carlsen’s first coach, but a chess pub became the better fit because it could stay open longer than a retail shop.
“I thought I could open a store with my friend (Hansen). The original idea was to sell training classes, books and chess sets. That's when another friend suggested 'a chess pub.' Because, with a pub, you could open it for at least 16 hours and not just eight to 10 hours. Five months later, we opened the place,” Gressli said.
Chess on the walls
The shelves carry chess literature on Jose Raul Capablanca, Viswanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov and Carlsen. Chess motifs and photographs of world champions cover the walls, and the beer dispensers are shaped like a knight or a rook. Gressli, a recognised FIDE Arbiter with a rating in the 1800s, said the pub was built to make chess social rather than silent.
“There are no awkward silences,” he said. “After a few beers, Norwegians suddenly aren't as introverted.”
That atmosphere has carried over into Carlsen’s visits. Gressli said the world No. 1 is an occasional guest and sometimes joins the pub’s trivia night every other Thursday. “Every other Thursday, we do have a trivia night and Carlsen, when he's here, takes part,” he said. “He usually wins that as well.”
From boom to busy nights
The pub also reflects the chess boom in Norway that followed Carlsen’s first world title in 2013. Gressli said the space was tested at scale during busy nights, and the numbers have held up. “We kind of knew that it worked at a small scale, but we were eager to see if it would work on this large scale. We have room for 100 players here. It actually works, so that's quite fun to see,” he said.
What Gressli described is a venue that can move from chess bar to tournament hub without changing its identity. On the Monday visit, the Open brought GMs, FMs, IMs and untitled players through the door, while the pub’s layout and trivia-night rhythm kept the room active long after the first boards were set up.
Carlsen’s pull remains part of the draw. Gressli said the atmosphere around one of his victories looked like football celebrations. “Just people celebrating a goal in football,” he said. “That's how it was like when Carlsen won.”
