29: How an Old-School Chess Shop Survives in Modern New York

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Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal, managing editor at Bloomberg Markets.

Tracy Alloway (0:31)

And I'm Tracy Alloway, executive editor at Bloomberg Markets.

Joe Weisenthal (0:35)

Tracy, I'm so excited about today's episode. I probably always say that, that I'm excited. But this episode is kind of on a slightly more offbeat subject, not really anything specifically to do with economics or markets, but about something, about which something I'm very passionate about. And there is a business angle.

And do you know what it's about?

Tracy Alloway (0:59)

It's chess, right?

Joe Weisenthal (1:01)

That's right. Finally, we're doing an episode of Odd Lots about chess. And of course, chess is a game.

I'm an average chess player. You wouldn't necessarily think there is a finance or markets angle, but there is in New York City, a chess business. There's a place that I love.

It's in the village. It's called the Chess Forum.

And they sell chess books and chess boards. And you can go there and for a few dollars an hour, play chess. They have all these boards set up. And so you could just go there and find a game and just play chess all night. And it's this magical place in New York City.

Tracy Alloway (1:37)

So I remember this place. It was actually really close to my old apartment in New York. And I remember walking past it. And I must confess, I never went there because I'm not a big chess player, but it looked really, really interesting.

Joe Weisenthal (1:52)

It's one of these things that seems like kind of old New York. And it's cool that it still exists. It's just like it's always too cool to exist because at a time when more and more things are like high end restaurants or banks or other stuff, it's cool that there is this piece of real estate devoted to playing chess. And today, I'm really excited. We have the founder of the Chess Forum and the owner, Iman Khashan.

He founded it in the mid-90s and he is going to be our guest today. And we're going to be talking about the business of running a chess store in New York City.

Tracy Alloway (2:26)

Fantastic. I'm really curious to see how an old school place like that manages to survive.

Joe Weisenthal (2:34)

Me too. So let's get started. Iman, thank you very much for joining us here in the studio.

Imad Khachan (2:39)

Thank you.

Joe Weisenthal (2:39)

So Iman, tell us, how did you tell us, how did the Chess Forum begin? And how did you found this chess shop? And what is it?

Imad Khachan (2:52)

Many things, whatever you want to make of it. As a business, it's a chess store that relies on selling chess equipment and other classic games. Backgammon, the Japanese game of Go, checkers, dominoes, scribble, cribbage, even mahjong. At the same time, I see it as partially a community service place.

I believe in that kind of thing where you have to give, if not as much as you can, back to the community that you live or exist in, whether the local neighborhood or the bigger city itself.

Joe Weisenthal (3:27)

And you founded it, what year was it? 1994?

Imad Khachan (3:30)

1995, actually.

Joe Weisenthal (3:31)

And so you founded it in 1995 What were you doing before then?

Imad Khachan (3:34)

Before that, I was a student in Atanwayu. I was doing a PhD in comparative religion.

Joe Weisenthal (3:43)

And how did you come up with the idea of launching a chess shop?

Imad Khachan (3:46)

It's its own story, actually. If you remember, maybe you were too young for that time. There was another store on the same block.

And I worked there part-time and developed into a manager and a partner. And as you might imagine, in the world of business, not a lot of partnerships and a happy ending.

Joe Weisenthal (4:07)

Isn't that, to cliche, the only ship that doesn't float, the partnership, right?

Imad Khachan (4:11)

I believe that.

Joe Weisenthal (4:12)

So you had a split with the owner of that other chess shop?

Imad Khachan (4:15)

Just one day. It was one of those deals I was at the time when I entered the partnership in my early twenties and went really on trust.

Tracy Alloway (4:25)

Wait, wait, wait. I remember reading a little bit about this at the time. There were news articles saying that there was this massive chess feud basically in the village between the two chess shops, right?