Looking for a fun challenge? The chess guru of Market Common has your back

Brian Mitchell is no expert in chess, in fact, he only started playing a year ago.

What makes Brian the chess guru is his Monday chess hours in Market Common from 6 to 8 p.m. During these two hours, Mitchell will simply set up his board at a table across from the Barnes & Nobles and wait for fellow chess players to stop and challenge him.

Although Mitchell moved to Myrtle Beach two years ago, he started this weekly chess series just a few weeks ago. He said he started posting to the Market Common Community Facebook page to let people know what he was doing and gained a surprising amount of engagement.

Mitchell said he had never played chess before and then one day he was surfing YouTube when he came across a chess channel called “GothamChess” and was intrigued by the game.

“He was so fun to watch. And I think he kind of single-handedly got me into chess, he’s so charismatic,” Mitchell said.

After he found this YouTube channel he began watching other videos and taught himself the game. Mitchell said that since starting to play chess a lot of other things in his daily life had improved like critical thinking, foresight, and pattern recognition skills.

“It boosted a lot of attributes that I didn’t know needed boosting until I started playing. I got into chess about a year ago and I just noticed that as I got better at chess I got better at a lot of other things too I started performing better at my job, I’m investing better and I really think this has a lot to do with it,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell’s very first opponent, Kim Savon, looks forward to coming and playing with Mitchell each week.

“I work remotely now full time and so it’s just so nice, I’m like right here in the neighborhood. You know it’s great to have the interaction and brain stimulation, I love it. Because you’re doing it outdoors, it’s free, it’s using our brain and it’s socializing, it’s just everything,” Savon said.

Savon said a friend had shared Mitchell’s Facebook post with her and she was excited to come meet him and play.

“I met this one friend Chris who said he played chess so every Wednesday we would play and at first I beat him and it would drive him crazy and then we got competitive and now he’s beating me so I really need some lessons from Brian,” Savon said.

Mitchell said his long-term goal is to eventually start a chess club in Myrtle Beach once he gets enough players and after that, he said he’d like to open it up to younger people and less experienced chess players so he can take some time to teach them the game.