In Prague, Chess and Go are popular games in most pubs. Walk into a Hospoda away from the tourists, and you'll frequently see at least a couple of games going on. At the hole-in-the-wall speakeasy where I do most of my drinking, the owner is the local Chess/Go king. He regularly whips all comers and loves to teach people new moves (even though he and I communicate mostly by trial and error). He whipped my ass at Go last night through four rounds of vodka.*
Over here, the "nerd" stereotype simply isn't present the way it is in the US. I don't know if it's because they missed that whole 80s-Breakfast Club-not-being-Communist train or what, but it's just not very visible or well known. As a consequence, Chess is seen as just another difficult, fun, time-consuming game to play in parks and pubs. The real fun comes when someones dog runs off with someone else's Bocce/Boules ball...**
*The central hazard to playing board-games in Czech pubs is the aspect of gambling for drinks. This is a good way to get very drunk and lose a fair bit of cash in short order.
**Seen this happen in parks -and- pubs. A German Shepherd even stole a hockey puck inside my neighborhood pub a few weeks ago; someone had brought a souvenir puck from this year's Nat'l Championships and they dropped it on the floor...th dog was faster than the dropper, unfortunately. Took potato-chips to get the puck back, too, Elisku liked that thing!
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