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White’s move, Bishop to C4:

Over the years, the chess group establishes itself as a community fixture. If offers lessons. During the holidays, participants move to the side of the concourse to make way for the mall Christmas tree and Santa’s workshop, which are set up in the area where they usually play, and with children coming to see Santa, a new generation is introduced to the game.

Black’s move, Bishop to C5:

The chess tables supplied by the mall show their age and are removed. Management informs the chess group it would not be supplying new ones. It will allow, however, new tables if the chess group raises enough money to manufacture tables of “mall quality.” Cost: $6,500.

White’s move, Queen to H5:

Ingham raises $500 from the group, and he and another player donate $3,000 each. The tables are built; play resumes. In 1987, Ingham, then 51, finds himself playing against a young man named Bryan. During play, Bryan’s mother, Kathy, whom Ingham does not know, approaches the table and asks her son if he’ll go have coffee with her. No, Bryan says, he’s playing. She leaves, comes back several minutes later and asks again. Again, Bryan says no. Ingham, seeing his opening, asks Kathy if Bryan won’t go for coffee with her, can he? Five years later, they marry.

Black’s move, Knight to F6:

Management eventually removes the large chess board in the concourse and replaces the chess group’s tables with new ones. They are placed in the middle of the food court and the area designated for chess-playing. But last November the food court is demolished and a new one is built on the second floor. During the renovation, management moves the chess tables across the street to Park Royal’s north mall. The chess groups follows. During the holiday season, though, the group discovers the tables have been locked away. Players move back across the street to the new food court, now renamed Picnic! However, one of its members receives a letter from Karen Donald, mall general manager (described as “fierce and fearless” on the Park Royal Facebook page), informing the group the mall “cannot continue to have seats monopolized by large groups such as yours.” A cost-benefit analysis, the group hears, recommends its eviction. In the letter, Donald offers the group $500 to relocate to several other sites she suggests, and then informs it that, because of the mall’s new no-loitering policy, if it does not cease its renegade chess playing by March 31, the mall will have “no alternative to reach out to the West Vancouver police department.” Management forwards a copy of the letter to the police.