Twenty players, one chateau, a week of chess with Grandmaster Daniel King and Chess Host Nathan Rose. April 3 to 10, 2027.
The chess week is shaped by Grandmaster Daniel King, who has spent over three decades commentating on the world's top chess events, and Nathan Rose, chess host and coach known for helping adult players get better without the grind. They play consultation games alongside you, lead the analysis after every round, and sit at the table with you each night.
Companion place (shared room): €2,990 · Companion deposit: €747
You arrive to a Loire Valley chateau that looks like it was built for exactly this: turrets against the sky, gravel underfoot, vineyard rows running out toward the horizon. Registration, a settling-in afternoon, then welcome drinks and your first dinner together, with Grandmaster Daniel King and Chess Host Nathan Rose at the table alongside you. The week announces itself properly after dark: a Swiss-format blitz tournament, seven fast games to shake off the travel and meet the group.
The morning is yours to lose in the grounds of the chateau: a slow walk through formal gardens, past a fountain and clipped topiary, out along rows of vines that stretch toward the tree line, the kind of view you stop mid-sentence to photograph. Then Round 1, your first classical game of the week, the format that anchors the whole chess week, pairings drawn and posted before you sit down across from your opponent. Dinner is a shared occasion with the whole group, cheese and cognac tasting woven through it.
A group talk opens the day, Nathan walking everyone through the best moments of Round 1. Then the afternoon turns collaborative: a Consultation Tournament, three players to a team, deciding moves together in hushed conversation over the board, and across the two games, every team gets a turn playing alongside Nathan and a turn playing alongside Daniel. Dinner is followed by an educational talk from Daniel.
A morning that belongs more to a fairytale than a schedule: a walking tour of Saumur, its own turreted chateau rising over the Loire, then a viewing at the Cadre Noir, one of the institutions behind an equestrian tradition recognized by UNESCO as a piece of world heritage, still ridden exactly as it has been for centuries. Then back to the chateau for Classical Round 2. Dinner is followed by a wine tasting in the chateau's own cellar.
A group talk on the best moments of Round 2, led by Daniel. Then the format flips entirely: a Chess960 tournament, the pieces on your back rank shuffled into one of 960 possible starting positions, decided moments before play begins. No opening theory to fall back on, no memorized lines, just the board in front of you and whatever you can work out for yourself. Evening brings a talk from Nathan, history that belongs in a room this old.
Fontevraud Abbey opens the morning. It's the largest monastic complex in Europe, founded in 1101 and the resting place of Plantagenet royalty. Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Richard the Lionheart all lie entombed within its walls. Back at the chateau, the third and final classical round closes out the individual tournament. Then the week reaches its highest point: a dinner set apart entirely for the twenty players, the crescendo of the chess week, while partners have an evening of their own off-site.
One last group talk, Nathan on the best of Round 3, and then the week's defining afternoon: the Team Tournament, every team facing every other once, the whole week's chess distilled into one afternoon. From there straight into the closing night, drinks, dinner for the whole group, prize-giving, and a closing ritual that closes the week the way twenty new friends deserve.
One last breakfast together, unhurried, with everyone leaving at their own pace. Before the first goodbyes, the whole group gathers on the grounds for a photograph. Then farewells, transfers, departures spread across the morning. Twenty strangers arrived; twenty friends, leave.
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