Chessie Games — Local services in Crofton

I used to be a frequent customer here when it used to be called Chesapeake Sports Cards. When I first met the owner, Keith, he was about affordability and family friendly. He is very knowledgeable about baseball and other sports. He was a great guy. I used to collect baseball and Pokémon cards. I loved playing TCG on every Saturday back then.

Everything was cool until he decided to mark up the price for Hidden Fates sets back in 2019. It was my first bad impression of him for wanting something more out of them. It got worse through the pandemic, as the scalping community turned to Pokémon cards and bought them like they were stocks or long-term investing plans. Something happened with their previous Pokémon Professor, J, as I was told they had conflicts over fun and profits. They had to replace her with Chris. They had to move the Pokémon TCG slot for adults to Thursday evenings, which conflicts with my schedule for a long time. With scalpers and conflict schedules, I eventually gave up on Pokémon TCG. I bought an individual Pokémon card off eBay every here and there.

They have a weak presence on social media, as I wasn’t aware that they changed their store name to Cheesie Games last year until they suddenly became active on Instagram last month. Their pictures looked very different, so I assumed they had renovations until I found out Keith relocated all the sports cards to the other store under the same name in Edgewater. There was no communication. In a way, I felt betrayed by this move.

My birthday was last week, and I wanted to get back into collecting Pokémon cards again. I was hoping that price wise would be better this time. Unfortunately they decided to mark a new set up by 120%. I recalled Chris telling me he matches the market price via TCGplayer a long time ago. Since Keith doesn’t have that much knowledge in non-sports cards, it means Chris was most likely the responsible person to charge that much amount all for the sake of profits. That was a scummy move.

It angered me how the store I used to love has fallen to a scalper level. I lost all respect for Chris and Cheesie Games if they prioritize profits over anything else. You could have not screwed this up by you know… Ordering extra bundles and selling an ETB for $49.99 per customer limit like every other respectable retail store. I can understand if it was $59.99. Yeah, whatever. I’ll just stick to individual cards...

These reviews are absolutely bogus. I've had nothing but amazing experiences with Chessie Games and they continue to be my favorite store to frequent for my tournament scene. I only wish they weren't so far, as it is an hour away. Pokemon community is clearly (and literally) full of entitled children.

Chessie is the goat and their prices and policies have always been reasonable. Anyone who is putting down their LGS like this doesn't deserve...

Anyone who is giving this store a 1 star review is an absolute clown. Store has incredibly reasonable prices for their product, and prizing for tournaments is goated and they do a great job fostering their competitive community....