While sociology and history have consistently studied institutionalization, two questions have remained untouched: first, games of combinations, like chess, have been touched by this very institutionalization process, like sports; second, space is a central part of institutionalization, as its medium as well as its tool of reproduction. Based on an inquiry through interviews, this article intends to show the way players react to the restrictive nature of the tournament spatial organization and, more specifically, to the symbolic violence of institutionalization, which expresses itself especially in and through space.