Media comments on chess

[Stewart Reuben]

You still have 6 days to catch this radio broadcast which is archive material from 1984 of the first live performance of Chess The Musical.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02hnzbq it starts 59 minutes into the local radio Norfold programme.

[David Robertson]

Smash in the gob with added brain damage? Why not prepare for a World title fight with A GAME OF CHESS?

[Stewart Reuben]

The number of boxers who also play chess is astonishingly high.

[David Robertson]

Dodging Islamic State genocide, and still managing to PLAY CHESS, apparently

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Strange position, though it is difficult to tell if it is really chess. Could it be another game or a variant? It is definitely an 8x8 board, but the pieces are very difficult to identify.

[David Robertson]

Maybe it's this

[Alistair Campbell]

Did anyone catch the Motherwell v Hamilton Accies Lanarkshire derby on the box yesterday? Nope, me neither, but apparently one of the Hamilton players was described as a "former Scottish Boys Chess Champion".

Astonishingly, this appears to have at least some basis in reality, according to the sleuthing of DI Heather Lang - Ziggy Gordon, the Accies' right back, won a Primary 5 and under tournament at the Glasgow Chess Congress in 2002 with 6/6.

[JonManley]

'the Tory grandmaster of strategy ... more of a dice-throwing politician than a chess-playing one' http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -favourite

[Stewart Reuben]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... hones.html

[Stewart Reuben]

Yesterday I attended the Hastings International Chess Congress AGM and we decided this year's event will be 28 December to 5 January.
I came back via Waterloo and had some time before my train to Richmond. To my susprise there is now a Foyles bookshop at the station. Browsing I found
'THE DEATH'S HEAD CHESS CLUB' by John Donoghue 2015.
A member of the SS is badly wounded on the Russian front. He is assigned to Auschwitz and starts a chess club there for the guards. He finds out one of the prisoners is a very strong player. The novel is about an impossible frienship between a Nazi and a Jew.
I have yet to start reading the book, but I have note that most of the chapter headings are named after chess openings.

John Donoghue is married and lives in Liverpool. He has worked in mental health for over 20 years.Of course he may not be a chessplayer.
Does anybody know anything more about him?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"He has worked in mental health for over 20 years.Of course he may not be a chessplayer."

But he may well have met a few...

[John Saunders]

The author tells the Liverpool Echo that he is not a chess player (or, at least, not a competition chess player)...

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on ... ew-8676329

I had to do tons of research, because I'm not a chess player at all. I played chess with my kids as they were growing up, until they started to beat me!

One thing that I can say is that every game that’s in the book, I've played with a chessboard to make sure it works.

[David Robertson]

Not known in chess circles in Liverpool. Not known in literary circles either. I suppose I shouldn't rush to judgement before reading it. But...

[Gordon Cadden]

As Kevin Thurlow states, he may well have met a few chess players in his employment. It is well known that the Jewish community supports chess.
Less well known is that chess was promoted in Germany, during the early years of WW11.
Have just ordered a copy of this book, from Amazon.

[Jon Mahony]

Just, rather sadly, getting through the last few pages of The Dragon Variations by Anthony Gleyn which I have cannibalised within a week. May try this for my next novel