Media comments on chess

[Lewis Martin]

Recently heard on the TV:

"This is the sport known as chess played at 100 miles per hour."

Which sport? - squash.

Well, it's not impossible, just let Nakamura - Nakamura happen!

[Lewis Martin]

I have just remembered an article about the Wiltshire and West of England Junior championships.

It had a photo in the middle of the piece and guess what?

It was of two men old enough to be their grandfathers in the lobby playing chess! Shoddy journalism in my view.

I don't think too much of some people in the media, given my experiences with them.

(Let's gloss over the fact that it looked as if they started with the knight and bishop the wrong way round.)

[Neil Graham]

Recently heard on the TV:

"This is the sport known as chess played at 100 miles per hour."

Which sport? - squash.

No it was today's table-tennis match. Earlier the badminton was described as "a chess game".

[Ian Thompson]

Recently heard on the TV:

"This is the sport known as chess played at 100 miles per hour."

Which sport? - squash.

No it was today's table-tennis match.

The statement was made while the commentator was saying what was going to be on later in the programme and referred to squash.

[Paul Buswell]

I see a player with a FIDE rating of 1660 is elevated to GM status.....

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest- ... g-cannabis

PB

[Ian Kingston]

Driving a car is like three-dimensional chess: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style ... 44621.html (fourth paragraph).

[Martin Crichton]

I see a player with a FIDE rating of 1660 is elevated to GM status.....

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest- ... g-cannabis

PB

lol very funny good spot!

but did you expect anything else from a thrash uk paper?

[Stewart Reuben]

Only yesterday, on a train from Aber, I mentioned to a fellow-passenger, that blitz is of comparable speed to squash. Bullet chess, is of course, faster. But two youngsters were playing blitz in the train. As Paul Buswell pointed out in 1985, ech move travelled about 70 metres.

[Neil Graham]

Recently heard on the TV:

"This is the sport known as chess played at 100 miles per hour."

Which sport? - squash.

No it was today's table-tennis match.

The statement was made while the commentator was saying what was going to be on later in the programme and referred to squash.

I'm sure I heard it during the table-tennis match - possibly a stock comment for any sport nowadays. Anyway let's not argue about this - in my opinion badminton, squash, rugby sevens, table-tennis, football etc ad nauseum aren't at all like chess (at least the way I play)!

[Ian Thompson]

I'm sure I heard it during the table-tennis match - possibly a stock comment for any sport nowadays. Anyway let's not argue about this - in my opinion badminton, squash, rugby sevens, table-tennis, football etc ad nauseum aren't at all like chess (at least the way I play)!

You did hear it during the table tennis, but, as I said, the commentator was telling viewers what was coming up later in the programme and talking about squash.

[Neil Graham]

I'm sure I heard it during the table-tennis match - possibly a stock comment for any sport nowadays. Anyway let's not argue about this - in my opinion badminton, squash, rugby sevens, table-tennis, football etc ad nauseum aren't at all like chess (at least the way I play)!

You did hear it during the table tennis, but, as I said, the commentator was telling viewers what was coming up later in the programme and talking about squash.

Obviously I wasn't paying attention!

[JustinHorton]

And on page 7 of the new Private Eye, referred to as "the bubonic plagiarist", Ladies and Gentlemen, your friend and mine....

And on page 7 of the new Private Eye....

[John Upham]

http://communityuk.net/easyblog/entry/g ... major-open

[John Upham]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/a ... -surprises

[Jonathan Bryant]

Game of Thrones:-

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 52448.html




Strangely, we have to thank the American world chess champion Bobby Fischer for Martin's emergence as a writer. Martin was a very proficient chess player himself.

"I started playing chess when I was quite young, in grade school. I played it through high school. In college, I founded the chess club. I was captain of the chess team."

In the American chess-rating system, Martin was categorised at his peak as "expert," one rank below "master".

"The importance of chess to me was not as a player but as a tournament director. In my early 20s, I was writing. I sold a few short stories. My big dream was to be a full-time writer and support myself with my fiction but I wasn't making enough money to pay my rent and pay the phone bill – so I had to have a day job."

In 1972, Bobby Fischer did Martin a huge favour by winning the world chess championship. "Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky in Reykjavík and won – and the entire American chess community went nuts!"

On the back of Fischer's success, the game became hugely popular. Martin was hired to direct the Midwestern circuit for a national organisation that ran chess tournaments. "For two or three years, I had a pretty good situation. Most writers who have to have a day job work five days a week and then they have the weekend off to write. These chess tournaments were all on the weekend so I had to work on Saturday and Sunday – but then I had five days off to write. The chess generated enough money for me to pay my bills."

After a year or two, the American chess bubble burst. All those enthusiasts who had taken up the game after Fischer's victory over Spassky stopped playing. There was no longer much money in setting up tournaments. "But, by then, I was much better established as a writer," he reflects. "The chess really did mark a crucial turning point in my career."

Martin himself long ago gave up chess. He decided that he didn't have the dedication or love of the game to treat it as a full-time job. "You have to study the books and memorise the openings and play constantly, play games every day, over and over again," he sighs. "I wasn't willing to do that. I enjoyed chess, it was fun playing it and doing the tournaments but I didn't want to make it my job. Writing gave me much more satisfaction."

I ask Martin if all the tactical thinking and preparation involved in his chess career helped him later when he turned to constructing something as complex as A Song of Ice and Fire, the epic series of fantasy novels of which Game of Thrones was the first. Given the size of the enterprise, the vast cast of characters and huge array of subplots, how does he work out what fits where?

The author laughs ruefully. "I don't have an easy answer to that. I just do. It is in my mind. I have charts of course. Most of it is on the computer. I have files on the computer. I have lists of chronologies and family trees. I consult those from time to time but less than you would think. Most of it is just in my head."