Media comments on chess

[Stewart Reuben]

Wednesday evening, Leontxo Garcia, Cathy and Ian Rogers and I went to see 'THE CHESS PLAYER' (also known as 'The Royal Game') at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden. This is a 75 minute one-man play, written and performed solo by Richard McElvain, inspired by the novella by Stefan Zweig,
Immediately I mentioned this possibility, they were gung ho to join me. It is a very famous piece about a man imprisoned by the gestapo and tortured by isolation. He manages to steal a book , which proves to be of major chess games.
This is not your run-of-the-mill entertainment. This is the third dramatisation I have seen, having read the story as a schoolboy.
I introduced us all to Richard after the show and, I think it was Cathy, who suggested he be interviewed tomorrow by Judit Polgar at the match. The production runs until the 17th and starts at 6pm. It started last year in Edinburgh and is still on tour.
Zweig escaped first to England, then the US and finally Brazil, pursued by his demons. In 1942 he posted the manuscript of what became his most famous work to his publisher. Two days later, he and his wife committed suicide.

[JustinHorton]

MARCA today

[Geoff Chandler]

I got that one right. Predicting 6.b4 in game 5.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5043&start=2505#p224013

Chess shop did not have what I wanted. The very latest book on Carlsen, a book on Bogoljubov games,
and an ice blue and white roll up or semi-stiff board. (anybody got one will do a very handsome swap - or PayPal)

I raided the 2nd hand stall, book and bought that book on Marshall New! could not see anything else,
just loads and loads and loads and loads of opening books.

Got a picture or three outside the hall with me prancing about. Security would not let me in without
a ticket and I did not buy one on principle. (the principle being it's too much... I'm watching the game
live in an internet cafe and just about to log off and get the train back to Bonnie Edinburgh,

Good day out but London is very noisy, stifling and full of people who do not smile.

(Wait till Fabiano finds out his 6.b5 was here before he played it...just how much did that prep video from a few days ago leak?)

[NickFaulks]

Security would not let me in without a ticket

Fascist oppressors!

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Nick,

I should have elaborated.



I thought of attempting to blag my way in saying I was the match photographer
or I'm someone important and have been invited to make the first move but
there were three of them all with grim 'punch you in the gob first and ask for I.D. later' faces.

The friendly guy at the Chess Shop told me I could not get a ticket at the door so I went shopping
for presents for my wife (a book on Guns and Ammo) and watched the game live in a net café.

Paid £12.90 for a tube day saver on the tube. I got my monies worth and it was valid till
04:00 the next morning, so before jumping on my train I walked back to the tube
station and gave it to a pretty girl waiting in the queue at the ticket machine.

She seemed genuinely surprised. It happens all the time at bus stops and trams stops
in Edinburgh , people are always giving away their expensive day savers when they no
longer use them. Then remembered I'm in London and being nice just isn't the norm anymore.
(or...she thought I was a weirdo....probably the latter...)

Train was more than 30 minutes late both ways. After this post I'm going to claim compensation from LNER.

Am offering Kasparov 'My Great Predecessors ' Vol III (I got a doubler in a junk shop)
in exchange for a normal sized roll up (or semi-stiff) Ice blue and white chessboard.

[David Sedgwick]

Paid £12.90 for a tube day saver on the tube. I got my monies worth and it was valid till
04:00 the next morning, so before jumping on my train I walked back to the tube
station and gave it to a pretty girl waiting in the queue at the ticket machine.

She seemed genuinely surprised. It happens all the time at bus stops and trams stops
in Edinburgh , people are always giving away their expensive day savers when they no
longer use them. Then remembered I'm in London and being nice just isn't the norm anymore.
(or...she thought I was a weirdo....probably the latter...)

I can't speak for Edinburgh, but in London this is illegal.

[Stewart Reuben]

Chess moves to end stalemate and attract more women. Headline in today's Daily Telegraph, article written by Helena Horton.
It is mainly about the fact that the London Chess Classic offers free entry to women (and under 25s). That is hardly news - to us.

Of course it isn't a stalemate at all in any parlance. That's just as well as otherwise it would make Nigel Short unhappy.
*************************************
Page 20. Article by Allison Pearson. Headlined 'Act in the national interest, Theresa May, and resign now.' A long article by Allison Pearson.
...We need a new leader - a chess grandmaster to wrangle with Brussels not the runner-up in the 1973 Towcester tiddlywinks competition.

At last a job for Nigel that will distract him from stalemate!

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi David,

"illegal" Why does that not surprise me.

My Wife's wee newsagent is next to a bus stop. People finished with their day savers
would often leave it with her with instructions to please pass it on.
She would get 2-3 of these a day, sometimes more.

People would pop in and ask; "Any Day Savers Hen?" and she'd pass it on.

('Hen' is an affectionate and friendly term in Scotland for any lass. )

But usually people getting off a bus would go down the queue asking if anyone wanted theirs.

I now have a pass bus so don't need one, but am often asked.
(think I'll take my next one and see if I can sell it on half price!)

[Stewart Reuben]

I like it, that in NY, in a delicatessen, the Carnegie - now alas defunct, the helpings were so large they used to supply 'doggy bags' without waiting to be asked. People used to line-up outside the restaurant in the hope of being offered a free meal.
The bags were paper, n ot the dreaded plastic. I nearly wrote queue but, of course, in the US they stand on line.

[Stewart Reuben]

Sunday Times main section pages 38-39. A very big section on 'The topstate primary and indepenent prep schools.
The leading prep school in the tables is SEATON HOUSE SCHOOL. Sutton. There is a big photo of a little girl playing chess. The text does not mention chess.
Does anybody know if this girls' school has a flourishing chess club?

[JustinHorton]

Bloomberg Opinion: Chess Is The Killer App, in which Tyler Cowen, despite being a professor of economics and a chess player, recycles once again the 600 million nonsense.

[Tim Spanton]

Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart on another college-football coach: "We're over there playing checkers and he's playing chess."

[JustinHorton]

Is that a quote?

[Tim Spanton]

Yes, in as much as it was a commentator on ESPN SEC reporting what Kirby said

[JustinHorton]

Reported speech kind of thing