Media comments on chess

[Stewart Reuben]

I have just started reading: 'The Long Earth' by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.
The company transEarth Institute has as its symbol a chess knight. Later there is a sentence, '...with the Steppers they're only a knight's move away.
This clearly a reference to the fact that knights in chess just go from one place to another without moving through space.

[Geoff Chandler]

Yesterday I picked up a 4 books for £1.00 at the Sally Anne Shop and my 4th choice, which is always the hardest because
you usually end up with something you don't really want, was Judge and Jury by James Paterson & Andrew Gross.

I was flicking through it at work.....

The First Trial: Chapter One:

"In his house on Yehuda Street in Haifa, high above the-blue Mediterranean,
Richard Nordeshenko tried the King's Indian Defence.
The pawn break, Kasparov's famous attack.
From there Kasparov had dismantled Tukmakov in the Russian Championship in 1981."

So I'm reading it.

That was Nordeshenko's son playing chess, the father, also a chess player, is a Mafia hit man
and he used to play chess for $1,000 a game in a Russian Chess Club in Brooklyn.
But this was attracting too much attention so he switched to poker.

I'm up to the bit hwere they are selecting jury members and reading out aloud their
names and adress's. The Mafia are taking notes.

----------------------------------------

I'd hate to be tried by a British Jury.
Your fate is in the hands of 12 dumb people who cannot think of an excuse to get off jury duty.
I've been selected 3 times and walked each time. I'm smart.

[John Clarke]

I'd hate to be tried by a British Jury.
Your fate is in the hands of 12 dumb people who cannot think of an excuse to get off jury duty.
I've been selected 3 times and walked each time. I'm smart.

One of the surest ways to dodge your civic duty (if you really must) is to:

(a) wear your best suit
(b) carry a smart briefcase
(c) look stern

Defence counsel will challenge you off straight away.

[John McKenna]

And if Geoff should ever find himself in the dock he should not worry.
He can make a mockery of British justice and bypass the 12 men &/ women good and true by -
"I plead guilty your honour." (Even though he may be almost totally innocent.)
By throwing himself straight onto the mercy of the beak he will get a much reduced sentence.
He may well even get a suspended one since the prisons are full to bursting.
Best of all he'll have a criminal record and not be called for jury service thereafter.

[Geoff Chandler]

Update:

Nordeshenko, The $1,000 a game chess player who uses the alias Kaminsky
has blown up the bus taking the jury from court. A new trial and a new jury is required.

Hi John,

My method for getting off jury duty is to go in wearing a black Lone Ranger mask carrying a rope.

[John McKenna]

Hi Geoff,

Many a true word spoken in jest - be careful you are not mistaken for a member of the 'Letzgo Hunting' vilgilantes.
I'm enjoying excerpts from the story but please stick to ones in some way related to chess - even remotely, of course.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

Will do, thought it was bit extreme to blow up the jury.
M are paying this lad a small fortune they could have used this to bribed them instead.

Might be a while as I've started on two other books.
One on Abraham Lincoln and the other about Glencoe.

BTW stumbled upon this game by chance:

S. Tarrasch - E. Bogoljubow, Goteborg, 1920.

A sheer joy to note up. I had not seen it before.

http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blogread ... postid=148

Tarrasch stumbles into an opening trap and fights like a cornered rat.
Tarrasch on the swindling path is always fun to see. He was a crafty player.
Bogoljubow eventually calms the position down and then makes an horrific blunder.

[David Gilbert]

Those who stayed up into the early hours to watch the Oakland Raiders at the Denver Broncos last night might have picked-up commentator Mike Tirico’s chess related observation “So Peyton is the ultimate chess match guy, is seeing a chess match on the opposite side in Jason Tarver and the defence”. You'd think they'd have enough on their plate.

[Stewart Reuben]

Walking in Vilnius this evening I happened on an billboard which I think was an ad for biscuits. There were 5 chldren of various ages, each holding something. One boy had a chessboard.
Of course we often see ads where chess is used. But this one is a little unusual in that it seemed just to be normal. Of course that would be so in an ex-Soviet country.

[Ian Kingston]

From a BBC Sport article on the America's Cup:

The America's Cup is said to be like a game of chess and Ainslie was the Garry Kasparov of the Oracle team, the grandmaster charged with planning the crowning moves.

[Stewart Reuben]

Sam Sloan points us to http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/dave_on_demand/

The chess is a few sections in and is about the San Francisco ban on chess in the streets.

[Kevin Thurlow]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/conte ... 76381.html

'Playing spin is like a game of chess'

says Mike Gatting, talking about the "ball of the century" from Shane Warne.

[John Upham]

The subject of this post may appear welcome but then again...

maybe less so...

[Jonathan Bryant]

Curious they went for 'chess grandmaster' rather than 'former world chess champion' in the headline here

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 59678.html

[Clive Blackburn]

I have just seen a trailer for ITV's new Poirot story “The Big Four” which is to be broadcast on Wednesday October 23rd at 8pm.

The plot has a chess theme, involving the murder of Russian Grandmaster Dr Ivan Savaranoff (presumably fictional).

There is a strong cast, including Patricia Hodge (and David Suchet of course as Poirot) so it might well be worth watching.

http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-pa ... mBPf9K-oQM