English Chess Forum

In a posting on the Big Slick tournament Simon Spivack writes:

Simon Spivack wrote:The FT published a letter about chess today. Its author, Rhoda Koenig, contends that "shot glass chess" (using alcohol filled pieces) was invented by Graham Greene in Our Man in Havana. But we know better, don't we?

This is surely worth a thread of its own. What are the origins - real-life and literary - of the shot glass version?

It was most likely introduced by Blackburne.

I read once when giving a simul he would have glasses of whisky
strategically placed around the arena. Once he drank his opponent
drink by mistake. He said his opponent had left it "en prise."

I remember there was a round of 4NCL where every check on any of the 8 boards, every player had to do a shot. Luckerly there were only 8 in total and this included a pep check draw! So we got away light I feel

Ben

There I was, bracing myself for the yell "you've committed a blue oxymoron", or a variant thereof, when I wrote "serious quibble". Instead, I am to be drowned in liquor.

Today the FT letters page has a correction from a Roger Clark. He rightly points out that the game played in Our Man in Havana is draughts, not chess. The catalyst for this epistolary activity was an article on
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cafd91c4-6b18 ... abdc0.html .

Evidently FT readers lead lives sheltered from chess players. The assertion that the thirty-four year old proprietor of firefox.com invented "shot glass chess" is untenable. There is the story that Manny Lasker played this game against Maroczy (I've also heard versions in which he played Marshall or Réti); the moves were 1.e4 e5 2. Qh5! (revived by Nakamura, in sober form) Nc6 3.Qxf7+!! winning; weaker would have been 3.Qxe5+ Qe7!!, when White could have become a tad tipsy. My fallible memory informs me that I first heard this tall tale in the 1970s; however, I am far from being the most ancient poster here.

I have a vague recollection that "shot glass chess" may have been played in Liverpool in the year of revolutions (1848). It is a rather obvious game.

One can read about Blackburn and alcohol on Edward Winter's website: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/index.html . Specifically, the famous "Chess is a kind of mental alcohol. It inebriates the man who plays it constantly."

Kings Head Chess Club stages an annual drinking championship. As I recall each player has five minutes; the winner must checkmate his opponent under normal blitz rules and finish one of a pint of beer or a glass of double spirits. Thus one can end up drinking a pint in under ten minutes, round after stupefying round. I believe the rules have been made less demanding recently.

I shall demonstrate my lack of erudition by writing that I can't recall any book earlier than Our Man in Havana coming up with such an alcohol filled challenge. It would be interesting to know whether Graham Greene borrowed this story from the world of chess. Lasker died in 1941, of course, but given the story is almost certainly apocryphal, there is no reason why this year should carry any meaning.