How well I remember Steinitz!–short, squat, and stout, with thick red hair and beard, rejoicing in a nose unusually small for one of the Semitic race. He smoked and sipped claret and water, or gin and water–scrupulously iced notwithstanding the coldness of the weather–all the time he played. He rarely rose from his seat during [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Quotes'
‘The high-voltage board’: Arthur Koestler on chess
December 4th, 2011 · No Comments · Features, Quotes
‘Chess is a game too noble to be left to the chess-players.’ So wrote Arthur Koestler, covering the Fischer–Spassky match for the Sunday Times in 1972. So bitter had he found the pre-match shenanigans that he likened his job to that of war correspondent. Of his two reports on the match, ‘Reflections of an Addict’, on the ’scandalous preliminaries’ [...]
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Chess and prison
May 12th, 2011 · No Comments · Quotes
The second art that I acquired in Pentonville was so-called ‘Marseilles chess’. It was invented by an elderly Frenchman, with a red scarf round hs neck, who taught it to me during exercise hours. In this game, each player in turn makes two moves instead of one – the only restriction being that the first [...]
Tags: Arthur Koestler
Playing for Peanuts
February 27th, 2011 · No Comments · Quotes
A couple of years ago, Hartston did the following calculation during a grandmaster tournament in Spain: assuming that all the prize money on offer was divided simply between the grandmasters (and there were some powerful IMs scrapping for the loot as well), their average earnings worked out at between £2 and £3 an hour. The [...]
Tags: Bill Hartston