chess: a game for badass intellectuals
I want to tell you about my love of chess, which started in my childhood. My dear father taught me the moves and the basic strategies, and for that I owe him. I love chess, because it's raw, uncut skill and logic: no dice, no bullshit. Invented and modified countless times somewhere in Asia, millenia ago it has stood the test of time. Will they still be playing Trivial Pursuits in the year three thousand? I think not. Chess is beginning to be recognised as a sport in many countries: this is bullshit, it's far more important than that.
Badass chess players of our times
Bobby Fischer: The youngest ever US champion, at 14, and the first ever American world champion, the US government still have an outstanding warrant for his arrest, due to him totally ignoring the sanctions they imposed on Yugoslavia, by playing Boris Spassky there in 1992. At the press conference for the event he spat on the letter the US government had sent him threatening to put him in jail if the match went ahead. Has been known to dispute rules with the International Federation of Chess and remains convinced that there is an international conspiracy against him. Holds paranoid beliefs about the "Commies" and, despite being half Jewish himself, Jewish people. Also a member of the "Church of God" a Californian-based religious sect, he meditates alone for a solid 24 hours every week. Invented his own chess variant Bobby Fischer Random Chess, where as the name implies, pieces are arranged in a random starting position. Has been known to kick the shit out of hapless cameramen.
Genius/GZA: One of the more famous badass chess players of our times the Wu Tang MC illustrated his "Liquid Swords" album with some mad Kung Fu/ Chess type shenanigans. He was schooled in the ways by his first lover, which is pretty damn cool as far as I'm concerned: my first one didn't have game, she just liked dodgy eighties heavy metal!
Gary Kasparov: Not only can he kick your arse most thoroughly on the board, but he is a class A piss ripper. After urinating on Nigel "dullard" Short he offered the nerd tips on his game at the press conference! Another favoured Kasparov tactic is to pace and stare psychopathically in the middle of a game, purely in order to psyche out his opponent. After many attempts IBM's Deep Blue computer beat him, and, like the McEnroe of the chess world that he is, Kasparov stormed out accusing IBM of cheating.
McCreedy: An early scene in "The Thing" sees McCreedy playing chess against a computer, and losing. Incensed at being beaten by a lump of silicon, and this was the eighties as well so it wasn't exactly Deep Blue, he chucked his drink, with the ice, into the computer's fan!
Badass chess playing guidelines
Get those pieces in good strong positions where they can do some damage, then go all out to fuck up the motherfucker's King's defence. If necessary sacrifice a piece for position: it's risky, but hell, you only live once.
Out like Oasis,
Tobias Flinch
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