Checkmate

A recently received email from one of the bet­ter chess play­ers in the region:

This even­ing (22 Novem­ber) start­ing at 6pm in the Cent­ral Lib­rary there will be a pub­lic spec­tacle. 30 of the strongest Chess play­ers in the Wel­ling­ton region face sim­ul­tan­eous exe­cu­tion at the hands of former World Cham­pi­on­ship Can­did­ate, Nigel Short. This is an open invit­a­tion to attend this pub­lic dis­play of our humi­li­ation to any­one inter­ested. No cost for admis­sion and as I under­stand it the May­or will be there along with TV1 News.

Nigel Short has recently been the sub­ject of a column over at the Guard­i­an, where a keen ama­teur has been get­ting les­sons from England’s finest grand­mas­ter. Need­less to say that, des­pite the improve­ments in play the stu­dent made, he still got beaten in every game. Can­’t see things going too dif­fer­ently tonight, but, you nev­er know…