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…