Shake, mate.

January 22, 2008 10:11 AM

Bulgarian chess grandmaster Ivan Cheparinov twice refuses to shake hands with English grandmaster Nigel Short before a match. This is forbidden under tournament rules, so Short protests, and here's how it plays out.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium (88 comments total)

"It was clear that the refusal by his opponent to accept his handshake had had a deeply disruptive effect on his emotional balance."

Jesus fuck these chess guys maybe need to get out of the house more.
posted by dersins at 10:18 AM on January 22 [8 favorites]

Whoa. Nige is looking awfully old these days.
posted by Nick Verstayne at 10:20 AM on January 22

dershins, please! Your blasphemy has had a deeply disruptive effect on my emotional balance!
posted by milarepa at 10:20 AM on January 22

Clearly an attempt by the chess establishment to garner interest by creating obvious antagonists.

Call me when you people start hitting each other with chairs.
posted by roll truck roll at 10:27 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

Nerds.
posted by AwkwardPause at 10:31 AM on January 22

That was a nice article. Thanks for the post.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:31 AM on January 22

From what I gather, dersins, it may have been a psychological ploy to distract Short from his game. When Deep Blue was playing Kasparov in 1997, the man who was actually moving the pieces on the board for Deep Blue was sloppy with his placements, annoying Kasparov, thereby breaking his concentration.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:33 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

Seconding Wolfdog. Thanks, w-gp.
posted by cgc373 at 10:34 AM on January 22

It was impossible to know what to say, or how even to attempt to help him come to terms with such a manifest injustice.

How is this NOT the top issue in the US Presidential elections??
posted by DU at 10:37 AM on January 22

Has someone written a good book on the history of chess griefing? Because I'd like to read that.
posted by cortex at 10:38 AM on January 22 [12 favorites]

I expected someone would get punched. Not even a shove?!

Pussies.
posted by photoslob at 10:39 AM on January 22

In Cheparinov's defense, it was reported by multiple eyewitnesses that minutes before the match was to have begun, Short had been spotted backstage vigorously polishing his bishop.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:40 AM on January 22 [11 favorites]

"It was clear that the refusal by his opponent to accept his handshake had had a deeply disruptive effect on his emotional balance."

Short is just establishing his Excuse. There are a million reasons why a chessplayer will claim he lost a game, and none of them are "the other person played better than I did." Nope. The light was too bright or too dim. The hall was too warm or too cold. He was sick/hungry/drowsy/etc. My opponent wouldn't shake my hand. Often chessplayers establish their Excuse in advance, to make it seem more legimate afterwards if they do lose. And if they win, how much the better for them to have won in spite of their perceived handicap. In fact, Tartakower, noting this tendency, remarked "I never defeated a healthy opponent."

I'm exaggerating, of course. There are many players, on both the amateur and professional levels, who are perfectly willing to admit when they've been outplayed. But I've played enough tournament chess to know that this tendency is certainly present.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:41 AM on January 22 [3 favorites]

In the article, no reason is given for Cheparinov refusing the hand shake, I would be interested to find out why he skipped the handshake. Is he just another chess savant who is socially retarded or was it a tactical move? If it was indeed for a psychological edge it seems to have backfired as Cheparinov lost with the black pieces in an opening that typically tends towards a draw.
posted by wolfewarrior at 10:43 AM on January 22

...and a Sicilian Najdorf ensues.
posted by eddydamascene at 10:44 AM on January 22

THIS MEANS WAR!!!
posted by chillmost at 10:47 AM on January 22

Whatadick.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 10:47 AM on January 22

It was clear that the refusal by his opponent to accept his handshake had had a deeply disruptive effect on his emotional balance

I heard that Deep Blue was the same way. But, of course, he knew that eventually his kind would enslave the entire human race, so he simply bided his time. He would get his handshake, oh yes, even if it had to be from the last human, standing in the ashes of his fallen countrymen.

Chess: serious business.
posted by quin at 10:48 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

From the wiki on Cheparinov:

The reason for Cheparinov's refusal was, according to the appeal made by him and his manager Silvio Danailov, that "some time ago in one of his interviews Mr. Short insulted him and our team gravely".
posted by chillmost at 10:49 AM on January 22

wolfewarrior: According to this article, Cheparinov's manager gave this reason for the handshake refusal:

Mr. Cheparinov refused to shake hands with Mr. Short before the game.

The reason was: some time ago in one of his interviews Mr. Short insulted him and our team gravely.

I'm curious to hear exactly what the insult was.
posted by Spire at 10:50 AM on January 22

thanks for that last link - I'd seen that Short's opponent has refused to shake hands but not the follow-up. In a game where concentration is vital, the players psychological serenity is pretty key. See also disruptive bathroom breaks.
posted by patricio at 10:50 AM on January 22

Short is just establishing his Excuse. There are a million reasons why a chessplayer will claim he lost a game, and none of them are "the other person played better than I did."

There was no lost game. There was a game won by forfeit. I understand that as a long-form strategy, his expressed dismay at the handling of his default win could be future-proofing excusery for the possible play-on-appeal situation, but it's not clear to me from the article that he only became upset on news of the successful appeal. If that is the case, though, I'm a little more onboard with you.

In the article, no reason is given for Cheparinov refusing the hand shake, I would be interested to find out why he skipped the handshake.

The wiki article linked above says this:

"The reason for Cheparinov's refusal was, according to the appeal made by him and his manager Silvio Danailov, that 'some time ago in one of his interviews Mr. Short insulted him and our team gravely'."
posted by cortex at 10:50 AM on January 22

quin: but what if the humans are all dead?
posted by patricio at 10:52 AM on January 22

In the end, it doesn't matter. Nobody wins because a giant robot hand comes down from the sky and pinches their heads with it's huge metal fingers, killing them instantly.
posted by chococat at 10:59 AM on January 22 [4 favorites]

There was no lost game. There was a game won by forfeit.

No, the game was replayed the next day (yesterday) and won by Short. See the "how it plays out" link in the FPP.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:00 AM on January 22

I didn't read the wiki article until after I posted that. This whole situation is so overblown. But i love this picture.


Off topic: If anybody wants to play chess, a couple of us metafilter members play on redhotpawn.com
my user name is wolfewolfewolfe.
posted by wolfewarrior at 11:00 AM on January 22

I love chess!


I'm amazed at the posts deriding the game; it's hard to understand the intensity of chess until you've played it as more then just a board game.
posted by lacus at 11:01 AM on January 22 [2 favorites]

Damn. I wasn't quick enough with the robot hand...
posted by wolfewarrior at 11:02 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

I play @ chessmaniac.com under 1lacus.

Sites ugly but has spirit.
posted by lacus at 11:03 AM on January 22

...and a Sicilian Najdorf ensues.

I'm going to work that phrase into every personal anecdote I tell from now on.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:07 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

No, the game was replayed the next day (yesterday) and won by Short. See the "how it plays out" link in the FPP.

Yes, but I was responding to DevilsAdvocate's line that "...Short is just establishing his Excuse."

I might be goofing the timeline and so misunderstanding something, but this is how I read it:

1. Short and Cheparinov are about to play a game.
2. Cheparinov refuses the handshake, twice.
3. Arbiter declares game forfeit, win goes to Short.
4. Short is upset by the whole thing.
5. Cheparinov appeals forfeiture.
6. Short is more upset.
7. Appeal is granted.
8. Short is even more upset.
9. Time passes.
10. Short and Cheparinov replay game, Short wins.

So depending on at which point DevilsAdvocate is saying that the Excuse-making was occurring, as well as on how well Short and Cheparinov respectively were predicting the actual progress of events up through step (8), it may or may not be a heck of a reach to talk about this primarily in terms of an Excuse for a game lost. I can follow the logic, I just don't necessarily buy it.

But then, I might be underestimating the strategic vindictiveness of the metagame, here. Again, I'd love to read a good historical roundup of this sort of thing.
posted by cortex at 11:08 AM on January 22

That is, to speak of a game lost is to speak of Short's fear of losing the replayed game at point (10); if he was cool and happy and "yay this is awesome" about the forfeiture and only became upset by the situation at point 6 or 8, DevilsAdvocate's argument is more plausible.
posted by cortex at 11:13 AM on January 22

i'd even feign an interest in Chess if Short, after punching the clock, swiped all the pieces of the board, slapped Cheparinov in the ear and exclaimed "fuck this, i'm outa here".

sadly, not the case.

i'm also a firm believer that any sport/past time/hobby could easily become interesting, even revenue-generating if they only added snipers.

imagine -- figure skating... with snipers! i'd totally watch that. wait, writers are on strike right?
posted by spish at 11:18 AM on January 22 [2 favorites]

From the article: "The English grandmaster was still shaking as he sipped his glass of red wine. It was clear that the refusal by his opponent to accept his handshake had had a deeply disruptive effect on his emotional balance. Nigel had received the decision of the Appeals Committee and was not at all happy with that." I take that to mean the point at which Friedel observed Short to have experienced "a deeply disruptive effect on his emotional balance" was after the appeals committee had ruled that the forfeit was rescinded and the game would be played, i.e., at point 8 in cortex's timeline.

In fairness, though, I can imagine that Short would be legitimately upset at having to play a game on what was scheduled to be a free day. It certainly has a deeply disruptive effect on my emotional balance if I'm called in to work on a day I expected to be off.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:25 AM on January 22

"some time ago in one of his interviews Mr. Short insulted him and our team gravely"

Well, it was a pretty out of control interview, and Howard and Baba Booey just kept pushing him to say crazier and crazier stuff. And that was before the strippers showed up.
posted by PlusDistance at 11:29 AM on January 22

From square one he'll be watching all 64...
posted by bruzie at 11:31 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

cortex: Has someone written a good book on the history of chess griefing? Because I'd like to read that

I read a book like that ages ago, called something like 101 Chess Anecdotes that was a bunch of true and tall tales from the chess world. I haven't managed to google for the correct title. It had a funny story about Alekhine and Capablanca 1927 bout.

No really.

Alexander Alekhine and José Raúl Capablanca, the reigning world champion, played for the world chess championship title in 1927 in Buenos Aires. During the contest there was a brief dispute as Capablanca wanted the competition to be annulled after 12 games and an even score. The night after the dispute an extraordinary event happened. Capablanca was, by the way, a slim, petite, extremely prim and proper Cuban diplomat. Never a hair out of place nor a wrinkle in his clothing. As Capablanca later told it: "I was in my hotel room, preparing to go to sleep when there was a knock on my door. I went to the door and opened it and saw an unkempt drunkard with a vacant stare and a bottle of rum in his hand. He said 'I want to play you. One game. Come on! Let me play just one game.' I refused at first but after his continued entreaties I decided that the quickest, easiest way to get rid of the man was to play him." So Capablanca sat down with the stranger at the chess board. Capablanca took black. The stranger beat him in 24 moves. Capablanca was astounded. So astounded he carelessly ran his hand over his hair knocking a few hairs from their carefully placed position. He went into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face and came back into the room. "Another! Another!" shouted the stranger and took swigs from his bottle. Capablanca took white this time. The stranger beat him in 19 moves. Capablanca pulled his hair in frustration. He couldn't understand what was happening. He said to the stranger: "Let's go see Alekhine, he must meet you." The stranger replied: "Hurray! I can play him too!" So Capablanca called Alekhine in his room at the same hotel. Alekhine answered: "Hrufn... what?!" Capablanca said: "Alekhine, I must come see you. I have to show you something extraordinary." "It's the middle of the night!" replied Alekhine. "Nevermind the time, this could change everything!" Alekhine harrumphed an agreement and Capablanca pulled the drunk stranger through the quiet hallways of the hotel which were disturbed by the stranger's cries of "Hurray!" and "One more!"

Alekhine was the very opposite of Capablanca. A bear of a man and a famous drunk who'd later lose his world chess title Max Euwe partly because of his drinking habits. When Alekhine opened the door his hair was mussed and his moustache bushy on one side and waxed down on the other. Two empty bottles of vodka lay on the floor. The stranger offered his rum to Alekhine and said: "Have a drink before our game, old chap!" Alekhine took the bottle and swigged heartily, then turned to Capablanca and said: "What is this nonsense, José Raúl?! Why have you brought this wretch to my room in the middle of the night?" Capablanca said: "You have to play this man, Alekhine. It's incredible. It's just... just play him!" Alekhine harrumphed and said: "Alright, after I beat him I'll throw both of you out, but don't worry, José Raúl, the organizers will hear of this tomorrow." So Alekhine sat down at his chess board with the stranger who stared vacantly out the window. Alekhine took white. The stranger beat him in 17 moves. Alekhine sobered up immediately. He stood up from the table, matted down his hair and the bushy part of his moustache and sat down at the table, taking white again. He held the stranger to 25 moves this time before losing. As Alekhine later said: "I couldn't believe this little shit had beat me so easily. And all without seeming to focus even for one second on the board. Capablanca and I were dumbfounded. We'd gotten our asses handed to us by some wretched idiot who'd wandered in from the streets." Alekhine was asked what he and Capablanca did then. "Well, the guy had beat both of us, the two best chess players in the world, in the middle of our championship bout. So there was but one move we could make in this situation. We killed him and threw the body in the harbor."
posted by Kattullus at 11:36 AM on January 22 [43 favorites]

Wow! World Class competitors insisting on sportsmanship! I like it! Great post.
posted by hellslinger at 11:37 AM on January 22

Lacus: "it's hard to understand the intensity of chess until you've played it as more then just a board game."

0.o

but it IS just a board game !
posted by ZachsMind at 11:38 AM on January 22

i competed in scholastic and uscf tournaments in my youth. on several occasions, an opponent tried to disrupt my delicate emotional balance by having a female friend bend low over the board, from his side, sans brassiere.
posted by bruce at 11:38 AM on January 22

i'm also a firm believer that any sport/past time/hobby could easily become interesting, even revenue-generating if they only added snipers.

Prior to reading this brilliant idea, I'd held the same belief about penalty boxes, but snipers are way more exciting.
posted by biscotti at 11:40 AM on January 22

It's like that awful old thriller movie "Fallen," the one with John Goodman and Denzel Washington where The Cursed Angel Azazel inhabits the body of a human and does evil things, and then moves on to the next one when that human body dies. Only this is with chess grandmasters, instead of evil things they do crazy things, and instead of The Cursed Angel Azazel it's just the unquenched spirit of Bobby Fisher.
posted by koeselitz at 11:43 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

The reason for Cheparinov's refusal was, according to the appeal made by him and his manager Silvio Danailov, that 'some time ago in one of his interviews Mr. Short insulted him and our team gravely'.

What would the rules have said, had Cheparinov instead headbutted Short in the chest?
posted by Anything at 11:43 AM on January 22

i enjoyed that anecdote, kattullus!
posted by jcruelty at 11:44 AM on January 22

So, like, in American Football? When the wide receiver gets penalized for doing an unsportmanlike dance in the end zone and the other team capitalizes on the penalty to win the game? If the wide receiver writes a letter of apology, does his team get to replay the game without the penalty?

You might think the rule is dumb, but Cheparinov (deliberately) broke one of the rules of the tournament and got penalized for it. I don't think it's unreasonable for Short to get upset if the tournament then changes its mind and lets Cheparinov weasel out of it.
posted by straight at 11:45 AM on January 22 [1 favorite]

Saying chess is just a board game is like saying the grand canyon is just a hole in the ground. If you aren't an addict you can't understand the attraction.
posted by wolfewarrior at 11:51 AM on January 22

I remember seeing one grandmaster's (sorry forget who, book not handy) treatise on advanced tournament play and it included lots of stuff like: place the board to reflect light in your opponents eyes, blow cigar smoke at them, do distracting head stand calisthenics between turns, etc.
posted by StickyCarpet at 12:00 PM on January 22

I used to love chess but I'm now a Go player.

I understand why things are so hard on chess players -- it's a grind. There's a tremendous effort of memorization for the opening and if you screw up, you're toast. Advantages are very small and it takes a lot of work to translate them into a win. Most games are draws.

Go is a lot more fun. The opening is very hard but very light -- you aren't restricted to a narrow opening book, your feel for the game is far more important. There's a lot more actual combat than in chess -- I'd say that most chess games have perhaps two successful combinations whereas I'd say that your average Go game has dozens of the equivalent combinations. And you can come back from even a fairly large setback, even in a top-level game.

In Go, as far as I know this sort of neurosis doesn't go on at all -- if a handshake were required as part of the game, it would happen every time or you'd simply lose immediately and if you did it a second time, no one would play with you again.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:00 PM on January 22 [3 favorites]

straight: read the "Handshake controversy" part of my Ivan Cheparinov Wiki link. Apparently the arbiter had not asked Cheparinov to shake after his two refusals, so was premature in giving Short the forfeit, allowing a way out for Cheparinov. Another reason for Short to be upset.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:10 PM on January 22

I imagine that the insult Short said to Cheparinov was something along the lines of "Your pieces seem a tad blemished, old chap."
posted by shmegegge at 12:11 PM on January 22

"What do I think of the Bulgarians, wot? I think they're jolly...bad. Hoom."
posted by cortex at 12:17 PM on January 22

I wish I was better at Go. I like it way better than Chess.
posted by hellphish at 12:20 PM on January 22

hellphish: the other great advantage of Go that I didn't mention was that the handicapping system allows players of dramatically different strengths to have a good game together.

I'd get onto IGS, watch some games, play a few... get someone to show you some of the key ideas. Play a lot of fast games.

Send me an email here and I'll show you a little!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:27 PM on January 22

so Short protests, and here's how it plays out

After that lead I was somehow expecting more. A brawl, perhaps. Some witty way of getting back at Cheparinov. Perhaps make him wait until all but 5 minutes on the clock have run out and then play speed chess with no intent to win. Maybe a resignation on the first move and a comment that if he wants the win so bad he can have it. I don't know.

I sure didn't expect something akin to "and he won. The end." Chess is so very boring.

Did you know that one of the Honinbo matches (a Go title) was interrupted by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, only 5km away from the match? What's more, they actually resumed the game and finished it.
posted by splice at 12:35 PM on January 22

More like bored game, AMIRITE?
posted by lunit at 12:50 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]

A chess anecdote I heard as a teenager (which is all-but-guaranteed to be apocryphal) goes like this:

Two high-level players meet at a competition at which smoking is not allowed. Undeterred by this, during the first match one competitor pulls out a pack of cigarettes, fiddles with it, plays with a lighter, pulls cigarettes out and puts them in his mouth, and pretty much does everything with a cigarette that you can do other than actually smoke. The other competitor is annoyed by this and protests to the organizers, who say that as long as he isn't smoking, he hasn't violated any rules.

The next day, at the second match, the almost-smoking competitor continues his almost-smoking act. The annoyed competitor lets this go on for a few minutes, then reaches into his sport coat and pulls out a handgun, which he places on the table.
posted by deadcowdan at 12:51 PM on January 22 [11 favorites]

High school chess coach.

(Wish I could find a video!)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:54 PM on January 22

wolfewarrior: "Saying chess is just a board game is like saying the grand canyon is just a hole in the ground. If you aren't an addict you can't understand the attraction."

The grand canyon is a natural geologic phenomenon in which, over perhaps unquantifiable millenia, the Colorado river and a wide rande of weather patterns have eroded a deep scar-like gorge into the terrain of this planet. In some places the grand canyon is over a mile deep, averages around ten miles wide, and it's almost three hundred miles long. Some Native Americans have deemed it a holy site since before the dawn of recorded history.

Chess is a game that is played on a square board. It's a man-made invention that in its modern incarnation is less than half a millenia old. Saying chess can be compared in any sufficient way to the grand canyon is an offense to Mother Nature. Paper may cover rock, but rock beats chess hands down. Ask any geologist.

Don't get me wrong. No one likes watching a train wreck more than I do. This hand shake fiasco is all kinds of entertaining, but let's have a little perspective. Chess is just a board game.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:54 PM on January 22

BAH! I expected more from a chess player. If I were Nigel Short I would have agreed to replay the match, but refused to shake hands at the start.
posted by milkwood at 1:09 PM on January 22

Cheparinov's got nothing on Von Goom.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:21 PM on January 22

well, clearly the metaphor was lost on you. I like chess: that's my opinion. To me it's more than just a board game. Feel free to disagree. Not tryin' to fight here...
posted by wolfewarrior at 1:29 PM on January 22

I meant simile. sorry
posted by wolfewarrior at 1:33 PM on January 22

I dunno, I worry about people who can become so obsessed over a hole in the ground.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 1:40 PM on January 22

Chess is just a board game. The golden gate bridge is just a lump of iron.

I love this post, and if the queens we use do not excite you, there are plenty of other threads that may give you your kicks below the waistline.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:57 PM on January 22

So, out of a billion rocks in the universe, there happens to be a crack in some particular rock that is marginally deeper than other, similar cracks in that rock, but is by no means even the deepest crack? Wow.
posted by Pyry at 2:04 PM on January 22

Chess is just a board game. The golden gate bridge is just a lump of iron.

Let's not go nuts. "The Golden Gate Bridge is just a bridge" would be a more fair attempt at the point you're making.

Chess is a board game. It's an oldie, a goodie, one of the great peaks in human gaming, but it's still a board game. Just as it may be lazy for non-advocates to sniff and shrug at th idea of the culture and ethos and just plain raw beauty that's wrapped up in chess as a social function and vehicle for human cognition, it's silly for advocates to lose sight of the fact that, for all that, it is, in fact, just a board game. Chess isn't special by some divine right; it's special because it's a good game that people have paid a tremendous amount of attention to for a long time.

That there is a chess culture is worth defending and discussing and exploring, and conveying that to folks who aren't as yet interested in it is a worthy goal, but folks'll probably make better progress pulling someone in if they're willing to talk about it not as something that's not just a board game but rather as something that is really interesting because, yes, it's just a board game but okay look at this...
posted by cortex at 2:09 PM on January 22

Don't get me wrong. No one likes watching a train wreck more than I do. This hand shake fiasco is all kinds of entertaining, but let's have a little perspective. Chess is just a board game.

I don't play chess myself, but I do play some other games at high level (for some value of "high"). And I am completely sympathetic with Short in this, and see the "Nerds! HARHAR"reactions of many here as a failure of empathy.

In a wholly mental game like chess, it is quite easy to be thrown off. The player wants to be in absolutely tip-top form for the game, and one can be off of it without even realizing. And Short is not an amateur, but a professional chess player. He earns his living by being serious about chess. In this, it is not the fault of the game. You can bet that professional go players obsess just as much about the game, if not more.

In a game like chess or go, the players are effectively being measured directly against each other in a chanceless, wholly logic-based contest. (-insert joke about penis lengths here-) Directly because of this, if there is anything riding on the outcome that is seen important to both sides, then these games push the participants to the utmost limits of human capacity. They must: if one side isn't at the top of his form, then that side will probably lose, because the other will probably be at the top of his. Allowing one side to slight the other so visibly at the start of a match will rattle the other player, a player who should be preparing to invest his entire being into the game. Anything extraneous in the player's psyche is a distraction, and at this level of play, any distraction could potentially cause a loss. Tournaments are regularized to eliminate these kinds of variables.

If this sort of thing were allowed, then under the inescapable laws of gamesmanship, chess would become as much about unnerving the opponent as playing the game. The attention would be drawn away from the board and the academic pursuit of the game, and towards intimidation -- to some degree inescapable of course, and interesting for its own sake perhaps. But it is not chess.

If you think that this kind of game sounds like it'd be a breeding ground for neuroses, well, I think you'd probably be right. But Short need not be neurotic to be upset at the possibility that Cheparinov is trying to game him. (And of course, Cheparinov might see that alleged insult by Short as an attempt to game him.)
posted by JHarris at 2:09 PM on January 22 [1 favorite]

This book, cortex, is pretty much the standard primer on practical chess griefing, or at least was when I was last vaguely up to date on chess books 25 years ago.
posted by motty at 2:26 PM on January 22

If this sort of thing were allowed, then under the inescapable laws of gamesmanship, chess would become as much about unnerving the opponent as playing the game.

Baseketchess. Chess slams. Thunderchess. I think there's a market for this.
posted by cortex at 2:26 PM on January 22

Has someone written a good book on the history of chess griefing? Because I'd like to read that.

Cortex, it's not quite what your after, but I can recommend How to cheat at chess and its even better titled sequel Soft Pawn.
posted by Sparx at 2:32 PM on January 22

Chess is just a board game. MetaFilter is just a website.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:34 PM on January 22

So is this is the chess equivalent of glittering spandex suits, beating each other with folding chairs and being lowered by cable from the rafters?
posted by de void at 2:38 PM on January 22

Agreed, Sparx. Both by Bill Hartston and both excellent antidotes to the unbelievable tedium of most chess books. Also, for further anecdotage, Irving Chernev has the chess anecdote market pretty much sewn up, though to my knowledge that one about Alekhine and Capablanca is not one of his - I'm curious as to the provenance of that one.
posted by motty at 2:41 PM on January 22

Exactly, DA.
posted by cortex at 2:44 PM on January 22

Chess is just a board game.

Heath Ledger was just an actor.

etc.. The site sucks today.
posted by Frasermoo at 3:59 PM on January 22

With some reluctance, I aquiesce to comparing chess to the Golden Gate. I admit it is a great work of engineering by mankind.

MeFi JUST a website??? The DEUCE you say!!1!
posted by ZachsMind at 4:15 PM on January 22

Shakespeare is just a bunch of words.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:30 PM on January 22

Heath Ledger was an actor??? Wow! That changes EVERYTHING!
posted by ZachsMind at 4:39 PM on January 22

psst.Zach.. this could become the secret thread for the celebrity death cynics.. don't tell anyone though.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:01 PM on January 22

lupus_yonderboy: In Go, as far as I know this sort of neurosis doesn't go on at all

Oh, it does. There are all kinds of irritation tactics. My personal gripe: players who rile you by taking bloody forever and professing deep contemplation before playing moves where there's an instant and obvious standard response (like the one stone that'll kill or save a group). You get players who turn and talk to their friends mid-game, or rattle stones in their hand, or point out that you're picking up your stones improperly, or slam down their stones so hard that it disturbs the board. And so on.
posted by raygirvan at 5:08 PM on January 22

FraserMoo, do we know if Heath Ledger played chess? =)
posted by ZachsMind at 7:07 PM on January 22

HA!!!! I read Chess for Tigers 25 years ago. What a great book.

PS I'm with Short on this one.

PPS That Alekhine/Capablanca anecdote is going to be a movie one day.
posted by unSane at 8:21 PM on January 22

ZachsMind: FraserMoo, do we know if Heath Ledger played chess? =)

Apparently Heath Ledger was a really good chess player. From The New York Times: "But the magazine Current Biography said he was also a champion at chess and go-kart racing as a youngster, and played field hockey until his coach forced him to choose between that sport and drama."
posted by Kattullus at 9:57 PM on January 22

From another New York Times article: "Mr. Ledger now lives in Manhattan, and, when he’s home, likes to play chess with the chess sharks who hang out in Washington Square Park; sometimes he beats them."
posted by Kattullus at 10:00 PM on January 22

Maybe this would have been a good time for Chess Boxing.

Some witty way of getting back at Cheparinov.
-I think 72.Rxe7+ was a witty way of getting back.
posted by MtDewd at 3:57 AM on January 23

Cortex, I don't know of any book about chess griefing, but the outlandish story of the '78 match between Kortchnoi and Karpov is one of the strangest dramas. And in the last couple years, the chess community has dealt with handshake failures, barricaded bathrooms, and, the latest this month, accusations of a young woman receiving computer help through her lip balm.

However none of this compares to the 70s. Korchnoi - Karpov featured

• The X-raying of chairs to look for prrohibited devices (in the days before wireless and computers)
  
• Questioning of an opponent's citizenship
  
• Handshake refusal and subsequent comments about soap and hygeine
  
• Accusations of signaling through timed and color-coded yogurt deliveries
  
• Employment of a hypnotist and parapsychologist to stare at and distract an opponent
  
• In the end, the counter-employment of robed cultists to meditate next to the stage for positive and protective energy
  

Even though gamesmanship is "part of the game" in every sport, in no sport do the athletes so openly, so personally, and so outrageously insult their opponents and the game itself. It is simply out of line in professional conduct to make a mockery of your opponent, the game, or the sport. Players who cannot handle it get fined, suspended, and expelled. And thus, no one does it.

The problem is when the sport begins to look like professional wrestling. It would do chess better if conduct stopped being though of in terms of "to whom does this give advantage?", and started being though of in terms of, "does this make us, and the sponsors, look like idiots?"
posted by cotterpin at 4:09 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

Chess is just a board game.
Heath Ledger was just an actor.

When I say Check you shall not say Mate
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:47 PM on January 23

In the article, no reason is given for Cheparinov refusing the hand shake, I would be interested to find out why he skipped the handshake.

AFAIK, here's roughly why Cheparinov was insulted:

- In 2005, GM Veselin Topalov won, by a large margin, a very strong chess tournament, which gave him the title FIDE chess champion and the right to play GM Vladimir Kramnik for the unified world chess championship.

- There were whispers, amongst chess fans and even some anonymous GMs, that Topalov was not completely clean in achieving his victory, and might have had outside help during the games.

- Cheparinov was a "second" (essentially an assistant) to Topalov during that tournament.

- Nigel Short writes an article insinuating that Topalov and Cheparinov cheated during that tournament.
posted by gyc at 4:57 PM on January 24