ADDICTS’ CORNER

Mike Fox and Richard James say: 'Zha riest'n, teskas tal tai-kleon' to you all.

Zillions

Don't call us for the next couple of years please. We are glued to our PCs (except for essential activities like eating, sleeping and watching University Challenge) until well after the Millenium. We have just acquired Zillions of Games. If you're into chess variants, and we are, this is the nearest you're going to get to paradise. Not only can the Z of G program play Chinese chess, Japanese chess, Burmese chess, Thai chess, and fifty odd of the best variants we know; not only can it play a sackful of your favourite non-chess board games (like Chinese Checkers, Reversi, draughts, nine men's morris, go moku) plus dozens you've never heard of (would you believe shap luk kon tseung kwan?); but if you're even slightly computer literate, you can teach it to play almost any two player board game there is. And if all that weren't enough, you can download from the Internet - free - still more games from the makers. Wow!

We are just getting to grips with this phenomenon. More later (if ever we resurface). If you can't wait that long, rush immediately to http://www.zillions-of-games.com.

We ought to add that we'd never have heard about Zillions of Games were it not for the blessed Variant Chess ('the magazine to broaden your chess horizons'), to whom we are also indebted for our next item.

PS We ought to have mentioned: 'Zillions' also plays orthodox chess. Fritz 5 it ain't; but then Fritz is pretty rubbish at Burmese Chess.

nuqDaq 'oH Qe' QaQe'?*

One game you won't find on Z. of G. (but it's only a matter of time) is Klin Zha. This, as every Star Trek fan knows, is chess as played by the Klingons ('zha' is Klingonese for 'game' - so 'chess' is 'Hum Zha' - the human game).

Klin Zha appears in the novel The Final Reflection by John M Ford. and the rules have been codified by Leonard Loyd. If you want details, head for the Authorized Klin Zha site on the Internet (http://www.fyi.net/-kordite/klinzha.htm); but basically, it's a two player game played on a triangular board of 81 triangles (9x9x9). The pieces are: fencer, lancer, swift, flier, vanguard, and blockader; plus a goal (= king) which can't itself move, but may be carried about the board by a fencer or a lancer or a vanguard.
We got all of this from an excellent article in Variant Chess ('the m to b your c h.') by Lex Kraaijeveld (whose name suggests he could actually be of the Klingon persuasion himself). Lex says the game is highly playable. In case you're wondering, when you're playing a Klingon at Klin Zha, and you want to announce 'checkmate', then the phrase you're looking for is 'Zha riest'n, teskas tal tai-kleon', which means 'A pleasant game, my compliments to a worthy opponent' (which is - roughly - how we do it in the Birmingham League).

By the way, the Romulons play a game called Latrunculo - but that's another story.

* This is Klingon for 'Where's the loo?'. Honest.

It could only be Botters

'Yes I played a blitz game once. It was on a train in 1929' said Botvinnik in interview with Sosonko. This is from Tim Krabbé's super website: (
http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess/chess/html).

Bourdonnais

Bowsing through the Latest Wills section of the Times the other day we came across details of the estate of one Rachel Ursula Isolde De Mahée de la Bourdonnais, commonly known as Princesse de Mahée, the wife of Prince John de Mahé, of Ascot Berkshire.
We presume that Prince J de M is a kinsman of the immortal Louis Charles Mahé de Labourdonnais (who died in London), but would welcome confirmation from any genealogical experts out there.

Demis Hassabis

We read in the Observer’s recent feature on the Young Rich that former junior chess champion Demis Hassabis is estimated to be worth £2m. He jointly created the popular computer game Theme Park in his teens, and his company has recently signed a contract worth £3.6m with the British video games company Eidos, who brought the world Lara Croft.
 
The Grauniad joins LASTBUR

Great excitement at LASTBUR headquarters, when we sighted the world's biggest wrong way round board. Check your back issues of the Guardian. Dominating the front page of their G2 supplement on March 29 was a huge vicey-versey chessboard, introducing an implausible biography of the matricidal Claude Bloodgood, now doing his thirtieth year of incarceration in a Virginia slammer. According the article's author, Julian Borger (who seems to have believed most things Claude told him), Claude Frizzel Bloodgood III ('an undisputed chess genius') started off as a chess prodigy in Nazi Germany, where he played against Himmler, Rommel and Admiral Canaris (head of the German Secret Service). He became a Nazi officer in 1942, and made several spying missions to the USA, ferrying information back across the Atlantic. In 1945, his sub. ran aground. Bloodgood (says the Grauniad piece) then fetched up in Hollywood, where he played chess against Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, David Niven, James Mason, Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Cagney. He eventually (says Mr Borger) married Kathryn Grayson (star of Kiss Me Kate) and became a Grandmaster. We are Bloodgood fans, but all this was a bit strong even for us. Bloodgood does have a phenomenal USCF rating: 2639. But he got it by fiddling his way round the US rating system. If you play hundreds and hundreds of rated games against patzers, eventually you too can be up there with Yermolinsky and the big boys (see last month's bit on Burma). As for his being a GM, the fact that he has spent the last three decades in the Powhatan Correctional Facility must have inhibited his chances of acquiring norms by attending the requisite Grandmaster tournaments. And finally (says The Omniscient One), Bloodgood gave his birthdate to Jeremy Gaige (the chess biographer) as 1937; which means he was either the Wermacht's youngest ever officer, or he was telling porkies.

The part of the story we do believe, is where Claude is quoted as saying 'I will play five minute chess with anyone in the world - even today!' But then, for goodness' sake, so will we.
Some questions for our readers:
1. Does anyone know of anything about a relationship between Bloodgood and Kathryn Grayson?
2. Does anyone know who Nazi Party Number 1,098,201 belonged to?
3. The article mentions three books about chess 'gambits'. We know of Bloodgood's volume The Tactical Grob; Barden mentions a book called The Norfolk Gambit; does anyone know of a third book?
4. Does anyone know whether Himmler, Rommel, Canaris, Gary Cooper, David Niven, Richard Widmark, James Mason or indeed Kathryn Grayson, played chess?

Finally, a bizarre quickie that journalist Borger played against 'GM' Bloodgood. According to Barden, the whole game had appeared previously in Bloodgood's The Norfolk Gambit - he'd won it in the Virginia State Open in 1957:
1. Nf3 d5 2. b3 c5 3. e4 dxe 4. Ne5 Qd4 5. Bb2 Qxb2 6.Nc3 Qa3 7.
Bb5+ Nd7 8. Nc4 Qb4 9. a3 Resigns

At least we think the moves are correct. The diagram of the final position had a Black Bishop on g8 (yes, that’s two light squared bishops) and a King on f8.
We spoke to Leonard Barden, the Guardian’s eminent chess correspondent, who told us that he had been shown the article in advance (but not the front page) and had pointed out the mistakes, including the diagram with two light squared bishops, but that the paper had chosen to ignore them. He also speculated that Bloodgood (who claims he was born Klaus Bluttgutt) had based the account of his Nazi career on that of Klaus Junge.