You thought chess was a sedate affair?

[Donna Ferentes]

From the recently-concluded Olympiad in Turin:

The English squad is now down to five players after board four GM Danny Gormally flew home a couple of days ago. Before leaving, he displayed the first sign of real aggression seen from the English squad since its arrival in Turin. Sadly it was not at the chessboard, but at the Bermuda party on the night before the second rest day. From what the BCM has been able to gather from various sources present in Turin, the facts appear to be as follows: annoyed that a young lady player...preferred to dance with Levon Aronian of Armenia, Gormally landed a punch on the world number three. Thankfully the blow did not do any real damage but the Armenian delegation was understandably incensed that their top board should be treated in this way. To keep the peace, the English delegation decided that Gormally would have to be sent back home immediately.

My information is that in between landing the punch and being sent home, Mr Gormally was beaten up by Mr Aronian's teammates...

 

[Chorlton]

the blow did not do any real damage

next up on Sky "when nerds attack"...

 

[Termite Man]

Since when has chess been a sport

 

[aylee]

Chess players tend to be monuments to repressed sexuality. Nigel Short legendarily wrote in a quality newspaper that he had slept with Tony Miles' girlfriend. This was in an obituary that he wrote for Tony Miles!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Even by Nasty Nigel's standards that was an atrocious business.

 

[hektik]

who won the chess game that you were playing on this site Donna?

or should i say, how quickly did you win?

 

[kakuma]

i thought chess players would be calm chaps....

 

[siarc]

armenians=tehr0x0r

this does sort of sound like 13yr olds aspergers kids on alcopops, maybe that's what devoting one's life (or having one's life devoted) to chess does to emotional development

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Danny's a bit fucked up, to be honest. He's notably aggressive and in addition to that he had a problem with travel - similar to Dennis Bergkamp except it's not just planes. I played in a tournament on the Isle of Man from which he'd withdrawn after getting as far as the ferry terminal in Liverpool and then panicking (I'm told he needs to take tranquillisers to travel). So I don't know if having travelled toItaly added to the stress. So might being criticised in public by a team-mate (Nigel Short's Guardian column) and for that matter having a desperately bad tournament in which his performance rating was roughly similar to the one I achieved last year...in the fourth division of the national league. I was playing for Guildford IV, Danny was playing for England....

Times report

 

[ddraig]

who won the chess game that you were playing on this site Donna?

or should i say, how quickly did you win?

the other 'player' was cheating from the off and got caught out by DF v quickly

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Telegraph

 

[aylee]

Reminds me of that Joe Cole incident in that nightclub recently.

 

[Chorlton]

with pics:
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,19392740-5001022,00.html

 

[aylee]

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the editor, may I just say a respectful and non-sexist "phwoarr" at Ms Caoili?

 

[Chorlton]

you have to fight a thousand chess-nerds to get near her

those bastids award themselves extra Hit Points using multi-sided dice so its not as straightforward as it sounds

 

[editor]

If they all had a fight before every game then I'd definitely call it a sport, no question.

 

[Dirty Martini]

Anyone for chessboxing?

http://site.wcbo.org/content/e14/index_en.html

 

[Donna Ferentes]

More Telegraph

 

[Jazzz]

Gosh - the most exciting thing to happen in chess since Karpov's yoghourt!

 

[Chorlton]

Gosh - the most exciting thing to happen in chess since Karpov's yoghourt!

you serious? what about the time deep-blue got caught in a motel room with a sexy laptop and a couple of gameboys?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

I've given to understand this was on Have I Got News For You - is that right?

 

[Pingu]

... got caught out by DF v quickly

a fucking hem

 

[Pingu]

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the editor, may I just say a respectful and non-sexist "phwoarr" at Ms Caoili?

ding dong!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

a fucking hem

You say so because?

Now attracting interest in Spain

 

[Chorlton]

Donna!!

buy todays observer... sport monthly

that is all

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Why? It's vastly unlikely to have anything good in it.

Also it's not usually available in small villages in north-eastern Spain.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

It's not this piece of shit is it? Load of crap pieced together using Google, I expect.

 

[Chorlton]

this was the article, but i'll level with you here, i never read it, i was just looking at the pictures:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,,1807035,00.html

the pictures were ace... the glamour side of chess... i was pissing it has to be said

 

[Donna Ferentes]

As I say, load of crap. This stuff gets really tiresome after a while, like the joke somebody tells a thousand times that they think they're the first person to make. The fact that somebody got paid to write it just makes it worse.

Shahade's book is supposed to be very good though.