Is chess too boring?

Shelby Lyman on Chess: Is Chess Boring?
Sunday, January 19, 2014
(Published in print: Sunday, January 19, 2014)

Is chess boring? Certainly, the Russians and many others did not or do not think so.

Consider that the appearance of the perennial world champion Mikhail Botvinnk as a spectator at the Bolshoi Ballet in 1933 was celebrated with standing applause by the audience.

Or that mounted Moscow police — according to historian Genna Sosonko — had to restrain enthusiasts “searching for a glimpse of the masters” during tournaments of the’30s.

Or that Yuri Averbakh, a Soviet champion, deliberately arrived late during a critical 1959 encounter in Belgrade between Bobby Fischer and Mikhail Tal because he could not bear the prolonged excitement of watching the whole game.

At the site, Tal’s trainers, Alexander Koblencs and Vladas Mikenas, were reclining in their seats “frantically clutching their hearts and sucking tranquilizers” recalls Averbakh.

Or that Fischer returning from his victory over Boris Spassky in Iceland during August of 1972 refused the offer of a ticker-tape parade from New York Mayor John Lindsey. Fischer, who hated to be the center of attention, refused.

Or that tens of millions of children and adults sitting down each day to play, anywhere you can imagine. Or that you and this writer separately engage in the same ritual somewhere, no less enthusiastically, today, tomorrow or yesterday.

Full article here.