Saturday, January 07, 2006

Another episode of "The Chess Files"

I finally got around to reading the December 2005 issue of Chess Life (apparently it got lost in one or another pile of magazines and unread correspondence). Naturally, I immediately turned to the 'Checking in' section to read Jim's letter on GM Larry Evan's assertion that an Alabama school had outlawed chess. It is interesting that the editor chose to title Jim's letter "Evans mistaken?" when "Evan's mistaken!" would have been more appropriate.

As I continued reading down the column, I noticed that the next item was an errata from a story about the National Open in the September issue. The item, highlighted in a box, was titled "J'adoube." Therefore, the word "J'adoube" appears in the column immediately after Jim's name and location.

As I read on in the issue I reached GM Pal Benko's Endgame Lab column on page 48. Benko shared several excerpted positions from GM Jan Timman's book Curacao 1962: The Battle of Chess Minds that Shook the Chess World, one of which Pal titled "J'adoube!".

A coincidence, you say? I think not!

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