Jim West On Chess: Chicago NY

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Chicago NY

Working at a law firm, I am familiar with the expression "change of venue". It refers to a law suit being moved to a new jurisdiction, usually from one county or state to another.

But chess games, unlike law suits, should never change venue. Case in point: my game as White against future grandmaster Maurice Ashley, supposedly played in Chicago.

The only problem is, I've never been in the Windy City! Actually the contest took place in the last round of a weekend Swiss tournament at the Marshall Chess Club in New York City.

"My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, and have never regarded it as anything else, for all the science and sport involved in it. And, moreover, an art which in some ways is closer to music than it is customary to think. Perhaps chess and music are drawn together by laws of harmony and beauty which are difficult to formulate and difficult to grasp, or perhaps by something else." - Vasily Smyslov