Cubans set new chess record

[U-T]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3670451.stm

Cuba has broken its own world record for the most people playing chess at the same time.

About 13,000 chess fans gathered in the central Cuba city of Santa Clara for the mass game.

Former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov took part in the event, held in a square dominated by a statue of the Che Guevara. himself a keen player.

Some 11,320 Cubans, including President Fidel Castro, set the 2002 record, but the president did not play this time.

The BBC's Stephen Gibbs, who watched the event, says that the players made an impressive, if surreal sight.

Anatoly Karpov wandered between the tables, sometimes casually checkmating the largely amateur players.

Mr Karpov - formerly a star of Cuba's main Cold War ally, the Soviet Union - said he was interested in setting up a chess school in Cuba, as he had done in the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

Che Guevara is credited with sparking the keen interest in chess in the island.

 

[MemphisVol]

I give up.

Every time I read this I get so verklempt at all the interwoven world-class straight lines I can't think of anything smartass to say:

The Cuban government stages an event to prove they can get more people acting alike at the same time than anyone else, and, just to press the point, use a game built around great individual minds to do it.

Karporov, the richly martyred and tragic chess champion of Cuba's now defunct, ate-itself-alive mentor-country, the USSR, is the MC.

This happens as Castro enters the final few years of his life & control, a period in which he has been gradually moderating his stance- apparently in the desire to reduce the potential chaos following his death. Is this a gesture to the hard-liners, a demonstration that Cuba isn't just some little impoverished culture that the U.S. is justified in rushing in and "terraforming", or both?

And then there's that last line... I don't know whether I hope more (for the irony) value) that choosing chess for this world record attempt was an accidental memorial to Che Guerva, the co-liberator of Cuba Castro betrayed, or whether it was another example of Castro making peace- this time personal- as his time ran out....


:idea:


Or maybe I think too much.


:beer: