If there’s a 12-year-old kid out there that’s a national master at chess, that kid gets his own post. Justus Williams of the Bronx is such a youngster, but really, I’m just happy that people are still playing chess. It’s still the best context to make “beating the bishop” jokes.

Williams became the youngest-ever black US Master in chess last September (that’s about the equivalent of a second-degree black belt). They’re now calling him “The LeBron James of chess,” probably because calling him the “Tiger Woods of chess” would bring on a whole different connotation other than “He’s really good at chess and just so happens to be black.”

His chess skills have taken him to Brazil, Canada and Greece. It’s not uncommon to find him challenging and beating opponents four and five times his age.

Justus and his family hope his success in chess will help others experiment outside their comfort zones. They’re spreading the word through a campaign called “Dare to be Different.”

–NBC NY, via Ben Maller.

And that’s why, as you can see in the video, he’s “just like any other 12-year-old,” but I can’t remember the last time I saw a male sixth-grader with an earring, although it’s a lot harder to tell being 1,000 yards away from the nearest elementary school.

No cats were molested or killed while this photograph was taken. Probably.

A chess coach in Illinois has been accused of some sort of freaky misuse of his access to children, according to authorities.  An as-yet unnamed man who coached an elementary school chess team in Evanston allegedly sent photos of his young charges to a prison inmate.  But hey, who hasn’t done that for kicks from time to time?

While the pictures are not inappropriate, it was what was allegedly sent with the photos that has parents unsettled… The children’s coach allegedly sent pictures of the chess team to an out-of-state prison inmate…

“It doesn’t seem like anything happened besides pictures being sent and certain words being written on the pictures,” [one parent] said.  [Another] parent said the photos were sent with graphic letters.

That pisses me off. Some inmate gets photos of chess kids, yet no one responded to my Craigslist ad titled Searching for pictures of Bobby Fischer.

All in all, that’s probably not as bad as getting into a drunken fight and killing a man over a game of chess.  Unless the agreed-upon stakes of the game were life and death.  Hey, fair’s fair.

[Sports by Brooks]

Saturday's New York Times included a feature on Wu-Tang Clan founder RZA and the iconic rap group's love of chess.  Maybe if some girl taught me the game then slept with me, I'd be into it, too.

RZA, 38, learned the game when he was 11, from a girl who, as he writes in ["The Wu-Tang Manual"], also took his virginity… Now they play chess almost every day, and RZA, holder of the Hip-Hop Chess Federation belt — a trophy he picked up last fall at a tournament in San Francisco that featured rappers and martial-arts experts — is turning his interest into a business. [note: WuChess website here]…

Marley Kaplan, chief executive of Chess-in-the-Schools, a nonprofit group that teaches chess in poorer New York City school districts, said that RZA’s involvement might encourage some children to play, but that she doubted it would make a big impact. “Most kids get interested in chess through schools and through family and friends,” she said. “We taught 20,000 kids this year and I bet if you surveyed them, none of them knows that he plays chess,” referring to RZA.

Wow, is that crown of thorns too heavy, Saint Marley?  "La la la, I've dedicated my life to a non-profit organization helping urban youths, I'm better than famous people."  Lighten up a little.  Have sex with a Republican or something.

The organizers of the upcoming World Mind Games, an event where nerdlingers will be pitted against dorkus malorkuses (malorki?), are testing participants for performance-enhancing drugs, though they don't know exactly which ones. I would imagine those mind-expanding drugs might be on the short list. A mind is a terrible thing to expand, so I keep mine small and stored in a jar on my mantel. 

"Bridge and chess are recognised by the International Olympic Committee and we have the obligation and duty to sign the World Anti-Doping Agency code," IMSA president Jose Damiani said. "So we will proceed in Beijing with anti-doping tests."

Damiani did not say how many tests would be conducted or which substances testers would be looking for but another official was quick to respond.

"We follow WADA's instructions but we cannot see what drugs could be used to become smarter," World Chess Federation Vice-President Georgios Makropoulos said. "Otherwise they would be sold in every pharmacy around the world."

Clearly they've never heard of poindextrose (mixed with crayons shoved up my nose for maximum Simpsons reference quotient), which I've been taking in concentrated doses for weeks. I believe I'm just seeing the effects now. I feel smarter already. I…wait, I'm a blogger by trade? What have I done with my life? Oh God, I need to be stupid again. Where's Mike & Mike when you need it? That'll kill some brain cells.

[Machochip] 

Chess prodigy and former world champion Bobby Fischer has died in Iceland of an undisclosed illness.  He was 64.

Fischer was a key cog in the competitive fury of the Cold War, when the U.S. and Soviet Union would compete in pretty much anything.  Chess, pick-up sticks, dice, you name it.  Sometimes the two nations' leaders would just call each other up and see who could hold their breath longer.  And it was a huge disgrace when Gerald Ford lost.  And the Olympics… don't get me started on the Olympics.  Watching the medal count was like the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Oh shit, if Sergei Bubka breaks another pole vault record, we're going to war!"

Anyway, Bobby Fischer.  Jewish anti-Semite, recluse, genius, world-class asshole.  And I mean that in an "I'm impressed" sort of way.  I would love to be remembered as a genius and world-class asshole.  Although I guess I'll settle for just the latter.