Today I would like to share a cute story that I saw in Donna Alarie's excellent "Chess Pals" newsletter.  You can sign up for her newsletter at http://chesspals.com.  She shares a lot of cute and fun chess related stories and pictures in her newsletters.

   Donna writes:

This week's anecdote comes from the New York Times, 2/19/2015 post:
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/over-chess-everybody-speaks-russian/?_r=0


Dear Diary:

New York City is such an ethnic mix that speaking a foreign language is never a guarantee of privacy.

One summer afternoon I sat down to play chess with a stranger at one of the stationary chess tables at the southwest corner of Washington Square Park. I immediately recognized his distinctively Russian accent - soft consonants, elongated vowels, rolled r's. It was familiar to me because I grew up speaking Russian at home with my parents. He and I chatted, exchanged brief bios and settled down to play.

It was my move at a critical stage in the game. As I was intently studying the position, a family of four - father, mother, teenage son and daughter - sidled up to watch. "He'll move the bishop," the father whispered in Russian after a few moments. "No, I think he'll move the pawn," said the mother softly, also in Russian. The daughter agreed with the father; the son agreed with the mother. I noticed a faint smile on my opponent's face, but he didn't say a word.

I considered both of those options. And then I announced as casually as I could, in Russian, "No, I think I have to move the rook." The embarrassed looks on the observers' faces quickly gave way to smiles all around.

 

     Check out the Tactics Time Blog.