Two chess players are playing a correspondence game. White lives at the South Pole and Black lives at the North Pole. As you might expect the postal service to the North and South Poles is rather slow and play proceeds at the rate of one move per year. After 20 years of play, White makes a daring queen sacrifice, the consequences of which are by no means clear. A year later, as he sees the postman returning, he is very excited, thinking "Will Black take my queen ?", "Is the sacrifice sound ?". He snatches the postcard from the postman's hands and sees the reply "J'adoube"!
- Contributed by Fraser McLeod
(From the home office in Zugzwang, Nebraska - jk)
Number 10. Send all of your moves in Russian algebraic notation.
Number 9. Use a computer to print diagrams and the current moves on the cards.
Number 8. Tell them that David Bronstein is staying at your house.
Number 7. Send them an advertisement for your new book on the opening you are currently playing.
Number 6. Let them know that you've played this position 124 times before, winning 82.6% of the games.
Number 5. Annotate all of their moves with "!?"
Number 4. Mention long lost opening and endgame monographs.
Number 3. Use old dark commemorative stamps that always obscure your postmarks.
Number 2. Tell them that you are engaged to Judit Polgar.
And, the number one way to psyche out your postal opponent:
Number 1. Make sure that every card arrives with postage due.
The cartoon below was found (in another form) at Tom's Chess Links (In the Gallery Section), an innovative chess site. It is located at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ChessChamp/welcome.htm
"A Mailman's Lament"
The cartoon below was found (in another form) at Tom's Chess Links (In the Gallery Section), an innovative chess site. It is located at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ChessChamp/welcome.htm
