Different Approaches ...

Chess is a game of understanding and creativity. Understanding enough in a position to be able to find or sense the correct balance between attack and defense. The great creatives in the game could conjure fantastic sacrifies that delight and amaze and achieve victory thorough vision and brilliance. Players such as first (unofficial) world champion Paul Morphy, the magician of Riga Mikhail Tal, Gary Kasparov & Judit Polgar produced spectacular games all throughout their careers.

Other players prefer to turn games into turgid trench warfare, and achieve victory by removing advantageous squares from their opponent. As if they are attempting to starve enemy forces of oxygen, or entrap them in their coils like a constrictor. Players in this category include the founder of scientific chess Wilhlem Steinitz, Tigran Petrosian and Anatoly Karpov. Their patient and deep approach is very difficult to break, and behind their so called 'quiet moves' many a cleverly set trap can hide, as Tal once said "Karpov's intentions become understandable to his opponents only when salvation is no longer possible."

Of course chess is also a game where, over the centuries, less scrupulous 'innovators' have sought victory through other means, from leading chess players hiding inside so called chess machines such as 'The Turk' in the 18th century, to the concealment or use of computers or mobile communication devices in the modern era. The lengths some people will go to pursue pyrhic victories never ceases to amaze, here Paul Merton tries such an audacious approach with just a touch of humour..