“Football is like chess without the dice.”
–A German football player as cited in Der Spiegel in an article on the greatest football quotes in Germany, cited on this week’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell me show (Go here and click on the “Lightning Fill in the Blank” segment, then begin listening at 2 minutes 55 seconds).
I actually think this is profound! Possibly more than was meant?
That’s silly. You can’t play chess without dice.
Actually, football is like canasta without handguns.
As a chess player, I must vigorously protest this ignorant slighting of “the royal game” (grin). There is probably no game where there is less of an element of chance or luck than the queen of games, that supreme form of mental combat, chess.
Chess has been around for over 1400 years. Soccer (which is what I’m assuming Germans, like the English, mean by “football”), or American football, by contrast were invented practically yesterday.
Sure, the whole world knows who David Beckham is, and countless millions know who Michael Vick is (for better or worse), and they get paid gazillions of dollars to play and they appear on TV, whereas a much smaller number of the world’s inhabitants have any idea that Vishy Anand (of Chennai/Madras in India) is the current world champion in chess or have ever seen him play. And Anand certainly isn’t paid mega bucks or courted as a prime corporate sponsor and treated as a celebrity.
But at least when Anand triumphs over his top opponents (like V. Topolov of Bulgaria or V. Kramnik of Russia) it is never due to quirks like what way the wind blows or the ball bounces, or a referee’s call. It is due to pure skill.
“Chess without dice” indeed. Disgusting. It’s not only stupid, it’s practically sacreligious. Why, it’s almost blashphemous (grin).
Richard (#1): “Profound?” Surely, you jest. If not, I shall have to call Tory Baucom+ at Truro and report that you’ve gone temporarily insane.
David Handy+
Chess lover