Wednesday 2 April 2014

April Fools Day - better luck next year

For some reason I noticed a lot of chess related April Fools Day jokes this year, although overall I thought it was a poor crop. Since the Candidates tournament has just ended, there were plenty of World Championship themed stories, including the  news that the match would take place on an oil rig in the North Sea. There were a couple of predictable "Changes to the Laws of Chess" announcements, including the suggestion being ahead 5 points (eg a rook) for two consecutive moves would be an automatic win.
The one that made me chuckle a little was the conspiracy theory based on the fact that Nakamura and Susan Polgar had never been seen in the same place at the same time, but this was less of a joke and more a humorous observation.
But if a joke is based upon how many people got sucked in, then GM David Smerdon's FB post about selling his website to chess.com might take the cake. Certainly the number of likes/congratulatory posts indicated that it fooled quite a number of people, but I suspect a few more did check their calendars before risking a comment.

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