Inter-league Competition

Inmates at Princeton University played chess this week with the guys in the joint. UPI reports:

Students, prisoners face off in chess

TRENTON, N.J., Nov. 20 (UPI) -- The seventh chess tournament between Princeton University and the New Jersey State Prison saw a surprising number of prisoner victories, participants said.

The "Inmates and Ivy" chess tournament brought six Princeton students to the prison in Trenton to test their chess skills against a collection of convicted felons and thieves, The (Newark) New Jersey Star-Ledger reported Thursday.

Read more here. I guess it's not uncommon for college students to play prisoners in chess. They do it at Emory University, too.

Playing Dumb

Chess News of the Weird from the Centennial State

If you ever intend to claim to be of below-average intelligence, a word to the wise: stop playing chess. Now.

Getting caught pushing the pieces is one of the quickest ways to give away your superior smarts. That’s the lesson learned by an accused murderer in Colorado who hopes to escape the death penalty by showing that his IQ is below the legal minimum for execution.

His problem: prosecutors have a videotape of the man playing chess in jail, and they have submitted it into evidence to show that the alleged perp is not retarded, as he claims. More here.

In other news, Chessdad64, now also known as the Chess Czar of Skokie, has the goods on some early victories by the Chicago area's McClanahan Brothers at the National Elementary School Championships now under way in Pittsburgh. Ray School's Sonam Ford is there. . . . And longtime local chess personage Lamarr Wilson has returned to the blogosphere, and has a feature on our own Phillip Parker-Turner.