Given the scarcity of serious chess players in Australia (3000 to 4000 in a population of 22,000,000) it is always surprising to hear chess being discussed away from the chess environment.
While catching the bus home from work the other day I began to hear fragments of a conversation taking place a couple of seats behind me. "Queen went here", "this one moves diagonally", and "I took this guy and he couldn't take me back". It seems that someone was explaining the rules of chess to his girlfriend, I assume using his iPhone (or similar device). The conversation seemed to be going ok until the topic of pawn moves came up. "So the little guys get to move 2 squares on their first go, but only 1 after that" asked the girlfriend. "Yes" was the reply. "Well that's stupid isn't it" she continued. But the last word went to the boyfriend. "That's 2000 years of chess rules you're bagging out there". And the conversation then drifted on to other topics.
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That particular rule is quite recent, if memory serves me right, it's only 500 yers old or so ... Introduced to speed things a little bit ...
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