Monday 14 September 2015

Tatooine to join FIDE?

There are so many things to this story I am not sure where to start. Playing chess at a games convention (Dragon Con) might not seem that special, but dressed as a Jawa (from Star Wars) starts to make it interesting. Doing it to raise money for charity is quite nice as well, but the real kicker for me is fitting chess into the Star Wars universe.
The player concerned, Stephen Eisenhauer, might have difficulty getting into a regular chess tournament dressed as he is (Anti-Cheating regs would be the most obvious impediment), but the fact that he has formed the Tatooine Planetary Chess Federation might grant him a special exemption (on cultural grounds). And having formed an extra-terrestrial chess federation he should go the whole way and apply to join FIDE. I am sure he will find a receptive ear in FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who has had previous experiences dealing with off world visitors. If anything, Kirsan may approve the membership simply as an 'I told you so' to his critics.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tattoine is actually a southern province of Tunisia so he may have been able to apply legitimately had he gone about it the right way!