Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley Plays Unsuspecting Trash Talker in Washington Square Park

in Games | February 17th, 2016 3 Comments

Not more than two weeks ago, we took you inside the world of Mau­rice Ash­ley. As you might recall, he’s “the first African-Amer­i­can Inter­na­tion­al Grand­mas­ter in the annals of the game” and also a Fel­low at the Media Lab at MIT. Today, Ash­ley released on his YouTube chan­nel a video filmed in Wash­ing­ton Square Park, a place where, as New York­ers know, you can watch some great chess play­ers in action, school­ing each oth­er in how to play the game, and some­times talk­ing a lit­tle trash. In the clip above, Mau­rice sits down to play Wil­son and gets jaw­boned for exact­ly four min­utes, until (to mix metaphors) it’s game, set and match. Enjoy the action.

via Peter B. Kauf­man

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Clay­ma­tion Film Recre­ates His­toric Chess Match Immor­tal­ized in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

The Wis­dom & Advice of Mau­rice Ash­ley, the First African-Amer­i­can Chess Grand­mas­ter

Vladimir Nabokov’s Hand-Drawn Sketch­es of Mind-Bend­ing Chess Prob­lems

Watch Bill Gates Lose a Chess Match in 79 Sec­onds to the New World Chess Cham­pi­on Mag­nus Carlsen

Mar­cel Duchamp, Chess Enthu­si­ast, Cre­at­ed an Art Deco Chess Set That’s Now Avail­able via 3D Print­er

 


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Comments (3)
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  • Richard MacKinnon says:
    February 18, 2016 at 5:13 am

    When I played in WS there were no elec­tron­ic timers and I was beat­en before any decent trash talk­ing could get going.

    Reply
  • Chris says:
    February 21, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    He did quite well, should have known bet­ter, funny.…but not real­ly what non chess peo­ple think. And I know both men quite well:)

    Reply
  • William says:
    February 21, 2016 at 8:42 pm

    A lit­tle cheat­ing (or “trick­ery”, as I believe Mr. Ash­ley put it) was attempt­ed by Mr. Wil­son there. More than once, even. A less-than-sharp eye would not have caught it.

    Is that some­thing that’s allowed, or per­haps even encour­aged, at Wash­ing­ton Square Park? I won­der.

    Reply

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