"Tell your readers, Miss Grayling," he proclaimed, fiercely arching his eyebrows at her and actually slapping his chest, "that I, Igor Jandorf, will defeat the Machine by the living force of my human personality! Already I have offered to play it an informal game blindfold—I, who have played 50 blindfold games simultaneously! Its owners refuse me. I have challenged it also to a few games of rapid-transit—an offer no true grandmaster would dare ignore. Again they refuse me. I predict that the Machine will play like a great oaf—at least against me. Repeat: I, Igor Jandorf, by the living force of my human personality, will defeat the Machine. Do you have that? You can remember it?"
"Oh yes," Sandra assured him, "but there are some other questions I very much want to ask you, Mr. Jandorf."
"I am sorry, Miss Grayling, but I must clear my mind now. In ten minutes they start the clocks."
While Sandra arranged for an interview with Jandorf after the day's playing session, Doc reordered his coffee.
"One expects it of Jandorf," he explained to Sandra with a philosophic shrug when the shock-headed man was gone. "At least he didn't take your wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up."
"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I haven't offended Mis—Master Jandorf so that he doesn't—"
"Don't worry about that. Wild horses couldn't keep Jandorf away from a press interview. You know, his rapid-transit challenge was cunning. That's a minor variety of chess where each player gets only ten seconds to make a move. Which I don't suppose would give the Machine time to look three moves ahead. Chess players would say that the Machine has a very slow sight of the board. This tournament is being played at the usual international rate of 15 moves an hour, and—"
"Is that why they've got all those crazy clocks?" Sandra interrupted.
"Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his moves. When a player makes a move he presses a button that shuts his clock off and turns his opponent's on. If a player uses too much time, he loses as surely as if he were checkmated. Now since the Machine will almost certainly be programmed to take an equal amount of time on successive moves, a rate of 15 moves an hour means it will have 4 minutes a move—and it will need every second of them! Incidentally it was typical Jandorf bravado to make a point of a blindfold challenge—just as if the Machine weren't playing blindfold itself. Or is the Machine blindfold? How do you think of it?"
"Gosh, I don't know. Say, Doc, is it really true that Master Jandorf has played 50 games at once blindfolded? I can't believe that."

"Of course not!" Doc assured her. "It was only 49 and he lost two of those and drew five. Jandorf always exaggerates. It's in his blood."
"He's one of the Russians, isn't he?" Sandra asked. "Igor?"
Doc chuckled. "Not exactly," he said gently. "He is originally a Pole and now he has Argentinian citizenship. You have a program, don't you?"
Sandra started to hunt through her pocketbook, but just then two lists of names lit up on the big electric scoreboard.
THE PLAYERS
William Angler, USA
Bela Grabo, Hungary
Ivan Jal, USSR
Igor Jandorf, Argentina
Dr. S. Krakatower, France
Vassily Lysmov, USSR
The Machine, USA (programmed by Simon Great)
Maxim Serek, USSR
Moses Sherevsky, USA
Mikhail Votbinnik, USSR
Tournament Director: Dr. Jan Vanderhoef
FIRST ROUND PAIRINGS
Sherevsky vs. Serek
Jal vs. Angler
Jandorf vs. Votbinnik
Lysmov vs. Krakatower
Grabo vs. Machine
"Cripes, Doc, they all sound like they were Russians," Sandra said after a bit. "Except this Willie Angler. Oh, he's the boy wonder, isn't he?"
Doc nodded. "Not such a boy any longer, though. He's.... Well, speak of the Devil's children.... Miss Grayling, I have the honor of presenting to you the only grandmaster ever to have been ex-chess-champion of the United States while still technically a minor—Master William Augustus Angler."
A tall, sharply-dressed young man with a hatchet face pressed the old man back into his chair.
"How are you, Savvy, old boy old boy?" he demanded. "Still chasing the girls, I see."
"Please, Willie, get off me."
"Can't take it, huh?" Angler straightened up somewhat. "Hey waiter! Where's that chocolate malt? I don't want it next year. About that ex-, though. I was swindled, Savvy. I was robbed."
"Willie!" Doc said with some asperity. "Miss Grayling is a journalist. She would like to have a statement from you as to how you will play against the Machine."

Angler grinned and shook his head sadly. "Poor old Machine," he said. "I don't know why they take so much trouble polishing up that pile of tin just so that I can give it a hit in the head. I got a hatful of moves it'll burn out all its tubes trying to answer. And if it gets too fresh, how about you and me giving its low-temperature section the hotfoot, Savvy? The money WBM's putting up is okay, though. That first prize will just fit the big hole in my bank account."
"I know you haven't the time now, Master Angler," Sandra said rapidly, "but if after the playing session you could grant me—"
"Sorry, babe," Angler broke in with a wave of dismissal. "I'm dated up for two months in advance. Waiter! I'm here, not there!" And he went charging off.
Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled.
"Chess masters aren't exactly humble people, are they?" she said.
Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. "You must excuse them, though," he said. "They really get so little recognition or recompense. This tournament is an exception. And it takes a great deal of ego to play greatly."
"I suppose so. So World Business Machines is responsible for this tournament?"
"Correct. Their advertising department is interested in the prestige. They want to score a point over their great rival."
"But if the Machine plays badly it will be a black eye for them," Sandra pointed out.
"True," Doc agreed thoughtfully. "WBM must feel very sure.... It's the prize money they've put up, of course, that's brought the world's greatest players here. Otherwise half of them would be holding off in the best temperamental-artist style. For chess players the prize money is fabulous—$35,000, with $15,000 for first place, and all expenses paid for all players. There's never been anything like it. Soviet Russia is the only country that has ever supported and rewarded her best chess players at all adequately. I think the Russian players are here because UNESCO and FIDE (that's Federation Internationale des Echecs—the international chess organization) are also backing the tournament. And perhaps because the Kremlin is hungry for a little prestige now that its space program is sagging."
"But if a Russian doesn't take first place it will be a black eye for them."
Doc frowned. "True, in a sense. They must feel very sure.... Here they are now."

Four men were crossing the center of the hall, which was clearing, toward the tables at the other end. Doubtless they just happened to be going two by two in close formation, but it gave Sandra the feeling of a phalanx.
"The first two are Lysmov and Votbinnik," Doc told her. "It isn't often that you see the current champion of the world—Votbinnik—and an ex-champion arm in arm. There are two other persons in the tournament who have held that honor—Jal and Vanderhoef the director, way back."
"Will whoever wins this tournament become champion?"
"Oh no. That's decided by two-player matches—a very long business—after elimination tournaments between leading contenders. This tournament is a round robin: each player plays one game with every other player. That means nine rounds."
"Anyway there are an awful lot of Russians in the tournament," Sandra said, consulting her program. "Four out of ten have USSR after them. And Bela Grabo, Hungary—that's a satellite. And Sherevsky and Krakatower are Russian-sounding names."
"The proportion of Soviet to American entries in the tournament represents pretty fairly the general difference in playing strength between the two countries," Doc said judiciously. "Chess mastery moves from land to land with the years. Way back it was the Moslems and the Hindus and Persians. Then Italy and Spain. A little over a hundred years ago it was France and England. Then Germany, Austria and the New World. Now it's Russia—including of course the Russians who have run away from Russia. But don't think there aren't a lot of good Anglo-Saxon types who are masters of the first water. In fact, there are a lot of them here around us, though perhaps you don't think so. It's just that if you play a lot of chess you get to looking Russian. Once it probably made you look Italian. Do you see that short bald-headed man?"
"You mean the one facing the Machine and talking to Jandorf?"
"Yes. Now that's one with a lot of human interest. Moses Sherevsky. Been champion of the United States many times. A very strict Ortho............