Chess was the spine of my grandfather's life. As a boy
in Switzerland he won national tournaments. He continued
playing seriously at state levels after immigrating to the
United States. He loved to do flashy demonstration games
where he would pit himself against twenty challengers on
twenty boards arranged in a circle. He also played multiple
simultaneous "blindfolded games," in which his opponents
sat at boards in another room and moves were relayed to him
by go-betweens. When he called on the phone, he often opened
the conversation with a chess move, trying to lure you into
a speed game. He was quite a guy, and I miss him.