I run into a lot of articles like this and they usually involve Peyton Manning. I wonder if he really does play chess.

Can the Saints pull off a checkmate?

When it comes to the NFL chess match, there’s no better player than Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, and that’s something Jonathan Vilma knows all too well.

Vilma, the middle linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, is preparing for a mental and physical chess match with Manning on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV. The two will spend the day within 10 yards of each other, with Vilma making all the defensive calls and adjustments just the way Manning does on the other side of the ball.

If you like the chess analogy and football it’s worth a read.

Chess match between Super Bowl MVPs will certainly be full of chatter.

Peyton Manning will spend Saturday night doing his usual work, barking instructions at the line of scrimmage.

Ray Lewis will try to match Manning word for word, jab for jab, audible for audible. Their teammates have been through enough of these rounds to know it will be the most entertaining, and loudest, chess match of the divisional-round weekend. It’s Peyton versus Ray, The Sequel.

“It can get pretty chaotic out there,” Colts left tackle Charlie Johnson said with a laugh, reflecting on other times he’s been in the crossfire. “They’ve played against each other so many times that Peyton will make a check and then Ray will make a check and then Peyton will make another check. In a way, it’s kind of fun to listen to.”

Read the rest of it. It’s kinda fun. If you like football you’ll enjoy it.

courtesy of ChessVideos.TV

The chess match between the Pope and the Archbishop

That was a fascinating (and shrewd) move Pope Benedict XVI made last week, when he invited disaffected Anglicans into the fold. Clearly, it caught the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, by surprise. And it displeased many Anglicans, who regarded it as poaching ….. In short, the chess match is far from over. Ideas and influences from these two sister churches have always traveled both ways.

Chess “tricks kids into better study habits”

Attorney and author Philip Margolin has started a program that encourages kids to play chess and in doing so they learn study skills.

Margolin revealed to the Rotary group that his own study skills in his youth were terrible, and he didn’t start to get good grades until he himself started playing chess. Today, he said, kids have short attention spans and often have low self esteem — especially in the Title I schools on which the program concentrates. Learning and playing chess addresses both problems successfully for the 40+ students participating in each school. The program is open to all students in each school in grades 1 through 8.

Very cool.

Raven training combatives: ‘It’s chess, not checkers’

At McGuire Air Force Base they teach defense in the skies. It’s chess not checkers

3/2/2009 - FORT DIX, N.J. — “Space is opportunity. It’s chess, not checkers,” said Tech. Sgt. Rudolph Stuart while instructing students in ground-fighting skills, or combatives, on Feb. 16.

Sergeant Stuart, combatives instructor with the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center’s 421st Combat Training Squadron here, uses those words to tell his students in the Air Force Phoenix Raven Training Course to be ready when an aggressor leaves an opening for a possible take-down. “It’s looking for an open space, and then determining the right move to establish a ‘checkmate,’ like in chess,” he said.

Our hats go off to those who put their own lives on the line to protect our country.

“It’s like playing the world’s slowest game of chess”

For the sailing fans out there here’s a article describing a multi-day competition.

News from Puma, Day 18 leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race. Skipper Ken Read says he sounds like a broken record and that Puma is playing the world’s slowest ever game of chess, while rick Deppe has ‘fush and chips’ on his mind.

For my vote, nothing is slower and boring than cricket