From: atkinson VAXROM CERN CH Date: 6 sep 1991 Subject: Oh bloody hell Yesterday evening I decided to follow up one of my contacts from Castel Sant Angelo. A gentleman had asked me to visit his chess circle, where he was sure I would not be treated as I had been previously at Fonte Meravigliosa. I went there, and he was not present. The president was, though, so I told him how I had me Sig. X and that he had suggested etc. I said almost before saying anything else that (i) I was not selling these games and (ii) I was NOT saying they were better than chess. I was simply looking for people who might be interested in trying them. One of the members of the club got VERY angry at me, and started shouting. "No - we are not interested. Go away. We play serious games here. Hah! Who would ever sponsor tournaments for games like these?! They aren't recognised by CONI! They don't have "codified" rules!." (sorry, don't know the English word for "codificate". Suggestions?) I said that Shogi, Go, Xiang-Qi etc actually did have "codified" rules at least for tournaments in Japan, China etc, and that Japan Air Lines had even sponsored Go tournaments in Italy. He said "Oh no they didn't. There are no Olympiads or tournaments of these games." He went on ranting, and wandered around the circle saying in an enraged tone "Are you interested in 'Chinese Chess' or 'Japanese Chess'? No, of course not." and then returned. "There are 6 people in that room. I asked them if they are interested in Japanese Chess etc and they said no. So go away." Unusually, I attempted to be more diplomatic than I was at Castel Sant A. "Look here. I did not even think of attempting to organise tournaments for these games. I was merely looking for people who might want to play them. You clearly do not, but I can't see that you speak for the entire membership. If it makes you any happier, if I DO find people here who are interested I will take them elsewhere to play these games, to avoid polluting your chess circle." Oh yes, he had earlier said "In China? In Japan? We are in Italy, and here we play ITALIAN Chess." I permitted myself to say "Italian Chess. Oh yes?" Anyway, the president did apologise later on for this...incident. He asked me to come back when my contact returns from holiday. (It turns out he is a co-founder and is ALSO one of the people who pays a sizeable chunk of the rent on the apartment used as a chess club. The president feels that if this man saw fit to invite me the idea should at least be considered, but he wants to talk to Sig. X in person first.) I warned X that people would react like this maniac did, but he didn't believe me. Hmm. Is this ludicrously over-the-top behaviour found only in Italy, or do any of you lot have similar experiences? Chess players "not being interested" I can understand, but this kind of thing is absurd.