In Chess War, Iranian Says He Beat Israeli

[Scott Tortorice]

A new record?

In Chess War, Iranian Says He Beat Israeli

To the intense rivalry between Israel and Iran add another facet: the game of chess.



In a literal game of one-upmanship, an Iranian grandmaster played 614 people simultaneously on Tuesday and Wednesday at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran in an attempt to break a world record set by an Israeli grandmaster last October.



According to a report in Agence France-Presse, the Iranian, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, 28, won 590 games, lost 8 and drew 16 in an exhibition that took 25 hours. The estimate is that he walked 34 miles over the course of the exhibition as he moved from opponent to opponent.

I found this an odd thing to say:

Mr. Maghami said after he finished playing Wednesday that he believes he set a new record. He also said it was irrelevant that he was trying to break a record held by an Israeli. “Iran is great and deserves the best,” he told Agence France-Presse “Let’s not talk politics. Even if this record was held by another person, I would have gone all out to break it.”

A bit of anti-Semitism, perhaps?