chess trivia question

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  • chess trivia question

    Which former Canadian prime minister played blindfold chess?

  • #2
    Re: chess trivia question

    Originally posted by Hans Jung View Post
    Which former Canadian prime minister played blindfold chess?
    Pierre Elliott Trudeau

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    • #3
      Re: chess trivia question

      Originally posted by Emil Smilovici View Post
      Pierre Elliott Trudeau
      According to a story by Roger Lemelin, published in his newspaper, La Presse, Trudeau disliked chess and all it stood for. He learned how to play chess because it was a condition of Lemelin sharing oranges with him on a press junket to the Soviet Union. Lemelin played chess with the rooskies, who shared their rare fruit with him. Trudeau then went to Lemelin with the need to feed.

      If PET then went on to play Blindfold Chess, I would call that a turnaround indeed. The redemptive powers of chess!

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      • #4
        Re: chess trivia question

        I'll guess Laurier. If it's not Laurier, then I'll guess Jack Johnson.
        "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
        "Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
        "If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey

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        • #5
          Re: chess trivia question

          There aren't any trick questions on Millionaire, but this is not ... so I can't take the $500,000 and go home. I'm going to guess Bernard Lord, former premier (prime minister) of New Brunswick. If it's not a trick question, and not remembering if any PMs were chess players, I'll guess Arthur Meighen.

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          • #6
            Re: chess trivia question

            How about Kim Campbell? After all she was once married to a well-known chess player (Nathan Divinsky).

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            • #7
              Re: chess trivia question

              you can find the solution by searching "prime minister" "blindfold chess"
              everytime it hurts, it hurts just like the first (and then you cry till there's no more tears)

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              • #8
                Re: chess trivia question

                Originally posted by ben daswani View Post
                you can find the solution by searching "prime minister" "blindfold chess"
                Thanks, Ben. I see. They referenced Lemelin's biographer, but Lemelin wrote about the experience himself, in La Presse, at least one level closer to a primary source. Of course, my French is far from perfect, and it was some decades ago, but I hope I would have remembered aveugle as well from that memorable tale. I wonder if I left the clipping among the CFC papers, and whether any of those papers still exist, shy of recycled.

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                • #9
                  Re: chess trivia question

                  I was astonished when I found out Pierre Trudeau had played blindfold chess - in all my researches and readings about blindfold chess I missed that. I was also under the impression that Trudeau disliked chess. Apparently Andy Soltis wrote about the great story of Trudeau and Lemelin playing blindfold chess for July's US Chess Life which can be found at the USCF site or www.blindfoldchess.net. That may not be the only answer to the chess trivia question I posted - others may come to light but that story about Trudeau and Lemelin astonished me. Two further questions - does any one know if Roger Lemelin was a tournament player - did he have a rating? - and were the scores of the two games written down anywhere? (they split - one win-oneloss)!?

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                  • #10
                    Re: chess trivia question

                    I always thought Trudeau ran our economy while wearing a blindfold.
                    Gary Ruben
                    CC - IA and SIM

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                    • #11
                      Re: chess trivia question

                      http://www.canadianchess.info/articl...sletter4S.html

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