Reader's Digest New Zealand Feb/ Mar 2026

in any direction. But 1,000 years ago, she could go just a short distance diagonally. 9 In movies, chess can suggest that a character has intellect or depth. In Casablanca , Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick, is first shown studying a chess position. In Blazing Saddles , Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little get to know each other over a friendly game in the sheriff’s office. The James Bond film From Russia with Love includes a chess game, which was based on a real game from the 1960 USSR champion- ship tournament. In Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal , a medie- val knight plays chess against the character Death to save his life. 10 But in real life, despite their strategic skills, chess champions aren’t always known for their mental stability. Bobby Fischer slowly became paranoid after winning the world title in 1972. He even had a dentist remove all his fillings out of fear that his mouth could be used as a radio transmitter. Austrian star Wilhelm Steinitz, the world’s top player from 1866 to 1894, claimed he had played chess against God—and won. 11 Serious chess players can’t help speaking foreign languages. If you take a pawn after it has skipped over a square on its opening move, you are captur- ing it en passant (“in passing” in French). To move a bishop behind a certain pawn is called a fianchetto (from the Italian fianco , meaning “flank”). And a position where only bad moves can be played is called zugzwang ( zug means “pull” and zwang “force” in German). 12 While hotels and exhibition halls are typical tournament venues, the Prague Chess Train took players to see the sights in various central European cities. On board, between stops, they competed for prize money. This popular event hasn’t run since the pandemic, but it did inspire a similar concept in India called the Chess Houseboat, which cruises along the Arabian coast. 13 Computers are great at chess, since software engines can look ahead and generate billions (if not trillions) of possible positions. The land- mark victory for chess computers occurred in 1997 when IBM’s supercomputer, nick- named Deep Blue, defeated the reigning world champion, Gary Kasparov, who had beaten the computer just a year prior. reader ’ s digest 34   february/march 2026 |  readersdigest.co.nz Proudly made in Tīrau, New Zealand. Good nutrition is our mission 2025 F u n c t i o n a l S p o r t s B a r s n n l B