The 41 players who filed into Chess City's smoke-filled second-floor loft on Manhattan's Upper West Side last week ranged in age from six to 50. With the persistent chutzpah of the true chess buff, each one figured he was the equal of a grand master; and each one plunked down $25 for the right to trade gambits with Boris Spassky, the former world champion. The simultaneous matches quickly turned into a boisterous chess happening. Six-year-old Robert le Donne bounced in toting his schoolbag; another player brought along a sustaining bottle of borsch; a...
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