"I've solved chess," said Preston in his high-pitched voice, grinning at me from across the board.
     "You've solved that problem you were working on? Good work." 
     I wasn't paying much attention to what Preston was saying. He had an annoying habit of talking during my move, especially when I was winning. As I was the more skilful player, the victor in most of our games, he spent a lot of our playing time chattering at me.
      "No, no," he persisted, "I've solved chess. I've solved the whole thing." 
     Our game was at a critical stage. We had made about fifteen moves each, and our pieces faced each other across the board, ready to engage. I knew my position was better, that if I took a little time I could find the move to make my advantage tell. I reluctantly looked up from the board. Preston was sitting there with his arms folded, smug as a china Buddha.
      "What do you mean, solved the whole thing?" 
      "Chess. It's over. Kaput. I've solved it."
      He was joking, of course. 
      "So you know how to win chess? Every game? Wow, Preston, that's really good. Now, if you'll just let me make my move..."
      "Don't believe me if you don't want," he shrugged. "I really don't care."
      I glanced up again. Preston was staring out the window. The afternoon light had caught his pasty skin and lent it a waxy glow. I bent back to the game. My move came to me in a flash, a tricky manoeuvre that would net me a whole piece. I pushed my king's pawn ahead a square. 
      "So how did this great insight come to you? In a dream?" 
      Preston raised his eyebrows suspiciously. 
      "That's right. How did you know? I dreamt the solution last night. I woke up and wrote it down, and put it in a safe place. I also committed it to memory." He tapped the side of his head with a fat finger. "It's in here. It's such a simple idea. Not obvious – simple. It's a funny feeling, Dickson. It's like having a great new miracle in your brain...but I guess you don't know what that feels like." 
      I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. I expected Preston to join in, to confess that it was another of his inane ploys designed to put me off my game. But he didn't. He just sat there, poker-faced, arms still folded. I stopped laughing.
      "Preston," I said levelly. "Chess doesn't have a solution, as such. You think if it did, the best players in the world wouldn't have come across it by now? And these days every computer company has a dozen whizzkids working on the programme that they hope will beat Kasparvic. Someone would have found it by now if it was there to be found." 
      In an awesome display of both attacking play and revenge, Grigor Kasparvic had recently won his world title back from the young Vlad Kramnov. Some had likened his brain to a massive computer. Preston lit a cigarette. 
      "Einstein's teachers thought he was dull and put him in the lowest class, did you know that?" he mused. "But he wasn't backward. He was bored. He was already so advanced that they had nothing to offer him. Come to think of it, I was pretty bored by school lessons too." 
      I laughed again, this time derisively. Preston ignored me. 
      "Energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Simple, isn't it? But not obvious. The solution to chess? It's that same sort of thing." 
      "You're not joking." 
      "Never been more serious." 
      "You think you could win this game off me?" 
      "No, not this game. You're about to go a piece up. Everything else being equal, no-one can win from a piece behind with correct play on both sides. You know that." 
      "So, what then?"
      Preston started to move the pieces back to their starting squares. "I resign this game, all right? I wasn't trying. But now, let's play again. First to five. I'll give you that last game as a head-start." 
      So we played, first to five. I had White three times and Black twice. Preston beat me all five times. Easily. I wouldn't have minded so much if he had even put on the pretence of trying, but he didn't. As soon as our first game started, he picked out a magazine from the rack beside the table and started to browse through it. He wouldn't bother looking at the position until it was his turn, and then, he would only glance at it for a second, give a short nod, make a move, and turn back to the article he was reading. The one thing about the whole debacle that I found remotely satisfying was that during all five games Preston didn't utter more than five words. Unfortunately for me, it was the same word, five times over. 
      "Checkmate," he said for the last time, lifting the knight away to discover a check from his rook. 

      "You've been taking lessons," I said. But I knew he hadn't. Preston was too tight to fork out for tuition.
      "Interesting thing," he said, tapping the magazine. "It says here that New Guinean highlanders can contract a degenerative brain disease due to their cannibalistic practices. So maybe there's something to this mad cow business after all." 
      "So what is it, Preston?" I asked. 
      "What's what?" He was all innocence. 
      "The solution. What is it?" 
      "Oh?" he smiled. "You think now that I might be telling the truth?" 
      "It's possible. Tell me the solution, then I can test it, see if it really does work." 
      "Oh, it works, Dickson, it works." He gazed out the window, but he was really looking into the future. "Ever dreamt of being a grandmaster?" 
      "Sure," I shrugged. "Every chess player better than a beginner thinks of it from time to time."  
      "Yes, they do, don't they?" said Preston, giving me an odd look.    

SOLD OUT