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Why Chess, Swords, and Beer Do Not Mix

By jrosenhouse on February 6, 2009.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

An evening that started with two friends playing chess and drinking beers ended with one man stabbed to death and another booked on murder charges Tuesday, Alameda police said.

Kelly Scott Kjersem, a 40-year-old Alameda man, arrived earlier in the evening at 1220 Park Avenue with a 12-pack of beer, police Lt. Bill Scott said.

Kjersem was visiting the home of his friend, Joseph W. Groom, 62, to drink and play chess. The two men played and drank for some time, and later a female friend of Groom's arrived and began cooking dinner for the two men.

While she was in the kitchen, she heard an argument break out between the two men, Scott said. She didn't know what it was about, but found the two men had started wrestling.

Groom stopped and retreated to his bedroom, Scott said. When he returned, he was brandishing a sword more than 2 feet long. Police said the sword was made in Pakistan.

That last sentence seems like an odd detail to include.

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At first I thought this was going to be about some strange underground variation of chess boxing. Having read it though, I have to wonder if the argument was about the chess game or if it's just a coincidence that they were playing chess when an argument about something else broke out.

Police said the chess set was made in China.

In addition to this, the discovered that the man's shirt made in Bangladesh, and his trousers in Thailand. When questioned, the police admitted that they were able to deduce that the underwear was made in India, but was purchased in a small outlet mall in northern Michigan. They are still trying to determine where his socks and shoes were manufactured.

Well, to be fair, you can't express yourself fully in chess without a bladed instrument. I recall, from growing up in Phoenix Arizona, the local swap meet having all manner of random knives, swords, and other such items. Every last one was incredibly cheap, in every sense, and had Made In Pakistan stamped boldly near the handle/hilt/rat skull. I can see where, were someone not familiar with such things, that detail would stand out in your mind when asked about it. I know when I first saw it on a bootknife that I may or may not have owned it struck me as really odd. I envisioned a massive factory where you put tin cans in one end and crappy blades fell out the other into a vat of oil, so as to prevent the rust surprise from going off too soon.

Yes, many cheap, bargain-bin, swapmeet, Home Shopping Network knives and swords do have "MADE IN PAKISTAN" emblazoned all over them. Since they often don't have any sort of brand name, this is probably the next best way to describe them.

And completely OT, but this whole post just reminded of an old failblog video from the Home Shopping Network where a guy was whacking a samurai sword against a table to demonstrate what "strength" and "high quality" it had, until the blade snapped off and comically hara-kiri-ed him. I know, it has nothing to do with anything here, but I felt like sharing it.

If you drink, don't castle.

Lol @ Umlud.

Maybe they were trying to say it was a scimitar or a Sikh Khanda or something.

Chess is obviously a gateway to violence and we are teaching it to kids in school.

Think of the children!!!!!1

Ah, the little-known Alcoholic Variation on the Queen's Knight's Gambit. . . .

I would have called it the "Drunken Terrorist-Sympathizing America-Hater Stab Variation", but I suppose yours works too...

we'll i am no scientist, physicist etc. I am a writer, a fantasy writer. I have studied different religions and i studied some facts about multiverse theory