[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

BGonline.org Forums

OT- Slate article about Lester (scrabble)

Posted By: Robert Wachtel
Date: Friday, 24 June 2016, at 4:02 a.m.

In Response To: OT- Slate article about Lester (scrabble) (Bill Finneran)

As a young chess player, I spent a lot of my youth at the Flea House. I lived in New Jersey and would come up to NYC on the bus and stay overnight, playing the hustlers. I do remember Tiger, and two hustlers named Boris and Jack, who would babble incessantly and blow smoke on me for hours while we played five-minute games for $5 per. But there was one amazing character whose name I have forgotten who is not mentioned in the article. He had long white hair down his back that had faded to yellow, like an ancient rock star; long-fingered artistic hands that were absolutely yellowed as well by the cigarette he chain-smoked, dangling it over the board as he played. The ash on the the ciggie would get longer and longer till it finally fell on the board, but there was no time to clean up: we were playing speed chess, after all. After a speed game, the board looked like a volcano had spewed on it.

Among the higher-level hustlers were Asa Hoffman, Mike Valvo, Larry Gilden and the late great Steve Brandwein. Bernard Zuckerman, aka Zuckerbook, was the resident theory-guru; and even when Bobby Fischer stopped by, which he did occasionally, Zuck would show him the latest wrinkle in a line that had just been tested in an obscure tournament in Romania the day before.

I played Scrabble there for money, but I was not "booked up." One time, when I was playing 8-time US chess champ (we were both just teenagers though) Walter Browne, he confidently made the word "grice." Since Browne was functionally illiterate (he never uttered a sentence of more than five words at a time), I figured I had him nailed. I challenged; but not only was that a word -- he knew what it meant! "What's a matta mistuh," he grunted, "don't you like roast pork?" Which is what 'grice' is all about. It's an archaic Scottish-English word for a suckling pig. It's a Scrabble word, so of course Browne knew it. That was how you made money at the Flea House.

Messages In This Thread

 

Post Response
Your Name:
Your E-Mail Address:
Subject:
Message:

If necessary, enter your password below:

Password:
 

 

[ View Thread ] [ Post Response ] [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ]

BGonline.org Forums is maintained by Stick with WebBBS 5.12.