Anderssen once said to me: "To win a tournament, a competitor must in the first place play well, but he should also have a good amount of luck." I qu… - Caryl Chessman

I think my greatest usefulness lies in what I've had the opportunity to demonstrate -that the most "hopeless" criminal in existence can be salvaged; that he's worth salvaging, on both humanitarian and hard-headed social grounds. Retributive justice and the execution chamber aren't the answer. In seeking a solution to the crime problem, I believe that vision can and should be substituted for vengeance. I'm convinced that there is much that is narrow and negative and wrong in society's attitude toward and treatment of the man who is said to be at "war" with it, and who often is at war with himself.

You are not the first to be shocked and horrified by chess," he assured her. "It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them.

It is an abomination to play at chess, dice, or any other game, for if anything be staked it is gambling (maisir), which is expressly forbidden in the Qur'an; or if, on the other hand nothing be hazarded it is useless and vain. Besides, the Prophet has declared all the entertainment of a Muslim to be vain except three: the breaking in of his horse, the drawing of his bow, and playing and amusing himself with his wives. Several of the learned, however, deem the game at chess lawful as having a tendency to quicken the understanding. This is the opinion of ash-Shafi`i. If a man play at chess for a stake, it destroys the integrity of his character, but if he do not play for a stake, the integrity of his character is not affected.