BILL KURTIS: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations and Lumber Liquidators, supporting rebuilding efforts in Aransas County, Texas, which was affected by Hurrican Harvey, providing materials, support and money to help rebuild public schools in the county. More at lumberliquidators.com. Newman's Own Foundation - working to nourish the common good by donating all profits from Newman's Own food products to charitable organizations that seek to make the world a better place. More information is available at newmansownfoundation.org. And Progressive Insurance - offering its HomeQuote Explorer so shoppers can evaluate options in one place when buying home insurance. Custom quotes and rates are available online. Learn more at progressive.com.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR News quiz. I'm Bill Kurtis. We're playing this week with Alonzo Bodden, Roxanne Roberts and Peter Grosz. And here again is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
(APPLAUSE)
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much. Right now it's time for the WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT to play our game on the air.
Hi. You are on WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.
MARC SINCAGE: Hi. My name is Marc.
SAGAL: Hello, Marc. Where are you calling from?
SINCAGE: Boston.
SAGAL: Boston. I love Boston. Where in Boston are you?
SINCAGE: Well, I volunteer at a Mass General right now.
SAGAL: Really?
SINCAGE: Yes.
SAGAL: You just - do they know you're there?
(LAUGHTER)
SINCAGE: Yes, I do. I have the pink smock and the photo ID. And they gave me a little information desk, and I have my shift. And I tell people where to go.
SAGAL: That is...
PETER GROSZ: That's great.
SAGAL: I - that's pretty great.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: We're not used to interacting with earnest people as...
SAGAL: I know. I feel - so we should just end the show now on a high note.
SINCAGE: Yeah. Well, I know you guys are kind of snarky, but I figured I'd go for it anyway.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, Marc, it is nice to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Marc's topic?
KURTIS: Checkmate yourself before you wreck mate yourself.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Chess, of course, is the ancient game in which queens move way more spaces than kings but still make 37 percent less on their paychecks.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: This week, we heard about a scandal in the world of chess. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you win the voice of anyone from our show on your voicemail that you might prefer. Are you ready to play, Marc?
SINCAGE: I am.
SAGAL: So first up, let's hear from Peter Grosz.
GROSZ: Organizers of the World Chess Championship taking place next year in London wanted to make a bold statement with the logo they designed for the event. They could've gone with something colorful or something eye catching or even something transformational. Instead, they went with something sexy. It's hard to describe the logo that they picked on the radio. And it's even harder to describe in a family-friendly show on NPR. But it's basically two faceless, black-and-white-pattern figures playing chess with their legs tangled together and their crotches engaged in a maneuver that could be best described as king's bishop to queen's castle.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: It's jarring, to say the least. Certain words just aren't supposed to go together like chess and sexy or Beyonce and mayonnaise.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSZ: People are openly laughing at it, said chess expert David Kramaley, and many fans agree. But anyone objecting to the logo is going to have to get used to it. According to a spokesman, this image will, quote, "find its way onto mugs, posters, outdoor displays, venue design, media, broadcasting graphics and more." So if you're in London next year, get ready for chess porn as far as the eye can see.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: A logo for a chess tournament raising eyebrows because it's rather blue. Your next story of chess gone wild comes from Roxanne Roberts.
ROXANNE ROBERTS: On paper, the charity chess match between the Australian and New Zealand national team sounded like a lot of fun. The competition took place on Sydney's Bondi Beach last weekend, where giant, plastic chess pieces were placed on a 24-foot-by-24-foot outdoor board. There were team costumes and cheerleaders in bikinis - remember, it's summer there - who chanted two, four, six, eight. We've got moves that you should check, mate.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: Rules dictated that players would drink a shot every time one of their pieces were captured. And each team did a touchdown-style checkmate dance with the winners shimmying across the chessboard and spiking the king in the sand.
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: When the World Chess Federation saw a video of Aussie grandmaster Ian Korthwhite (ph) wearing a foam bishop's hat and goosing a drag queen queen...
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERTS: ...Well, suffice to say, officials were not amused. The two teams have been suspended from international competition for two months - a punishment they're celebrating with a charity rematch on New Year's Day.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A match down under between Australia and New Zealand gets in trouble when they get a little too exuberant in their celebrations. Your last story of a pawn star comes from Alonzo Bodden.
ALONZO BODDEN: For the first time in the history of the Bleacher Report website, sports reporter Julian Lewis (ph) had to use the headline breaking chess news for a stunning story about a controversy at the U.S. Chess Championship in Boulder, Colo. Vlad Ajalla (ph), a 25-year-old chess champion from New York, has been accused of playing under the influence of marijuana, to which he responded, yeah. So?
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: As he pointed out, after a few digressions about how black fighting against white is kind of a metaphor for our times, you know, marijuana is legal in Colorado, and the U.S. Chess Federation has never banned it. Winston Feinstein (ph), head of the Chess Federation rules committee, says, quote, "we never listed marijuana as a performance-enhancing drug. We figured our game moves slow enough already."
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Eventually allowed to compete, Vlad's behavior became more and more erratic as the day went on. He let his clock run for four solid minutes while holding up a knight and asking, but where's the knight? Why don't we call it a horse?
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: And his last game was delayed a half hour until somebody found him happily playing hacky sack down in Boulder's Twenty Ninth Street Mall.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Despite his erratic behavior and skunky smell, he won every game easily and took home the Junior Master title. Other players are now considering trying a little weed before they play, but Vlad advises them to start small, maybe with a blunt and some checkers.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right. One of these is a true story of a scandal in the rather stead and dull world of chess. Was it from Peter Grosz, how a tournament in London has raised eyebrows with their incredibly sexual logo for the tournament? From Roxanne, how Australian and New Zealand teams got a little out of hand with their cheerleaders and checkmate celebrations? And from Alonzo Bodden, how a pothead managed to win a tournament in Colorado without seemingly breaking any rules? Which one is the real story from the world of chess?
SINCAGE: Well, I'm playing under the influence myself, but...
SAGAL: Well, of course.
(LAUGHTER)
SINCAGE: ...But I'm going to have to go with Roxanne.
SAGAL: You're going to go with Roxanne's story of the Australian and New Zealand national teams getting a little too rambunctious in their national chess match. Is that your choice?
SINCAGE: That is my choice.
SAGAL: All right. Well, we spoke to a journalist covering this important story.
LUKE KERR-DINEEN: The World Chess Championship spent a year trying to look for a logo. And what they came back with was a Kama Sutra-inspired pose.
SAGAL: That was Luke Kerr-Dineen. He's a reporter at USA Today talking about the controversial logo of the World Chess Championships in London, as you have no doubt figured out. In fact, it was Peter who was telling the truth. However, you can add your name to the long list of men beguiled by Roxanne.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: There's no shame in it. There's no shame whatsoever.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: So she - you have helped her win a point, but, sadly, you did not win our prize. Thank you so much for playing. And thank you for the good work that you do.
SINCAGE: Thank you so much for your time.
SAGAL: Thank you. Bye-bye.
SINCAGE: Bye now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GAME CALLED LOVE")
THE ORIGINALS: (Singing) So tell me - do you want to play this game called love? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.