Nineteenth-century Russian princes could do things that only big-name Democrats and politically-approved scientists can do today. That is, cheat like mad and get away with it. Even in chess.
Enter Prince Dadian of Mingrelia, who published 38 games he played against some of the top players in the world, winning every single one of them. Modern chess historians smell a rat.
Dadian is believed to have composed chess games that were never actually played, or to have had them composed by others, and then published them as brilliant victories. Chess players in the 19th century, as a class, were usually short of money (“The fame I have. It’s money that I need!” said Wilhelm Steinitz). The prince helped them out, it is strongly suspected, by paying them to lose games to him–even going so far as to write their moves for them in advance. He would also pull strings–again, not proved, but very strongly suspected–to have uncooperative chess stars kicked out of resorts like Monte Carlo.
He would fit right in today. He’d probably be hawking Climate Change instead of chess; there’s more money in it. Or else he’d be president of a teachers’ union.
We didn’t invent cheating in our era. We just made it more lucrative.
I can never understand someone that takes pride in having cheated their way to victory.
Their pride — which is the truly diabolical kind — is precisely in the cheating. In other words, in their minds they’ve shown themselves to be smarter than everyone else because they’ve managed to trick everyone else.
That makes a lot of sense. They take pride in having beat the system. The fact that their actions are unfair to others probably never enters their thoughts.
Getting away with being unfair to others is proof of superiority. Ask any liberal.
Bullseye!
Yes, the scheat always rises to the top. (I meant the “s”cheat). Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?-Lec.
Ask a liberal.
Great question.
How about the Houston Astros? They won the 2017 world Series only to be found out later they had cheated by electronically stealing the other teams sign signals. At least they are paying the heaviest penalty possible for it.