A collection of fictional stories about chess?

Question

I knew the librarian in a smallish town who was a chess player and so he curated a pretty good set of chess books. One was a collection of chess-themed fiction. I believe this story, from 1953, was in it:

http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Harness/Chessplayers.html

Also a short story called Von Goom's Gambit which was from 1966.

Both of the above originally appeared in scifi magazines which is why I think I read them in a book -- I did not read them in an old magazine.

The book therefore was printed no earlier than 1966 and I suspect was no newer than the mid 1970s.

There have been quite a few chess-themed science fiction or fantasy stories, and even some serious fiction like Nabokov but not so many stories that there could be much more than one such collection. I do think most of the stories in the book were fantasy (the two I listed were) but a third story called Slippery Elm about pre-chess-engine cheating was just humorous (that one was pretty old because the term "vitamin" had to be explained, I think).

The last story that may have been in the collection was called The Three Sailors' Gambit which I also may have encountered elsewhere since its author I think (Lord Dunsany) was pretty famous as a writer. (This story is about a chess "computer" more than a century ago.)

Answer 1

The book "The Chess Companion" (1968) by Irving Chernev contains two of the four stories mentioned in the question: "The Three Sailors Gambit" by Lord Dunsany (which is definitely fantasy), and "Slippery Elm" (which was written by Percival Wilde in 1924, and was reprinted from his collection "Rogues in Clover" 1928). The latter story is a humorous hard boiled detective story in which the antihero enables a man to cheat at chess by passing him the moves written on Slippery Elm pills — there are no science fiction elements in this story).

The story "Slippery Elm" does have a fictitious reference to vitamins. The story (it has 40 pages) revolves around the "Metropolitan Chess Club". It has a member, J. Hampton Hoogestraten, who is intensely annoying to the other members for his vile cigars, for his boasting and for his habit of picking games with weaker players in order to make money off them.

The membership would dearly love to seem him taken down a peg or two. Although the club has strong players who could beat him, it is considered an honour for the best players to even play you. They want Hoogestraten to be humiliated by losing to the weakest player (Reynolds) in the club (whom in actuality Hoogestraten can easily beat).

They hire the services of a detective who sets out to fix the chess match (despite knowing nothing at all about chess). Hoogestraten is easily convinced to challenge Reynolds. They then set out to put Hoogestraten off balance by spreading rumours that Reynolds is practising and starting to beat other players in the club.

"Study — concentrated study, that's how he does it," he explained. ... He doesn't leave the room for his meals: they're brought to his desk — and they consist of nothing but vitamins".

Had Hoogestraten possessed a sense of humor -- which he did not -- he would have seen through the conspiracy on the instance. Instead he inquired nervously, "Where can you get vitamins?"

"Imported from Scotland," answered O'Niell gravely, "they're small animals like squirrels - only furrier."

Ultimately the match goes ahead. In another room they have a Russian grand master, called Niemzo-Zborowski, who is playing along. The master determines the moves for Reynolds and they are passed to him on slippery elm tablets, which he claims he is eating to counter the effects of Hoogestraten's cigars.

After some initial confusion (Reynolds does not understand the Russian chess notation) Reynolds starts to win, but offers a draw when his victory is clear. Hoogestraten is told that he will now be moved to the bottom of the club's rankings since he challenged Reynolds and did not win. Rather than be published in the year book at the very bottom he resigns from the club.

So it is unlikely to be the right answer either, but between these two books you have all four of the stories that you mentioned.

Answer 2

Could this be Chess in Literature, edited by Marcello Truzzi?

It contains the three stories you've mentioned; Von Goom's Gambit, The Chessplayers and The Three Sailor's Gambit

You can borrow the book for free from Archive.org

Answer 3

The 1975 collection Chess in Literature has the three stories you mention.

Answer 4

I have an early hardback edition of "The Fireside Book of Chess" by Irving Chernev which contains quite a number of stories, although not all the ones mentioned. Some of the ones requested are too recent. It does contain "The Three Sailors Gambit" and a number of pieces of short humor, jokes, witty sayings and anecdotes, as well as interesting games and puzzles. One essay that I particularly remember is entirely alliterative, and begins, IIRC:

Cherished Chess! The charms of thy chequered chambers chain me changelessly!

The edition I have contains "The Royal Game" by Stefan Zweig, which I think was omitted from later editions. Since that book was published, there have been many other notable chess stories, such as "Unicorn Variation" by Roger Zelazny. I know of no single book that contains them all. I have not read "Slippery Elm" and did not know it existed. As M. A. Golding said in a comment, there are enough stories for several anthologies.