It takes a moment to grasp what I am watching. A cluster of bodies underwater, each pair on opposite sides of a chessboard which sits at the bottom of the pool. They float horizontally and peer down at the board through their goggles. The player to move presses upwards repeatedly with his palms, as if hyping up an imaginary crowd, but actually resisting the buoyancy that would return him to the surface. He reaches down, makes his move, and rises to the surface to take a breath. The pieces are magnetic, lest they float away, and the captured pieces are discarded in a small metal tray.
This is the world championship of Diving Chess, held last month in Tarnowo Podgórne, in Poland. Paulius Pultinevicius, a 24-year-old Lithuanian grandmaster, is its new champion thanks to a crucial win against Indian grandmaster Harshit Raja (see below). The quirky event has been taking place for 14 years, with a slowly growing following, though the concept has even older roots. On his ‘Chess Notes’ website, the historian Edward Winter records the announcement by John E. Almond of San Francisco of the ‘very first world under-water chess championship’, published in CHESS magazine in September 1958.
It seems plausible that the ongoing tradition of playing chess at the Széchenyi Bath in Budapest may date back even further, since it was built in 1913. But there, in keeping with the ambience, games are conducted at a more languid pace. Nobody is fighting buoyancy. The iconic photos show suntanned gentlemen convening for leisurely games, standing chest deep in the water with their boards set atop a stone table, while the water steams gently in the background.
