(a.k.a. The Illuminated History of DCT)


Ryan tells me that lots of you people try to weasel your way out of playing in his DCT by claiming you're bad at chess. You evidently think this is an acceptable reason and that being unable to mate your way out of a wet paper sack somehow entitles you to a life on the sidelines of this great drunken tournament we call life. Well, I have news for you bucko: you're dead wrong.

DCT isn't about winning. If it was about winning, I would have bribed and/or killed the judges and won DCT 2. In fact, I would have also retroactively made myself champion of DCT 1 and therefore been able to call myself the "Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of Chess. Oh, and drinking. And also chess while drinking." Luckily for everyone I realize what DCT is really about. It's about drinking booze. You see, chess and booze have a long history.

It all started back in Atlantis. The king of Atlantis enjoyed spending an afternoon getting pissed as much as any modern man does. The problem was that the king of Atlantis was an erudite and cultured man. He was tired of getting plastered on shark fin mead (They drank that in Atlantis. It's in Plato, serious.) while he got his knob polished by some nubile young fish-woman. He needed something more intellectually stimulating to do while drinking. First he tried science. That worked for awhile. It was, in fact, during one of these cephallosylium metheglin and fellatio orgies that the Atlantean king invented the nuclear weapons that we now know to be the downfall of civilization on Atlantis. Anyway, I digress. It was in an attempt to find a fun way to while away a drunken afternoon that chess was invented. This was back in Atlantis. That means there is a 30,000 year tradition of drinking and playing chess.

The first serious revival of Drunken Chess was during the Crusades. Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted held the first modern Drunken Chess Tournament in 1192. Saladin was a devout Muslim. He was so bad at playing chess that Richard won the tournament handily and thus managed a treaty allowing Christians free access to Jerusalem for a period of 3 years. This was the start of a trend and Drunken Chess Tournaments became a wildly popular way to settle dispute in Europe during the middle ages. Their popularity is best reflected by the fact that they were denounced in 1378 by Pope Urban VI in 1378. (In a rare instance of concurrence Clement VII, the rival pope in Avignon, also decried the practice. He then excommunicated Urban for the 34th time. The favor was returned.)

After it's medieval heyday the DCT dropped out of favor with the masses. It was seen as a "gothic" artifact of a barbarous and dark medieval period. The enlightened classes of the renaissance were more inclined to while away their days playing Nasconda la Salsiccia and Sucez le Homme-Jus. The world would have to wait several centuries until a truly enlightened age rediscovered the joy and pleasure of Drunken Chess.

In 1616 a shadowy figure calling himself Christian Rosenkreutz published a book called "The Chymical Wedding." The appearance of this book shook the world and spawned the beginnings of the Rosicrucian movement. In 1623 another Rosenkreutz pamphlet was published, this one entitled "The Cymical Escheques." This shocking book revealed the ancient origin of Drunken Chess Tournaments and, despite being quickly suppressed by the increasingly powerful Puritan movement it had a lasting effect. It could even be argued that Drunken Chess made the modern world.

An offshoot of the Rosicrucian movement, the Freemasons were a natural candidate for the revival of the DCT. Their Templar heritage tied them to the history of Drunken Chess through it's popularity with medieval knighthood and the Rosicrucian connection further cemented that bond. On May 1 in 1776, Adam Weishaupt held the Industrial Age's very first Drunken Chess Tournament near Munich. This so terrified the Bavarian Government that Weishaupt was forced to flee Europe. He arrived in Virginia where he adopted the name George Washington and became involved in the struggle for American independence. It was during the period that Dr. Benjamin Franklin introduced the "Exhibition Round" wherein all the contestants played one game prior to the official start of the tournament. He argued that this preparation and additional alcohol would loosen the minds of the players and make for better sport. His optional feature caught on and became a standard part of the game during the Inaugural Ball of 1789. Shortly after the presidency of Andrew Jackson the game disappeared from the political and social landscape of the world.

It wasn't until May 25, 2002 that noted scholar and gentleman Ryan Patrick Macklin, Esq. brought Drunken Chess to the 20th Century. He'll be bringing it again on April 19, 2003. I hope you will be there and I hope you will play, confident, nay, proud of the fact that you are joining an ancient and honorable tradition. This is truly the Sport of Kings.