There were signs featuring largely mysterious combinations of letters: FIDE, WBM, USCF, USSF, USSR and UNESCO. Sandra felt fairly sure about the last three.
The many clocks, bedside table size, would have struck a familiar note except that they had little red flags and wheels sprinkled over their faces and they were all in pairs, two clocks to a case. That Siamese-twin clocks should be essential to a chess tournament struck Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance.
Her last assignment had been to interview the pilot pair riding the first American manned circum-lunar satellite—and the five alternate pairs who hadn't made the flight. This tournament hall seemed to Sandra much further out of the world.
Overheard scraps of conversation in reasonably intelligible English were not particularly helpful. Samples:
"They say the Machine has been programmed to play nothing but pure Barcza System and Indian Defenses—and the Dragon Formation if anyone pushes the King Pawn."
"Hah! In that case...."
"The Russians have come with ten trunkfuls of prepared variations and they'll gang up on the Machine at adjournments. What can one New Jersey computer do against four Russian grandmasters?"
"I heard the Russians have been programmed—with hypnotic cramming and somno-briefing. Votbinnik had a nervous breakdown."
"Why, the Machine hasn't even a Haupturnier or an intercollegiate won. It'll over its head be playing."