"Chess is a pretty intense game," she remarked to Dave.
He nodded. "It's a killer. I don't expect to live beyond forty myself."
"Thirty," Bill said.
"Twenty-five is enough time to be a meteor," said Judy.
Sandra thought to herself: the Unbeat Generation.
Next day Sherevsky played the Machine to a dead-level ending. Simon Great offered a draw for the Machine (over an unsuccessful interfering protest from Jandorf that this constituted making a move for the Machine) but Sherevsky refused and sealed his move.
"He wants to have it proved to him that the Machine can play end games," Dave commented to Sandra up in the stands. "I don't blame him."
At the beginning of today's session Sandra had noticed that Bill and Judy were following each game in a very new-looking book they shared jealously between them. Won't look new for long, Sandra had thought.
"That's the 'Bible' they got there," Dave had explained. "MCO-Modern Chess Openings. It lists all the best open-moves in chess, thousands and thousands of variations. That is, what masters think are the best moves. The moves that have won in the past, really. We chipped in together to buy the latest edition—the 13th—just hot off the press," he had finished proudly.