Free Players of Gor by John Norman Page A

was devastated. I do not even know how he did it. In fourteen moves he did it! In fourtenn moves he captured three pieces and it would have been capture of Home Stone on the next! Perhaps there were illegal moves. Perhaps I did not see everything he did!"
    "Try another game," encouraged the paunchy fellow, he who had been associated with the stage and who, it seemed, had an interest also in the kaissa booth. "Perhaps your luck will change!"
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    But the pulley-maker, almost reeling, made his way away, through the crowds.
    "Why did you do that?" asked the paunchy fellow of the man sitting behind the board.
    "he thought he knew how to play kaissa," said the man behind the board.
    "How much have you taken in tonight?" asked the paunchy fellow, angrily, pointing to the copper, lidded pot, with the coin slot cut in its top, chained shut, near the low kaissa table.
    The fellow behind the table began to move the pieces about on the board.
    The paunchy fellow seized up the pot. He shook it, assessing its contents. "Four, five tarsk bits?" he asked. Judging from the timing and the sounds of the coins bounding about inside the pot there was not much there.
    "Three," siad the fellow behind the board.
    "You could have carried him for at least twenty moves," siad the paunchy fellow. He replaced the copper coin pot, chained shut, beside the kaissa table.
    "I did not care to do so," said the fellow behind the board.
    Interestingly the man behind the board wore black robes and a hoodlike mask, alsso black, which covered his entire head. He did not wear the red-and-yellow-checked robes of the caste of players, he was not, thus, I assumed, of that caste. Had he been of the players he would doubtless have worn their robes. They are quite proud of their caste. His skills, howver, I conjectured, must be considerable. Apparently the arsenal champion, one of the best twenty or thirty players in Port Kar, had been not match for him. Perhaps he had engaged in illegal moves. That seemed more likely than the fact that he, a fellow like him, associated with actors and carnival folk, and such, could best the arsenal champion. It ws carnival time, of course. Perhaps the champion had been drdink.
    "If the game is not interesting for htem, if they do not htink they are really playing, seriously, they will not want a second or a thrid game," said the paunchy fellow. "We want them to come back! We want the board busy! That is how we are making the money!"
    The price for a game is usually something between a tarsk bit and and a copper tarsk. If the challenger wins or draws, the game is free. Someteimes a copper tarsk, or even a silver tarsk, is nailed to one of the poles of the booth. It goes to the challenger if he wins and the game is free, if he draws. This is because a skillful player, primarily by judicious exchanges and careful position play, can often bring about a draw. Less risk is involved in playing for a draw than a win, of course. Conservative players, ahead in tournament play, often adopt this stratagem, usuing it, often to the fury of the crowds and their opponents, to protect and nurse an established lead. A full point is scored for a win; in a draw each player obtains a half point.
    "you must manage to lose once in a while," said the paunchy fellow. "That will bring them back! That way, in the the long run, we will make much more money!"
    "I play to win," siad the fellow, looking at the board.
    "I do not know why I put up with you!" said the paunchy fellow. "You are only a roustabout and vagabond!"
    I noted the configuration of the pieces on the board. The hooded fellow had not begun from the opening position, arriving at the configuration after a series of moves. he had simply set the pieces up originally in that position. Something about the position seemed familiar. I suddenly realized, with a start, that I had seen it before. It was the position which would be arrived at on the seventeenth move of the Ubara's Gambit Declined, Yellow