Maurice Ashley is an American. Maurice loves chess, women, dancing, and himself. Maurice also loves commentating on chess. But foremost Maurice loves money. If a grandmaster makes a great move, he calls it the ‘money move’. If the game is decided, Maurice shouts: ‘That’s money, baby!‘.

Maurice Ashley is an American. Maurice loves dollars. On the internet there’s a clip in which Maurice delivers a speech at an elementary school in one of America’s worst neighbourhoods. Maurice’s message: Passion is nice, but it’s primarily about the money. More than half of his story is about making money and about if one really wants to reach something, then that’s really possible if one tries hard enough, like Maurice. He reached the top and became rich, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of..

The chess player is a strange animal. You didn’t know that? Well, take a look around in the playing venue. Do you spot the guy in the sweater moving his head like a Tibetan monk? And there, a little further on, do you see that man with the gray moustache who is adjusting all his pieces after he moved one?

Everybody who plays chess at a certain level knows that al kind of tics, strange habits, and superstitions are regularly seen behind the board. Strange? Perhaps not, because there’s the prestige and rating points at stake. Adrenaline levels increase and at the same time players are expected to sit behind the board quietly.

Every year, as I walk into the tournament hall at the Chess Festival, the scene makes a strange impression on me. Playing chess below fluorescent lamps in a gym? Playing chess at a location where people normally run, scream, and sweat? Don’t chess tournaments belong in a club with oak-wooden tables, where serious men in three-piece suits ceremoniously play their moves while holding cigars?

‘Chess is everything: art, science, and sport,’ Anatoly Karpov said. Art, for sure. Every chess player who has won a game by a fierce mating attack, will consider his game a true piece of art, similar to a Jackson Pollock ‘action-painting’. The chess player who prefers to win a pawn in the middle game and eventually cash in in the late endgame will relate more to the 17th century Dutch masters. I can picture Karpov with a paintbrush in his hands, behind his easel. A little point here, a small stripe there…

The Chess Festival Groningen proudly presents Benno de Jongh as our daily columnist. De Jongh is a journalist and decent chess player, even though he has never reached a rating of 2000 - and probably never will. Despite that fact he is one of the world's leading experts on the Elephant Gambit and working on a book on the subject, (working title: The Elephant Gambit, A Rare Black Beast with a Proboscis on the Board, publication expected in 2032).

De Jongh will write columns on several chess-related topics, such as Alpha Zero, children in chess, eating behind the board, and Maurice Ashley. His columns will be straightforward, easy-to-read, sometimes sharp-edged, but will always end on a positive note. It's good to point out that De Jongh’s opinions on several chess- and non chess related items do not in any way reflect the policy of the organisation of the festival. The columns will be published daily at around 3 pm Central Groningen Time (CGT).