 What is the significance of the players’ names?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The large hall was crammed with energetic dark-suited men of whom a disproportionately large number were bald, wore glasses, were faintly untidy and indefinably shabby, had Slavic or Scandinavian features, and talked foreign languages. Chess sets were everywhere—big ones on tables, still bigger diagram-type electric ones on walls, small peg-in sets dragged from side pockets and manipulated rapidly as part of the conversational ritual and still smaller folding sets in which the pieces were the tiny magnetized disks used for playing in free-fall. There were signs featuring largely mysterious combinations of letters: FIDE, WBM, USCF, USSF, USSR and UNESCO. 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. 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. 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." In that case...." "The Russians have come with ten trunkfuls of prepared variations and they'll gang up on the Machine at adjournments. "I heard the Russians have been programmed—with hypnotic cramming and somno-briefing. "Why, the Machine hasn't even a Haupturnier or an intercollegiate won. "Have you studied the scores of the match between Moon Base and Circum-Terra?" Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess—a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers at the Space Mirror , but that now had begun to weigh on her. But in sharp contrast to the somberly clad men around them, he was wearing a pearl-gray suit of almost exactly the same shade as Sandra's—a circumstance that created for her the illusion that they were fellow conspirators. "It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics—or else it creates them. "You know nothing whatsoever of chess—so you will be able to write about it understandably for your readers."
 The players’ names correspond with what country has the most chess mastery, with Russian names hold the utmost interest.
 The players’ names correspond with which countries won World War II  The players’ names represent how chess rivals reflect political rivals.  The players’ names signify the level of competence each chess master has, with American names being the most competent.  The players’ names correspond with what country has the most chess mastery, with Russian names hold the utmost interest.