I am a fanatical woodpusher, and I've devoted a staggering number of hours not just to playing chess but also to reading and writing about the game. A few months ago I stumbled on a curious report on ChessBase.com that the 19-year-old Norwegian phenom Magnus Carlsen, currently ranked No. 1 in the world, had recently been found to be related to Matt Damon. The actor's mother had seen a picture of Carlsen and noted the physical resemblance to her son, 20 years his senior. A little genealogical investigation proved that the two men were second cousins who had never met. ChessBase posted a series of paired photographs of Carlsen and Damon in which their facial features and gestures were remarkably similar. The report concluded by saying that Damon had invited Carlsen "to visit him on the set of his next film about a shogi champion [shogi being a Japanese version of chess] who inspires a nation to put aside its differences and unite in celebration of his sport." I'm a fan of Carlsen's, and I e-mailed the story to a few fellow chess nuts. The only problem was that the story wasn't true-I hadn't noticed the April 1 dateline.
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