Sport: Air-Mail Chess

As it has for three centuries, the little Bierstube known as Bauern-Lola still echoes to the drinking songs of the burghers of Kronach (pop. 10,000), in Bavaria. Except on Wednesday nights. Then the town's 70-year-old chess club takes over, and antlered deer heads brood silently from the walls. In recent years. Kronach's players got tired of each other's familiar tactics. West and away, across the Atlantic, they decided, there must be the kind of competition that would put the old spirit back into Kronach's club.

Thanks to a Hungarian D.P. who had stopped by for a few games at the Bauern-Lola before...