Victor Sheely again comes up with the goods – he sent me this link to a handful of Napoleon’s chess games. I just played through this game between Napoleon and Bertrand on St Helena in 1820 and it’s a SHOCKER. I’d always heard that Napoleon wasn’t a very good chess player but, seriously, my kids would have kicked his ass if he played like this. And they are only 8. Mind you, as we discussed on the show, Napoleon was probably riddled with arsenic at this stage so I guess I should cut him some credit. 🙂
I played through the game against Madame de Remusat, and it was pretty poor on both sides. Since Napoleon’s record on these four games is 2-2, his opponents cannot have been very good either.
Some of the games are on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTe3stVhsgw