>>>Sure, it is often discussed in 'my circle'. The consensus is that specific conditions of Russian life (in Soviet days) pushed talented people to excel in chess because they could not excel in traditional careers (the latter were not available).
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>>Probably naive questions from your POV but I have two sincere ones: Do you mean Jewish, and have most of the Russian world champions been Jewish? I honestly don't know.
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>>I know Bobby Fischer was Jewish. Now there was one of the most troubled men who ever walked the earth.
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>In the former Soviet Union chess has much more publicity than here in US. There were special chess magizines, lots of books, public seances, etc.
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>And I remember how popular was match between Karpov and Kasparov...
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>Here I don't remember either hearing chess mentioned in the News.

It used to be covered a lot more when there were heroic champions (for lack of a better phrase). Who even knows who the champion is now? Kasparov vs. Karpov was a riveting rivalry. Too bad Saul Bellow was too old by then to write about it.