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By Lieutenant Wisteria. 

As Supreme Commander of the Spectrum Organisation, Colonel White has limited time in which to pursue an energetic hobby.  But when he does have a few hours to spare, he spends them as one might expect him to do.  He plays chess.

When he was 18, he won the Anglo-Russian Chess Championship – the game lasted forty hours!  At the age of 20, he tackled 60 opponents simultaneously.  He won 52 games and drew eight.  Altogether the games lasted over 10 hours.

“Chess is like Spectrum’s continual battle with the Mysterons,” Colonel White commented wryly.  “We reach ‘check’ on one side each time the Mysterons and Spectrum go into battle. But one day, I hope, there will be a ‘check-mate’ – and the Mysteron threat will be eliminated.

Often the Colonel plays chess with Rhapsody Angel.

“He’s a marvellous partner,” said the English Angel Pilot.  “And I love to play him – although I nearly always lose.  Colonel White makes the game so interesting.”

Besides being a champion chess player, Colonel White is also an amateur scientist.  Several years ago, he combined his love of chess with science.  He invented a Chess Computer, enabling a maximum of seven games to be played at once.  Each board of 32 chessmen is relayed on a wall video-screen above the computer, which is programmed with the intelligence of ten men.

All the computer’s opponent has to do is simply press buttons corresponding to the pieces he wishes to move.  Not more than one minute later, the machine makes its move on a separate panel.

“I have only beaten the Chess Computer seventeen times,” said the Colonel, “and I have played at least two-hundred games against it!”

But with a mind behind the Spectrum Organisation that can win a chess game with a computer, the Mysterons are faced with a formidable opponent.