Idiot's Mate

A chess tournament is held on the Moon — but instead of pieces, the game uses people in spacesuits, who wield guns with explosive bullets.

"Idiot's Mate" was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story of 1968.^[1]

Galactic Journey found it to be "a bit overwritten, but capably so," and noted that it "moves fast".^[2]

Mike Ashley has assessed it as "almost certainly" the most popular story published in Amazing Stories under the editorial tenure of Harry Harrison.^[3]