Legend has it that Duchamp denounced and abandoned painting in 1923, and chose to spend his time playing chess instead.   In the 02-27-11 post on marcelduchamp.net, we saw how Scott Kildall, computer programmer and chess enthusiast, created a user friendly game that allows players to compete against Duchamp, or rather a computer algorithm of Duchamp’s strategies and errors. 

Chessgames.com, an online community and chess database, recently catalogued move by move the game between Duchamp and Karel Skalicka at the Prague Olympiad of 1931.  The site has a collection of 68 games of Duchamp, beginning in 1922.  Duchamp began ordinarily at the Prague game, hauling pawns to d4 and c4, and taking out both Knights at the outset.  At move 16, Duchamp made a grave blunder when he exposed and effectively lost his pawn inanely to Skalicka’s bishop.  Duchamp tried to salvage the remainder of the game but seemed to have lost momentum thereafter; he was defeated at 36.  Dr. Skalica went on to win the individual gold medal.