> Of all the sports, I would have thought chess would be much less prone to politics because chess players are almost free agents.
Are you at all aware of the history of chess?!?
Are you at all aware of the history of chess?!?
For example, they would try harder to beat strong non-Soviet players than to beat strong Soviet players, would throw away games to give a Soviet player more points, would offer a draw very soon to give a Soviet player time to rest/prepare for theirnext matig, etc.
There’s also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1948#...