Vegas, Chess, and Duchamp

Come the end of December, Vegas will be hosting the 14th North American Open Chess Tournament. For those who think this heady game not worth the time, the grand prize is $10,000. And now for a bad segue.

Surrealism and chess made a date in the desert when Marcel Duchamp spent some time at the Golden Nugget. Duchamp was a well-versed chess player who often incorporated the game's ideas and imagery into his work. Arts writer and influential gallery director Walter Hopps recounts his story of Duchamp in Vegas, taking his intuitive and apparently successful strategy to the roulette table. Duchamp may have been visiting Vegas during the time that other Surrealists were living and making art in Sedona, AZ.