For an opening gambit, I decide to dump convention, and instead go straight for the jugular. 'So, is chess really a sport?' No niceties, no small talk. Wham! This would certainly unsettle my adversary. It was a clever move, or so I thought. But not for a lack of aplomb is Nigel Short a grandmaster.
'If it isn't a sport, how come chess is in the Asian Games in Doha this December?' he counters confidently with a lop-sided grin that somewhat softens the underlying criticism at my query.
Oops. Short, widely regarded as one of the greatest British chess players of the 20th century, had taken the high ground with that one-liner. Yes, chess will be among the 40-odd medal sports that will be featured at the 15th Asian Games at the end of the year. It is one of the first occasions that a multi-sports games will have included chess.
'This is a step forward. Having chess at the Asian Games is a shot in the arm for the sport,' says the 41-year-old Lancashire-born Short. Needless to say, he stresses 'sport'.
A chess prodigy, who first attracted the attention of the British media as a 10-year-old when he defeated former Soviet grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi in a simulataneous exhibition in 1975, Short was in Hong Kong this week on a mission to save chess from obscurity.
Short was accompanying Dutchman Bessel Kok, who is bidding for the position of president of Fide - the World Chess Federation. Having been through a swing of African nations, the pair arrived in Hong Kong to lobby for votes for the presidential election in Turin, Italy, on June 2.
