For some reason, the beret has been widely adopted by chess players. I remember visiting my father's chess club as a young boy and seeing all these men (they were all men) hunched over the chessboards in front of them, a beret on top of most heads. I found this picture of a beret wearing Ché Guevara, overlooking Mark Taimanov and Larry Evans at a game of chess.
Then of course, there is Jude Acers; famous master, chess writer and showman, record holder of having played the most opponents in a simultaneous exhibition and known as "The Man with the Red Beret".
In Bilbao meanwhile, oversized berets (or "Txapelduns") are handed out as prices at big international chess contests. Here, Bulgarian chess grandmaster Veselin Topalov, is fitted a txapeldun by the mayor of Bilbao in 2008.