If you have visited New Orleans or live there, you’ve probably seen Jude Acers (pronounced a-kers). He invariably wears a red beret and sets up his “World Chess Table” on Decatur Street near the Gazebo Cafe, a short walk from Cafe du Monde. He charges five dollars a game or into the thousands for more intensive lessons.
He returned to New Orleans in 1979 after a decade living in San Francisco and zigzagging the country on Greyhound buses. He gave chess exhibitions in malls, elementary schools, colleges and prisons, and a couple times got himself listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for simultaneous chess games by an individual. He sometimes hustled to keep himself fed.
Jude set a Guinness World Record for playing 117 people in simultaneous chess games on April 21, 1973 at the Lloyd Center Mall in Portland, Oregon. On July 2-3, 1976 Jude played 179 opponents at Mid Isle Plaza (Broadway Plaza) in Long Island, New York for another Guinness record
The béret as a thinking cap !
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