GG Demirtaş

Mehmet Demirtaş ran a games parlour in Beyoğlu for three decades, the kind of room where the tables stayed busy until the morning call. He was national tavla champion in his youth and made the rare crossing to elite standard play. He teaches the country's strongest juniors, and in Istanbul he is an institution.

He talks the whole match, tells the same stories in a better order each year, and treats every opponent as a guest at his table. It disguises something. He was on the old server too and thought it a poor substitute for a room with people in it. He still thinks so, and he signed on the first day, because what he wants is not another title but the sentence that names him the finest who ever played, which he will not get and cannot put down.