GG Khaled

Mehdi Khaled cut hair in the same quarter of Tunis for fifty years and holds the corner table at his café. His checker play is superb and his hands are still steady. He is also perfectly aware of what his age does to people: younger opponents move before he has finished looking, and he has stopped pretending that is an accident. He takes as long as he likes, every time, and lets them get ahead of themselves. He is beloved in that café for entirely separate reasons, and at eighty-three he is still the man to beat in the neighbourhood. DMP suits him for the same reason. A hurried player has one game in which to be hurried, and nothing to double with when it goes wrong.