Richard Dawkings in his stunning book "The Selfish Gene" showed that ideas are sometimes amazingly similar to living organisms and may even follow the same laws of Evolution and replicate themselves when they can.

Ideas even clash directly with each other in a "Survival of the Fittest". Dawkins called these ideas that act like living beings "memes".

Chess being a pure battle of ideas these concepts have already been shown to have merit.

How is the age of Genetic Engineering affecting our beautiful game ? How are chess memes proliferating ?

First let's look at history's most stunning case of gene or meme replication applied to chess.

It was the 1955 Interzonal at Gothen burg and the Russians faced the Argentinian trio of Panno, Pilnik and Najdorf. Geller, Keres and Spassky each playing with the same colour ( white ) ended up in exactly the same position in the same round of the same event.

The Argentinians had prepared jointly for the encounter and found a very aggressive line to ambush their foes. Unfortunately their mental gene proved to be "recessive" as the opening theorist Geller, playing Panno, was able to rise to the occasion and led his compatriots to find the stunning refutation 11.Nxe6 and the key follow up shot 13. Bb5 !

The stunning debacle ( three strong Grandmasters hoist by their own petard ) led to the lack of popularity of this credible line and cemented the reputation of Russia as the super powers in chess.

Bobby Fischer, the man who would later challenge, single handedly, the Russian Empire of Chess, noted the significance of these games and actually used the Gothenburg variation to obtain a quick draw against Gligoric to become a Grandmaster.

This then is the process . Chess ideas like genes ( or germs ) are carried by chessplayers into battle and the winners reap the selfish spoils of immortality or at least a point on the scoreboard. Their fame ( and the chess meme ) spreads quickly worldwide. The meme-carriers name is able to thus live on forever, at times associated with , or even given to the meme he carried. For instance Najdorf who lost in Gothenburg to Keres in merely 31 moves is immortalized by the popular Sicilian variation bearing his name.

On occasion a gene which appeared weak is able to be tweaked in the lab and made suitable for battle yet again. As the meme scientist Fischer proved with the Gothenburg Variation and other lines.

The internet makes the spread of chess memes unstoppable as a winning idea can reach around the world instantly. Sites, such as The Week in Chess, try to help memetic technicians of the chessical variety to keep up with international research, that is to say, they compile the most recent important games played around the world and post them to the net.

Even prodigies, in former eras known for their creativity, and lack of theoretical study, are nowadays forced to carry memes or mental genes of others. Magnus Carlsen at thirteen the world's youngest grandmaster is most famous for his splenderific win against Ernst at Corus. Amazingly though the position in the game at move 24 was played before in the much less celebrated battle Almagro Llanas-Gustafsson, Pablo Gorbea 2003.

Of course, being a genius, Carlsen's beautiful play, beginning with the Topalov-like Ng6 ! and followed by the novelty 24.gxf7!, were enough to make him become touted by Kavalek in the Washington Post as "The Mozart of Chess". Indeed any deep study of genius will eventually reveal that most of them, like Isaac Newton or the mighty Amadeus, find ways to climb unto the shoulders of Giants, even unknown giants, that went before them. ( DaVinci tried to imitate Nature itself ).

In Chinese mythology the Rat won the race, between all animals, by climbing unto the Bull and then jumping off just before he reached the finish line. Genius knows which Bull to jump on and when to jump off. ( The twelve signs of the chinese zodiac give the top twelve placings in the animal race ).

No one understands Bull better than Nigel Short who when caught in a verbal faux pas by Chess Drum for misguided comments he made on slavery defended himself by saying that he was just kidding and full of Bull, it was all a little joke he said.

Can't we all just get along ? Slavery is a real funny topic ? Bull, Nigel !

Kasparov himself jumps on the bull, of relentless theory, as he showed by following a game by Tal Shaked versus Georgiev as he played Anand at Corus. Nigel Short, in his game versus Van Wely, in the same round, followed Anand's game against Kasparov like a true genius ( or a true bull-jumping rat ) and was shrewd enough to jump off at the right time. Thereby conserving energy and not revealing any of his own preparation. The games Kasparov-Anand and Van Wely - Short from Round Seven were identical, perfect copies, right up to move 21 ...Bf3 ? when Short found his simple 21 ..Rfc8 to be preferable to Anand's sacrificial idea.

"It's an instance of cloning," commentator Vlastimil Hort informed his audience. "Pretty smart, actually, since Van Wely is a few moves behind, so he can see how White's plan works out. Kasparov doesn't seem to mind but if I were Short, I'd be rather annoyed. After all, he's playing Kasparov two days running!"

Far from being annoyed, Short soon clinched an easy draw and said "I'm much better than this Indian guy," after he left the tournament hall. "What's he doing, giving away a pawn like that?"

Computers allow for other means of chess reproduction, a player's style can at times be duplicated by a computer, especially if he plays the materialistic or pawn grabbing style. Your next rival's openings can be played by a Fritz book allowing you to feel relatively relaxed against them.

Of course computers also allow for the Ninja to attack in Tandem with his Twin brother through the power of Photoshop.

While Kramnik and Kasparov play the computer cloned versions of themselves, to get richer and improve,

the question you must ask yourself is ;

Do I like what I see in the chess mirror ?

What chess Legacy will I leave in the World ?

How will my favourite memes survive ?

Luckily for those with a non-pretty Chess chromosome, Memes can be changed. If you don't like your repertoire or chess style it can be re-engineered alot easier and less painfully than your actual genes.

For those old fahioned players unable to fully expand into the fertile new era of Chess genetics it will be no problem for Chess Ninjas to say "Check and Mate ".