My experience is the same with this, it often isn't easy to explain things.

"In 1934 Einstein visited friends and relaxed with a game of chess. When he met children, he asked them if they liked music or could they play chess. He would occasionally teach a child the basics of chess, then tell that child to practice, then would play that child a game of chess the next time they met. (see My Saturday Afternoons with Albert Einstein by Ralph Gardner)."

"In October, 1936 Einstein was interviewed by the New York Times. In that interview, he said, "I do not play any games. There is no time for it. When I get through work I don't want anything which requires the working of the mind." Einstein preferred playing the violin and sailing. Einstein did say he played chess as a boy."

Can anybody provide the original sources?

Moreover, this page presents also Einstein's foreword of Hannak's biography, but in an English version, which differs from the German one:

Churchill wrote about a meeting with Truman in Berlin on July 18, 1945, after they had heard news of the Trinity test.

"We seemed suddenly to have become possessed of a merciful abridgement of the slaughter in the East and of a far happier prospect in Europe. I have no doubt that these thoughts were present in the minds of my American friends. At any rate, there was never a moment's discussion of whether the atomic bomb should be used or not."

<The Nobel Prize in Literature 1953 was awarded to Winston Churchill "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".>

If we assume Einstein was only an occasional chess player the game shows great natural talent.

Einstein soon understands that his opponent is a patzer against which there is no need to use deep strategical concepts and that a quite smart tactical game will be enough to crash him. Due to his friendship it seems he had acquired a touch of Lasker´s psychological greatness in finding which kind of game was required to beat his opponent.

From the game we cannot assess Einstein´s level, we should have a game against a stronger player to start seeing his limitations.

There is in fact an oft-repeated (from various sources) anecdote about Einstein's frequent humorous sally, "I'm no Einstein, you know."

Here, when Einstein says he knows nothing about chess, I am inclined to take it as a relative statement: Since he didn't understand chess at grandmaster level, he modestly said he knew nothing about the game. In fact, it may well be that he really had no particular *knowledge* of the game, but played merely by improvisation.

However, many tests have established the validity of the idea that mental skills are to some extent transferable, and an extremely intelligent person knowing nothing about a game will perform at a far higher level than his lack of experience might lead one to suppose.

This has been tested, for example, with new games of skill introduced to grandmasters who'd never tried them, but quickly picked up enough to play creditably.

The game has a history which is well-known (here and elsewhere). It appeared first in a German book called "Freude am Schach" by Gerhard Henschel in 1959. This book contains other games being dubios and/or constructed. I have read the book, and even besides the games it is more like a book of fairytales on chess.

Your example of Einstein's humour is obvious humour. Einstein's statements on chess lack of this, and so I prefer to take them literally instead of interpreting them just the opposite direction!