Hustler
A casual term for a player who plays chess for money against passersby, often in public spaces such as parks, relying on speed and psychological tricks as much as pure skill.
Chess hustling has a long association with outdoor blitz play in city parks, where experienced hustlers use fast time controls and confident play to their advantage against less experienced opponents.
Etymology
Hustle entered English in the 1680s meaning to shake to and fro, from Dutch hutselen or husseln, developing senses of pushing roughly (1751), bustling or working briskly (1821), getting something by quick and illegal means (1840) and selling aggressively (1887). The agent noun hustler is recorded from 1825 in the sense of a thief who roughs up his victims, from 1884 for someone energetic in business, and from 1924 for a prostitute. Wikipedia defines hustling generally as deceptively disguising one's skill in a sport or game to lure a weaker opponent into gambling, a practice most associated with pocket billiards, and notes that chess hustlers are quite common in urban areas in the United States and elsewhere, typically offering speed chess to all comers. It adds that chess hustlers differ from most hustlers in that they are usually assumed to be strong and are treated as a challenge rather than a mark, and it cites the film Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) in connection with chess hustling. Hustler is not a headword in Wikipedia's Glossary of chess, and no dated first use of the chess sense was found.
First documented: n.a. for the chess sense (general English hustler: 1825) — n.a. for the chess sense; general senses dated by Etymonline
Translations
Translations for this term haven't been added yet.