Arthur C. Clarke's Short, Short, Short Story About Chess

Known for his science fiction stories, including the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke evidently had enough of an interest in chess to recognize its hold on its adherents and write a very short but accurate story on it. Here it is.

(This story appeared in IIsaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, First Issue, Vol 1, No. 1, Spring 1977.)

QUARANTINE

By Arthur C. Clarke

Thank you.

I didn't really understand the story. Can someone explain it please? Thanks in advance. 

If someone wants chess stories I can recommend  “Unicorn Variations,” by Roger Zelazny, in which a Yeti and a Unicorn get tricked into playing a game of chess for the fate of humanity. Also, the story uses a real master game.

There is also a wonderful story by Fredric Brown called “Recessional” about a bishop trying to hold on to his faith as his compatriots all around are dying in a bloody war. Wonderful chess story.

You must be relatively young.

At the time Asimov wrote the story, computer engines were in their infancy and they relied on brute force calculations that would swamp any computer of any strength long before master strength calculation could be achieved. 

Never filling in the background of a story can make it confusing to those who don't read science fiction.

The first 2 paragraphs suggest to me that the galactic/intergalactic federation destroyed Earth and someone in the federation asked if that had been necessary.

I hope that answers the question.

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist; his work, mostly in the fantasy genre, was published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than ninety books of his work were published in his lifetime, and both original work and compilations have continued to appear.

Many of his writings revolved about real and or fantasy chess themes.

The Man Who Sidetracked His Brains by Lord Dunsany
“I knew a case”, said the financier, “of a man with the most brilliant brains, who had finance at his fingertips.
He was a man called Smoggs, utterly unknown of course. And I say of course because he never used his brains; or rather I should say he never made any use of them, which can be quite a different thing. He just sidetracked them, ran them down a siding that went nowhere; and he might have been as big a financier as any of us.
Do you know what he did? Sit down and I’ll tell you. He went and played chess. All the intellect that might have controlled, well, more than I can tell you, he wasted over a chessboard.
It came gradually at first; he used to play chess with a man during the luncheon hour, when he and I both worked for the same firm. And after a while he began to beat the fellow, which he could never do at first.
Then he joined a chess club, and some kind of fascination seemed to overcome him; something like drink, or more like poetry or music; but, as I was never addicted to any of the three, I can’t say. Anyway it completely got hold of him and he began to lose interest in things.
He became a good player, there was no doubt of that, and he won a good many prizes. And the value of all the prizes he won his his life would have added up to about a hundred dollars. I’ve made a thousand times as much in an hour. And more than once. But that is all he ever got out of playing chess.
Why! That man could have made millions. He did dabble a bit in finance, as I dabbled a bit in chess; in fact we started together in the same firm, as I told you; but we both left our dabblings and went our different ways.
And his led nowhere. He could have done it though; he could have been a financier. They say it’s no harder than chess, though chess leads to nothing. I never saw such brains so wasted.
Well, said the warden, I can’t sit listening to you all day, but I see your point and agree with it. There are men like that. It’s a pity. But there are men just like it.
He locked the financier up for the night, and hurried back to his work.

Why was the financier locked up?

Embezzeling. 

The Three Sailors Gambit, by Lord Dunsany:

Tales of Wonder: The Three Sailors' Gambit (sacred-texts.com)