King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game

by Paul Hoffman

  4: Tarrasch once said that the object of playing a gambit was “to acquire a reputation of being a dashing player at the cost of losing a game” [Chess Life, July 1935]. For every top player like Spassky who enjoys a particular gambit, there is one like Lautier who looks down on it. For instance, in 1928, Frank Marshall said of his favorite Wing Gambit: “It may not be absolutely sound, but it always leads to an interesting game, affording plenty of opportunities to attack.” Of the same gambit, William Napier (1881–1952) said: “It is easily defined as capital offense against common sense in chess. It is comparable with pitching one’s young to the crocodiles, so the devil may not get them. Black justifiably puts the pawn in his pocket. If out of the troubled waters that ensue he fishes nothing, it is because he fishes ill in the shallows” [A Chess Omnibus, p. 168].

  5:

  6: The chess players who never matriculated from UMBC include former World Junior Champion Tal Shaked, Israeli star Ilya Smirnin, 2003 U.S. champion Alexander Shabalov, U.S. Grand Prix winner Aleksander Wojtkiewicz, and Samford chess fellowship winner Greg Shahade.

  7: Ehlvest, who was once ranked number five in the world, invited me to his six-game match against Zappa, the world amateur computer champion, on April 29 and 30,2005. The match was being held in an auditorium in Estonian House, an old ornate building in Manhattan that had been a speakeasy during Prohibition. The promotional flier billed Alexander Shabalov, the 2003 U.S. champion, as doing the play-by-play commentary for the audience. Ehlvest set the admission price for the first evening at a whopping $59. I showed up at the scheduled hour as his nonpaying guest. The event was a disaster. The auditorium was empty. There was not a single paying customer, Shabalov stayed home because he forgot that it was his wife’s birthday, and the computer itself never arrived. We ended up drinking vodka for the evening after Ehlvest was unable to reach the machine’s programmer and handler on his cell phone.

  8: Libya had a long-standing policy of denying entry to Israelis and other nationals who had Israeli stamps on their passports. If Libya did not grant visas to the Israelis, FIDE planned to split the games between Tripoli and nearby Malta, although many players objected to the idea of ghettoizing the Jewish participants. The problem seemed defused when FIDE announced that Tripoli had decided to admit all 128 qualifying players regardless of nationality. The Israeli Chess Federation praised the decision and sought an exception to its own government’s ban on travel to Libya.

  The peace did not last long. Gadhafi’s son Mohammed was reported by the Associated Press as saying, “We did not and will not invite the Zionist enemies to this championship.” The Israeli players protested, and FIDE said not to believe everything in the media. FIDE continued to claim the Israelis were welcome, although the Libyans themselves waffled, suggesting that if the Israelis were permitted to come, they would have to travel alone, without the coaches, trainers, family members, or friends who were allowed to accompany other players. The Israelis also wanted to bring a security detail, which FIDE said was unnecessary. Three Israelis and seven Americans withdrew in protest.

  9: Tripoli and the surrounding area were once part of the Roman Empire, and they boasted the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. Gadhafi had outlawed outdoor advertising and signage in the old part of the city so that it retained its original look. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Vandals moved into Libya in the fifth century and the Byzantines followed in the sixth century. The Arabs invaded the country in the seventh century and ruled it for nine hundred years, until the Turks conquered it in the mid-1500s. Italy took over Libya in 1911, but was forced, in the wake of losing World War II, to turn the country over to the British and the French. Libya got its independence in 1951 and was ruled by a constitutional monarch until Gadhafi’s coup in 1969. Each of the many occupiers left its stamp on Libyan culture. For example, on one Internet message board I visited, French travelers marveled at the authenticity of the French country cuisine, noting with amazement that the country had finer bistros than Paris.

  CHAPTER 9: Gadhafi’s Gambit and Mr. Paul

  1: The Dragon has not been slain yet, even though generations of grandmasters have doubted the opening’s soundness. In 1969, when Fischer annotated a crushing 1958 victory over Bent Larsen’s pet Dragon, he dismissed the opening as too dangerous for Black: “White’s attack almost plays itself…. Weak players even beat Grandmasters with it. I once thumbed through several issues of Shakhmatny Bulletin, when the Yugoslav Attack was making its debut, and found the ratio was something like nine wins out of ten in White’s favor. Will Black succeed in reinforcing the variation? Time will tell” [My 60 Most Memorable Games, p. 18].

  2: This was a more reasonable task than the assignment Bobby Fischer had given Bent Larsen at the 1959 Candidates Tournament: read Tarzan stories aloud to him.

  3: When playing an over-the-board game sans blindfold, the 550-point difference in our ratings means that Pascal should score on me 98 percent of the time.

  4: This invariably raises the question of whether sex before chess is a help or a hindrance. At Buenos Aires 1960, the Hungarian player Laszlo Szabo had a hotel room adjoining Fischer’s. “One night, a grandmaster took a lady up to him,” Szabo recalled. “I do not know how long she stayed there. The next morning, though, when we stepped out of our rooms at the exact same moment, Fischer said: ‘Chess is better.’” Buenos Aires 1960 is the only international tournament in which Fischer lost more games than he won [“Finding Bobby Fischer,” p. 62].

  Valentinov, Luzhin’s trainer in The Defense, “encouraged Luzhin a great deal in his passion for sweets. Finally he had a peculiar theory that the development of Luzhin’s gift for chess was connected with the development of the sexual urge, that with him chess represented a special deflection of this urge, and fearing lest Luzhin should squander his precious power in releasing by natural means the beneficial inner tension, he kept him at a distance from women and rejoiced over his chaste moroseness” [The Defense, p. 94].

  So much for fictional trainers, but the reality is stranger. Botvinnik, schooled as a scientist, believed that men should refrain from pregame sex because ejaculation depletes the body of phosphorous, a brain fuel. “Botvinnik did believe in vigorous exercise of other kinds before a game, however, such as walking briskly for a half-hour. When [GM Lev] Alburt, a young and popular bachelor, explained to his great mentor that it was difficult to resist women and that walking so far before a game made him sleepy, the Soviet Superman looked at Lev with the pity of the mighty for the weak, the prophet for the proselyte. ‘Well,’ he said ruefully, ‘then try to refrain as much as you can from losing your phosphorus right before a game. And try to walk at least a few blocks’” [Three Days with Bobby Fischer & Other Chess Essays, pp. 47, 48].

  Grandmaster Alexsander Wojtkiewicz disagreed with the patriarch of Soviet chess. “It depends on what kind of sex,” he told me. “If it is good sex, it can make you much more creative at the board.” When I pressed Pascal on whether Botvinnik or Wojtkiewicz was right, he gave a characteristically unsentimental answer: “I haven’t noticed that it makes any difference.”

  Male players seem to agree, though, that a prolonged dry spell is not conducive to strong chess because then they are more likely to be distracted by erotic thoughts at the board. Alexander Shabalov, the 2003 U.S. champion, told Jennifer Shahade that “in most games, I am thinking about girls for about fifty to seventy-five percent of the time, another fifteen percent goes to time management, and with what’s left over I am calculating.” When Jennifer told him that twenty-five percentage points is a big range, he responded: “You can tell if it’s closer to fifty or seventy-five percent by the quality of the game. Fifty percent is great chess, seventy-five percent I can play okay, but where it is really dangerous is when it slips up to ninety percent” [Chess Bitch, 2005: Siles Press, p. 6].

  5: In Chess Bitch, Jennifer Shahade noted that “many women chess players find the prospect of dating a player weaker than they unpalatable. ‘I
would just as soon date someone outside the chess world than a weaker player than I,’ said [2004 U.S. women’s champion] Anna Hahn…. Elizabeth Vicary, a chess expert and coach from Brooklyn, has always been attracted to strong chess players and is unapologetic about it. ‘There must be some reason to be initially attracted to someone, and I admire people who are good at what they do. Liking someone for their chess strength is not as superficial as liking them for their appearance or money.’” The German chess whiz Elisabeth Paehtz also admitted liking strong players, although she said she’d be reluctant to date super GMs because “a player over 2700 is likely to be crazy!” [pp. 65, 66].

  Some strong male players avoid serious relationships within the chess world. “The idea of having a ‘chess family’ is not so good,” wrote GM Jaan Ehlvest. “Competitive chess, like any other competitive sport, is not for women because it is very stressful and harmful to your health. I do not believe that any caring man should want that his sweetheart gets hurt” [The Story of a Chess Player, p. 115].

  6: In Alekhine’s 1937 rematch for the World Championship with Max Euwe (1901–1981), he wore a favored white pullover, knitted by his wife, for five consecutive games in which he scored four wins and a draw. Emblazoned on the front was a large black cat to remind Alekhine of his lucky Siamese named Chess that often accompanied him to tournaments.

  7: The second’s role is to remain upbeat even in the face of adversity. Lev Alburt and Al Lawrence wrote about one second who failed miserably in this regard. When Alexey Suetin (1926–) was playing in one of his first Soviet invitational tournaments, he was provided with an old Belorussian master, a noted opening theoretician, as a second. Suetin told him that he had Black against Semyen Furman (1920–1978), and the second responded that no opening preparation was required because the game would take a predictable course: Furman would open with the queen pawn, gain an advantage, and keep pressuring Suetin. Suetin was disappointed by his trainer’s lack of help and confidence, and was even more distressed when the game proceeded as the second had forecast. Suetin then informed him that he had White against Rashid Nezhmetdinov, the first person to hold the Soviet rank of master in both chess and checkers. The second responded: “‘Well, color won’t matter. Nezhmetdinov can play any opening. Somewhere he will sacrifice a pawn for the initiative. Then he will sacrifice another. Then he will sacrifice a piece for an attack. Then he’ll probably sacrifice another piece to drive your king into the center. Then he will checkmate you.’

  “Suetin was upset. What kind of help was this? Alexey went to the game, and the old trainer’s prediction again came true. (We should note…if one knows Nezhmetdinov’s games, such a prognostication is hardly difficult. Nezhmetdinov polished off many strong opponents in this same way.)

  Now Suetin was very upset. He called the Belorussian sports ministry, telling him that they must recall this fatalistic fellow immediately. The shocked trainer was sent back to Minsk, where he walked around the chess club complaining of his unfair treatment.

  “‘I don’t understand why this young Alexey is so upset with me,’ the trainer would say. ‘Everything I told him turned out to be exactly right!’” [Three Days with Bobby Fischer & Other Chess Essays, pp. 155, 156].

  8: All players have had the experience of not being able to think when confronted by a surprising move. Samuel Reshevsky shared with Sports Illustrated (November 3, 1958) a journal entry on his loss to German grandmaster Wolfgang Unzicker (1925–) at the 1958 Olympiad in Munich: “Suddenly he made an inobvious move I had completely overlooked. I began to perspire; my face turned red. My mind became a complete blank. I sat there a few moments gazing at the board. There was no way out. I finally reconciled myself to the fact that I was lost. I made a few more moves, then I resigned” [A Chess Omnibus, pp. 18, 19].

  9: The printout read:

  I understand it may not be possible for Engineer Mohammed Gadhafi to sit down with me for a quick chess game. (I thought that a photograph of our playing chess would have great symbolic value in showing how two people of different cultures can play this peaceful game.) So here are some questions:

  1. Do you play chess much?

  2. How popular is chess among Libyans?

  3. What’s the most popular board game in Libya?

  4. Fifty-six countries are represented in this world championship?

  5. Does this set a record for the number of countries participating in an event in Libya?

  6. Was there much security needed in the hotel for the championship? Or was that unnecessary?

  7. In the film at the opening ceremony, your father was seen standing in front of large pipes. I was curious to learn what they’re used for. Are they oil pipelines?

  8. I found it very moving to see the Libyan flag next to the American flag at the opening ceremony. Has the American flag ever flown before in Libya? Or is this a first that marks the new friendship between our two peoples?

  Your team did a wonderful job of organizing the championship.

  —Paul Hoffman

  10: The old fruit distraction: Lisa Lane, the U.S. women’s champion in 1959 and 1960, said she faced a Russian player who pared an apple whenever it was Lane’s turn to move [“Chess: Once the Game of Kings, Now the King of Games” p. 77].

  CHAPTER 10: Praying for the Pseudo Trompowsky

  1: When stone chess tables were cemented into the ground outside Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square, the concrete had already hardened by the time that passing chess players noticed that the white square was in the wrong corner. The tables had to be ripped out of the ground and rotated ninety degrees.

  2: I would probably be stronger if I broadened my opening repertoire so that I was familiar with a wider variety of positions. But like so many players, I am monogamous when it comes to my first moves. When a colleague urged British champion and heartthrob David Norwood to try some new openings, he responded, “I only ever play the Modern Benoni and the Pirc Defense. I may not be faithful with my women, but I’m always faithful with my openings.”

  3: Topalov was not yet FIDE world champion. In the autumn of 2005, he earned that title in an incredible performance in San Luis, Argentina. His games, like Tal’s, are full of surprising sacrifices.

  CHAPTER 11: “I Stuck It to Him Real Good, Way Up Him”

  1: According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, the word crapulent means “suffering from excessive eating or drinking.” Dipsomania is defined as “an uncontrollable often periodic craving for alcoholic liquors” and pulchritude as “physical comeliness.” Frugiferous, which is not even listed in Webster’s, means “fruitful.”

  2: Miles’s nakedness at high-level chess events was not unique. “A continental tournament shortly after the Second World War was interrupted when one of the spectators, overcome by the excitement of the moment, started to remove all his clothes. The clocks were stopped while he was hustled out into the next room. But shortly afterwards he was back again doing the same thing. Again play was halted, and this time he was forcibly dragged back to his hotel room, while the local constabulary was called. A few minutes later he could be seen again, performing in his hotel window. At this point, Dr. Tartakower, the wittiest of grandmasters, claimed a draw by three-fold repetition” [Fox and James, The Complete Chess Addict, pp. 182, 183].

  In The Psychology of the Chess Player, Reuben Fine told a story of unconfirmed authenticity about the great Mexican player Carlos Torre (1905–1978). He suffered a breakdown in New York and took off all his clothes on a Fifth Avenue bus [1967: Dover, p. 65].

  3: Some journalists have gotten this wrong as TDF. In a special issue devoted to losers, the magazine Granta ran a profile of Short called “Trap, Dominate, Fuck.” Short assured me that Granta had transposed the words, as had his friend Dominic Lawson in End Game.

  4: In this respect, Kasparov was similar to Alekhine, whose “play emanates a surging, restless spirit—an emotional tension which seeks fulfillment in the mastery over obstacles. He is a fig
hter. His style is a combination of psychological belligerence and egoistic assurance. In this he is spiritually akin to Dr. Lasker, who believed that the urge to struggle, to fight, was the true ethos of chess. And this nervous tension reveals itself in the mannerisms of the man, in the tremendous concentration reflected in his face as he studies the board and his opponent, in the sharp, excitable movements of his body; in his habits of twisting a wisp of hair between his fingers, of smoking almost ferociously, of pacing like a caged tiger. If music could express the psyche of Alekhine, it would be the music of Tschaikovsky.” [Paul Hugo Little, Chess Life, October 1938].

  5: On the popular Web site ChessNinja, Jennifer Shahade started a long thread on the “Daily Dirt” discussion board: “A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from GM Robert Fontaine asking if I’d like to participate in the ‘World Chess Beauty Contest.’ When I went to the site [www.1wcbc.com/main.htm ], I was subjected to an image showing a group of cartoon-like forms of women lined up against a rating chart….To the creators, this ‘grandiose’ idea was designed in order to promote women’s chess. Rather than promote chess, it promotes that women’s looks are all-important. Feelings are liable to be hurt by low ratings and unkind comments. And why do they keep calling the participants girls when most of the women are over 18? There is one nine year old participant—if that’s a joke, I’m not laughing…. There is nothing wrong with making chess sexier by highlighting the hip, interesting players who participate. But I find the World Chess Beauty Contest project misguided and juvenile and would be embarrassed to be a part of it. Sure, many other sports have similar contests—one of the disturbing aspects of this one is that the arbiters and creators are not anonymous fans, but prominent members of the chess community who are very proud of their idea. Would you ever see Tiger Woods bragging about how he started a golf-babe contest?” GM Arthur Kogan, one of the originators of the beauty contest, posted a response in broken English: “Jen’s main points are very strange and seems to show a self-complex…come on, u look good enough, don’t be afraid to get a rating for it!©”