So in July, when Mr. Weiss held the annual team picnic at his home on Long Island, there was a certain amount of resignation in his voice when he discussed the future. He had no idea what would happen next, but this day was a celebration of what had come before. As the day wore on, he gathered the entire party of current and former players in his living room and subjected them to a piano recital by his children, Julie and Ben; he had even printed out programs for the occasion. And very soon this man, who has an uncanny ability to convince anyone to do anything, had cajoled a group of teenagers and young adults from Ukraine and Martinique and St. Petersburg and Brooklyn into singing a cacophonous version of “New York, New York.”
Michael Weinreb
August 2007
Brooklyn, New York
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE FIRST TIME I VISITED THE MARSHALL CHESS CLUB, I MET A MAN wearing rose-tinted glasses, a fedora, and a camel-hair blazer, who looked like he was on his way to a dress rehearsal of The Front Page at an off-Broadway theater. He was one of those people who hold your gaze for a moment too long, which may have been an intimidation tactic honed through years of playing competitive chess, or it may have been because he found me unworthy of his trust. This man was an author as well, of instructional chess books, and the first thing he asked me was whether I planned on playing in the tournament that night. I told him that I didn’t really play chess. I told him I was a novice. “A novice?” he said, and he stared at me for so long that I thought he might be having a mild cardiac infarction. Then he walked over to the board where Shawn Martinez and Angel Lopez were preparing to begin a blitz game, and he showed me a trick that Bobby Fischer had purportedly played on a novice when he was living in exile in Hungary. Fischer’s opponent had memorized some complex opening, but didn’t notice that Fischer had checked his king with his bishop.
“And we all know that you don’t actually have to say ‘Check,’ ” Bruce said. “So the boy keeps at his opening, and”—Bruce toppled the king with his bishop. It fell with a thud. Shawn rolled his eyes. Angel stared at the floor and stifled a giggle—“that’s that.”
I learned about the Murrow chess team while working as a sportswriter at Newsday, when one of Eliot Weiss’s ubiquitous faxes ended up on my desk. I knew nothing of Edward R. Murrow High School since they had no athletics, and I knew virtually nothing about competitive chess. Over the course of two years I trailed Mr. Weiss’s team from one borough to another, from one city to another, from one state to another. Several times, while lingering over the chessboards at various tournaments and taking notes, I was asked whether I might be abetting some sort of elaborate cheating scheme. What these people did not know, what they could not have known, is that most of the time the words I kept writing in my notebook, over and over again, were—and I will paraphrase here—“What just happened?”
Because of this, then, I am grateful to the many people who did their best to educate me on the finer points of the game. (In addition, a number of books and magazine articles, which I have listed in a separate bibliography, proved indispensable.) I start with Eliot Weiss, who, from the beginning, when I was merely a strange newspaper reporter outlining a nebulous project, did not hesitate to share both his time and his knowledge. From there, I met Elizabeth Vicary, who is not only a deeply committed teacher and an outstanding chess player herself, but is also a wonderful storyteller. Without her help, this book would have been much less interesting. I am also grateful to John Galvin, Jennifer and Greg Shahade, and the administration at I.S. 318; to Fred Goldhirsch, Doug Bellizzi, Kofi and Najee McGreen, John McManus and the other employees and volunteers at the Right Move; to the management and staff of the Chess-in-the-Schools Foundation, including Marley Kaplan and Sarah Pitari; to Josh Waitzkin, Lev Khariton, Robby Adamson, Josh Weinstein, Irina Krush, Marty Grund, and Bruce Pandolfini, for providing so much background; to Saul Bruckner and the current administration at Murrow High School; to Joan DuBois and the United States Chess Federation; and to all the other tournament directors and organizers and teachers and volunteers and competitors who allowed me to eavesdrop on their events.
I am grateful to my agents, Jane Dystel and Miriam Goderich, for nurturing this project from the time it consisted of a single sentence, and for finding it a good home. Brendan Cahill at Gotham Books (along with his boss, Bill Shinker) undertook perhaps the largest gambit of all, putting an absurd amount of faith in an unknown writer before departing temporarily to get married and then departing the business to attend graduate school at Wharton, of all things. I will be proud to say I knew him before he became a media mogul. In Brendan’s absence, his assistant, Patrick Mulligan, was accommodating, congenial, and meticulous, and is certainly a much better chess player than I will ever be. On the other side of the Atlantic, Beth Coates at Yellow Jersey Press was a supporter from the start, and Michael Bourret with Dystel & Goderich deserves credit for finding her.
Several friends and colleagues, including Adrian Wojnarowski and Dave Hollingsworth, talked me through the middle game. Of course, I bear a certain bias toward my own personal in-house copy editor, Cheryl Maday, who has an uncanny ability to talk me through anything in this world.
Most of all, I am grateful to the small group of teenagers and their parents who entrusted me with their secrets, both on the board and away from it. I did my best to portray both aspects of their lives as faithfully and compassionately as I could. I may still be a novice, but I will miss those days of peering over their shoulders at those sixty-four squares and attempting to read their minds.
GLOSSARY
Annotation: A written commentary on a game or a specific position.
Bishop : A chess piece that can move only diagonally; worth about three pawns.
Blitz: Speed chess in which each player usually gets about five minutes on his clock.
Blunder: A major error.
Book player: Someone who relies heavily on published theory in his play.
Bughouse: A variation of chess where teams play on two or more boards, trading captured pieces back and forth for use on their own boards.
Bullet: Speed chess in which each player gets one minute on his clock.
Castle: The only time a player can move two pieces on a single turn (the king, which normally moves only one space, shifts two squares, and the rook is positioned on the other side of the king). Castling is permitted only once per game, and only if certain conditions are met, most notably that the king and rook cannot have moved yet, and the king cannot be in check. (See page 48)
Check: To make a direct attack or threat on an opponent’s king. In competitive chess, check does not need to be verbalized.
Checkmate: The end of a chess game, when an opponent’s king has no legal move to extricate itself from check.
Development: The process of advancing one’s material into strategically advantageous squares early in the game.
Draw: A tie game. In competitive chess, each player receives half a point for a draw.
Endgame: The third and final phase of a chess game, when most of the pieces are off the board.
Exchange: To trade pieces with one’s opponent.
Fork: A move where one piece attacks multiple pieces.
Gambit: A sacrifice made in the opening, often in order to gain a positional advantage.
Grandmaster (or GM): The highest title conferred in chess; based on one’s ELO rating and three favorable results (or norms) in tournaments involving other GMs. Usually rated at 2500 or above.
Hang a Piece: To leave a piece unprotected or exposed, allowing one’s opponent to capture it without getting anything in return.
International Master (or IM): The second-highest title a chess player can earn, one step below grandmaster. Usually rated around 2400. A National Master, usually rated between 2200 and 2399, is one step down.
Internet Chess Club (or ICC): One of the most popular chess sites online.
King : The focus of a chess game, it can move one square in any directi
on, as long as it is not moving into check.
Knight : The only chess piece that can jump over others; it moves either two squares up or back and one to the side, or one square up or back and two to the side. It is worth about three pawns.
Lost, or Lost Game: A game that one would appear to have no chance of winning, if one’s opponent plays it correctly.
Material: The collective name for one’s pieces and pawns.
Middle Game: The second phase of a chess game, after the opening and before the endgame.
Opening: The first phase of a chess game, and the name for any sequence of moves commonly used in the beginning of a game (i.e., the Ruy Lopez Opening).
Patzer: A novice or weak player. The word means “bungler” in German.
Pawn : The weakest of all the units on a chessboard. Pawns can move forward two squares on their first move and one square thereafter; they can capture pieces only by moving diagonally. If they reach the opponent’s back row, they are “promoted” and can become any other piece, most commonly a queen.
Pieces: Any of the units on a chessboard with the exception of the pawn.
Pin: To attack an opponent’s unit that happens to be shielding another, often more valuable piece.
Queen : The most powerful piece on the chessboard, the queen can move any number of spaces, in any direction. Worth about nine pawns.
Rating: Refers to one’s ELO rating, a four-digit number that signifies a player’s strength. Competitive games that affect one’s rating are referred to as “rated games.” (See page 32)
Rook : One of the strongest pieces on the board; can move in straight lines in any direction. Worth about five pawns.
Sacrifice (or “Sack”): To give up material in order to gain an advantage in position or to further an attack.
Simultaneous Exhibition (or “Simul”): A demonstration in which a high-rated player competes in a number of games, with a number of separate opponents, at the same time.
Skittles Room: The designated area at a chess tournament where talking (also known as “kibitzing”) or recreational play is permitted.
Stalemate: A draw in which one player cannot make a legal move without forcing his king into check.
Strategy: An overarching plan for attack in a given position.
Swiss System: Commonly used pairings method for tournaments, in which players with similar results and ratings are paired against each other, usually alternating between the black pieces and the white pieces.
Tactics: The methods used to carry out a specific strategy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ashley, Maurice. Chess for Success. New York: Broadway Books, 2005.
Berube, Maurice R., and Marilyn Gittell, eds. Confrontation at Ocean Hill-Brownsville:The New York School Strikes of 1968. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1969.
Bohm, Hans, and Kees Jongkind. Bobby Fischer:The Wandering King. London: B. T. Batsford, 2003.
Brady, Frank. Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1973.
Chernev, Irving, and Kenneth Harkness. An Invitation to Chess. New York: Fireside, 1945.
Cockburn, Alexander. Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death. New York: Village Voice/Simon and Schuster, 1974.
Edmonds, David, and John Eidinow. Bobby Fischer Goes to War. New York: Ecco, 2004.
Fatsis, Stefan. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.
Fischer, Bobby. My 60 Memorable Games. London: Faber and Faber, 1969.
Fischer, Bobby, with Stuart Margulies and Donn Mosenfelder. Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. New York: Bantam, 1972.
Hallman, J. C. The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World’s Oldest Game. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003.
Hoffman, Paul. “Chess Queen.” Smithsonian, August 2003.
Hoffman, Paul. “The Pandolfini Defense.” The New Yorker, June 4, 2001.
Horowitz, I. A., and P. L. Rothenberg. The Complete Book of Chess. New York: Collier Books, 1969.
Lasker, Edward. The Adventure of Chess. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1959.
Nabokov, Vladimir. The Defense. New York: Perigee Books, 1964.
Nimzovich, Aron. My System. New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1947.
Pandolfini, Bruce. Pandolfini’s Ultimate Guide to Chess. New York: Fireside, 2003.
Pandolfini, Bruce. Chess Thinking. New York: Fireside, 1995.
Ravitch, Diane. The Schools We Deserve: Reflections on the Educational Crises of Our Times. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1985.
Shahade, Jennifer. Chess Bitch:Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport. Los Angeles: Siles Press, 2005.
Waitzkin, Fred. Searching for Bobby Fischer:The Father of a Prodigy Observes the World of Chess. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
WEB SITES
U.S. Chess Federation: www.uschess.org
Chess Base: www.chessbase.com
The Right Move: www.therightmove.org
Chess-in-the-Schools: www.chessintheschools.org
The Daily Dirt Chess Blog: www.chessninja.com/dailydirt
National Scholastic Chess Foundation: www.nscfchess.org
Continental Chess Assocation: www.chesstour.com
Internet Chess Club: www.chessclub.com
Chess Cafe: www.chesscafe.com
Inside Schools: www.insideschools.org
Edward R. Murrow High School: www.ermurrowhs.org
Online Chess Database: www.chessgames.com
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