Mortal Games

by Waitzkin, Fred;

  “They all hate me,” Kasparov said, assessing the dining room as though it were a chess position, the white king and a few pawns surrounded by powerful attacking pieces. When I suggested that he was going a little overboard, and mentioned his warm relations with grandmaster Artur Yusupov, whom he often joined for a chat after dinner, Garry answered, “We also have our ups and downs. There are jealousies that do not go away,” alluding to a period when they had both been developing young players in the USSR, and Yusupov’s considerable potential had been largely ignored because of Kasparov’s show-stopping genius. Of course, Garry did have friends here. His relationships with Alexander Beliavsky, Mikhail Gurevich and Boris Gelfand were quite warm, but he was thrown off balance by the chill and glare from other tables.

  On another evening when Garry came into the dining room, Josh and I were sitting with Anand and Gelfand. Garry looked upset, his little island was disappearing, and we excused ourselves to join him. A little later, Gelfand, a soft-spoken and soulful young man who spent his off-days reading the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, came over and joined us. Soon he and Garry began talking about a proposed rule change for next year’s Linares tournament, which called for drawn games to be decided afterwards by a speed game. Garry impatiently declared that this made a mockery of serious chess, and that he would not play in the tournament next year if the rule were passed. Gelfand, who was also against the rule change, was annoyed with Garry’s heavy-handedness and quipped, “Okay, then I’ll vote for it.” Garry jerked back, as though slapped. He liked Gelfand, and this little joke had hit a bruise. Though he might try, Garry lacked the talent to be a regular guy.

  “A lot of the players dislike Garry because he is such an absolutist,” observed Gelfand, at the time the number-three-rated player in the world. “He doesn’t have a knack for compromise and is always starting wars over everything.”

  Nonetheless, Kasparov was more bemused than aggrieved by the hostile atmosphere in Linares. He was a man with much too much on his plate. While struggling hard to win here, like Karpov he was still depleted from the world championship. He had ambitious plans for promoting chess worldwide and yet the chess world appeared to be slipping away from him. But in the larger scheme of things, none of this seemed important. In the past month, events in his country had started to move at shocking speed. How important was the Linares social atmosphere when Gorbachev and Yeltsin were primed for violent confrontation? On February 1, Gorbachev had declared a state of emergency, promising that he would use the army and navy, whatever force was necessary, to control demonstrations. “A state of military emergency was decreed for mass civil rallies,” wrote the journalists Solovyov and Klepikova in their biography of Boris Yeltsin, “that is, for anti-Kremlin, pro-Yeltsin rallies and demonstrations. The Kremlin was moving from a passive defense to an aggressive one. It was really a putsch, but a slow, gradual, veiled one.”

  Before leaving for Linares, Kasparov had met twice with Yeltsin to discuss events of the day, and specifically to offer advice about how Russian diplomacy might influence the Bush administration to be more passive toward Gorbachev and more encouraging of the mounting democratic movement. “Yeltsin was not aware of the situation in the States,” said Kasparov. “He did not know very much about the American system of government and the entrenched alliances of American politicians, but, unlike Gorbachev, he was a good listener.”

  For some time, Yelsin had been blocked from appearing on state-controlled television, but on February 19, three days before the start of play in Linares, he was on the evening newscast. “In 1987, I warned that it is inherent in Gorbachev’s nature to strive for absolute personal power,” said Yeltsin. “He has gone far in that direction; he has brought about a dictatorship under the pretty name of President’s Rule. I dissociate myself from the president’s position and his policies, and I call for his immediate resignation.”

  When Kasparov wasn’t playing or preparing for his next game, he was listening to Radio Liberty on his little Grundig. There were plans for a demonstration in Moscow against Gorbachev’s repressive polities, with an expected turnout of over one million people. Would Gorbachev allow it? Could he stop it?

  “Gorbachev underestimated the anticommunist resistance among the population,” said Garry. “People were so fed up with the communism. For years, they expressed it in kitchens, in private discussions, in jokes about Brezhnev, anecdotes about communism. But suddenly it went to the streets. Now it is an explosion. Gorbachev does what he can to stop it. On February 2, I gave a speech in front of two hundred editors of local newspapers and they all complained of the new censorship. In the state-controlled press there was practically nothing [about the match with Karpov]. If Karpov had won, it would have been on the front page—it would have been interpreted as a great victory for communism. The television in my country today is like it was twenty years ago. It is practically impossible for Yeltsin to get on. They have closed the independent TV in Siberia. . . . The day before I left for Linares, I gave a very tough interview with journalists from two major liberal newspapers. It hasn’t appeared yet. I don’t think it will. . . . Bush, of course, has no idea what is going on in my country. Here’s a joke today in Moscow: Because of the anticommunist coup, America has stopped the food supply.”

  Before the start of the Linares tournament, some Western grandmasters had complained of the unfairness of inviting nine Soviet players to a tournament of only fourteen. But it was the only way that Rentero could put together a category 17 event. The Soviets, with an average rating of 2679, were needed to compensate for their weaker brothers from the West, in order to bring the average of all fourteen to the needed 2658. Western grandmasters had long been chagrined and jealous of Soviet dominance in the chess world, and rightly worried that the Soviets would win all the tournament prize money. In exquisitely elite renderings of affirmative action, Western grandmasters had lobbied to restrict Soviet participation at Western events. But in the early spring of 1991, world politics would soon eliminate this issue of chess politics. Although no one beside Kasparov would have predicted it, there would never again be a Linares tournament fielding even one “Soviet” grandmaster.

  A compelling subtext in Linares was the confusion and unhappiness of the Soviet players, a close fraternity of great sportsmen that was breaking apart almost by the hour. In the evenings, players from the USSR talked about the meaning of the massive demonstrations at home, and the impossibility of getting food in Moscow, but mostly they tried to decide whether or not they should leave the country. Mikhail Gurevich had already moved to Brussels with his wife and baby daughter. He explained that, for a chess professional, Western Europe had become the most interesting place to live, but that more importantly, he feared for the safety of his family in the USSR. Valery Salov was planning to move to Barcelona. Boris Gelfand wondered whether the United States or Belgium offered the best opportunities for a chess player. Those Soviet players who had not emigrated were a fearful and confused group.

  Perhaps the sting of the dining room contributed to Kasparov’s chilly view of the plight of Soviet grandmasters. “The top players are leaving my country because they have lost all confidence in the regime,” he said. “During the stagnation period, they were a well-off group. Comparatively speaking, they lived a good life. There were privileges for a top player who aligned himself with the system. You could travel to the West and, returning with Western currency, there were things to buy. But now it doesn’t work anymore. The country is in chaos, the inner connections have broken down. You have to understand that, by and large, players didn’t care about politics. They want to study chess. They don’t want to worry about finding food or if the flat will have heat or being murdered in the street. They had connections with the Sports Committee, and when they needed to go to a training camp it was arranged. But now the system has collapsed and there is much less state support. Soon it will disappear altogether. Many feel the need to leave. The players must make a new life for themselv
es. You must also understand that this is happening throughout the Soviet sports system. This system was carefully built as a tool for communist propaganda. The most talented young girls and boys were trained like dogs to prove that the best sportsmen were communists.”

  Kasparov’s ninth-round opponent, Alexander Beliavsky, four-time Soviet champion, was in first place, leading Kasparov by a point and a half. Along with Ivanchuk, “Big Al,” as he was affectionately called by some grandmasters, was playing the best chess in Linares. He was pushing for the win in game after game, sacrificing material, unveiling opening novelties he had painstakingly prepared for months at home in Lvov in the Ukraine. So far, Beliavsky was playing the tournament of his career, and if he could win ahead of Kasparov, Karpov and Ivanchuk, it would be the crowning success of his chess life.

  On the white side, Kasparov had to take this game if he was going to claw back into contention and possibly preserve his phenomenal tournament record. This was a very big game in Kasparov’s career. “Of course, Garry is a genius,” commented Leontxo Garcia, Spain’s foremost chess journalist, before the start of play. “In the past, he has always been able to win the big game. This quality is what has separated him from Karpov.”

  There are occasional games during which Kasparov appears sublimely calm. He considers variations as though captivated by an internal music. Even as he attacks, his expression remains peaceful, sometimes beatific, and there is an easy sway to his body when he walks off stage between moves. This was such a game. Beliavsky played with hardly a glance at the champion, as though watching him would be a jinx. In the opening, Kasparov sacrificed a pawn for control of the center, and the advantage of playing with two bishops against Beliavsky’s knight and bishop. He slowly limited Beliavsky’s piece activity with perfect placement of his pawns. Then Kasparov stunned many of us by trading queens. It was a move which superseded time-honored principles. All good players know that when you are ahead in material, it is wise to “trade off,” since the advantage tends to become decisive with fewer pieces and pawns on the board. When you have a positional advantage, however, you try to avoid trades, while slowly improving your position. This squeezes an opponent’s army into less and less space, forcing his big guns onto squares where they have little or no range and harmony relative to one another. In trading queens, however, Kasparov had exercised the highest positional judgement. Looking far ahead, he’d seen that by giving up his queen, he would even further cramp the effectiveness of Beliavsky’s army. Nine moves after the trade, Beliavsky’s misplaced pieces could no longer defend his pawns.

  That evening, Kasparov was ecstatic. He had done it again, found the magic for the big game. When he walked into the dining room, conversation hushed. In the face of genius, jealousies and angers receded, for the moment at least. With four rounds to go, Kasparov had pulled within a half-point of Ivanchuk and Beliavsky, and seemed once more destined to win. All the great players here could feel the inevitability of Kasparov’s charge. Yusopov and Salov offered courtly congratulations. Kamsky and Karpov ate sullenly, but all the others listed Garry’s way. I again recalled Lev Alburt’s description of Garry’s approach to life and chess: “Garry has an internal urge to create wonders, to put himself in lost situations and then to make a Houdini-like escape. He does this because he has learned that he can make a miracle at the last moment, and this is dangerous, because miracles don’t always happen.” But in this greatest of all tournaments, without training properly, Kasparov was once again making a miracle. “Garry is a unique character,” offered Michael Gurevich, who was playing badly and marvelled at Garry’s energy as well as his art. “After being with Garry for all those months helping him prepare, I’m still not the same. I’m worn out, still recovering.”

  After dinner, players came over to our table and chatted about their games. Toward his colleagues Kasparov was kind. To Josh he carefully explained his reasoning behind the exchange of queens. The Yugoslavian journalist Dimitri Bjelica came from Karpov’s table to give his lengthy congratulations, and then ceremoniously announced that this great and seemingly portentous win had come on March 9, Bobby Fischer’s birthday. Bjelica had made a movie about Bobby nearly twenty years before and the hotel management was planning to show it later that night on one of the television channels. Josh, Garry and I decided to watch.

  At eleven, Garry was in his bedroom, late as usual, and Josh and I were in the sitting room in front of the television. The film came on, grainy and amateurish; there was Bobby Fischer, smiling shyly like a neighborhood friend you hadn’t seen in a quarter of a century, and suddenly it felt so good to recall the drawl of his words, the relaxed slope of his shoulders. When this film had been made, Bobby had been about Garry’s age, but Fischer seemed much younger and less worldly, a big puppy, eager to please. He still had his whole life ahead of him. This was before the legend of Bobby Fischer had consumed and disfigured Bobby.

  His answers to Bjelica about the merits of past world chess champions were hesitant and understated. It struck me as prescient that Fischer spoke so tenderly and uncritically of the nineteenth-century American player Paul Morphy, whom he considered the greatest natural talent of all chess players. These two shared more than chess greatness. In 1859, following a year of chess-playing in Europe, during which Morphy had trounced the best players in the world, the twenty-one-year-old had returned to his country as a great hero, celebrated in newspapers and poems and feted by politicians and college presidents, much as Bobby had been after defeating Spassky in 1972. But soon after this triumphant return, chess had become abhorrent to young Morphy. The remainder of his life had been tragic. He’d become a recluse, paranoiac, tormented by inner demons. Likewise, after beating Spassky, Bobby Fischer had disappeared from his adoring public, hiding out in grimy rooming houses, wearing disguises, clearly a person dominated by delusions. Bobby had the fillings in his teeth removed so that he could not be insidiously influenced by radio signals. For twenty years, he ranted to his friends that the Jews had persecuted him throughout his career, making it impossible for him to defend the world title. Several of the great world chess champions featured in Bjelica’s film—Morphy, Steinitz, and Fischer—had been afflicted with mental illness.

  After the movie had been playing for five minutes or so, Kasparov came into the room and sat at his chess board. He set up the pieces with the black side closest to himself, his back toward the television. He was cleanly shaven, and wore a black turtleneck sweater, dark slacks and loafers. He had dressed for Bobby. Two hours earlier, in the dining room, Garry had been gregarious, accommodating, but no more. His visage had turned severe and intimidating. He was possessed by some inner resolve, eyes set deep and merciless, as before a critical game. He moved the pieces to an opening position and studied it. He made a few more moves. He took a sip from a cup of tea and stared at the position. The movie had played for ten or twelve minutes before Garry turned and looked at Fischer.

  Bjelica asked Bobby how he would do against Morphy. Bobby’s answer was noncommittal and self-effacing; he moved the pieces on a board to a position from a game of Morphy’s. Kasparov looked back at his opening setup and moved a piece. He was preparing for tomorrow’s game against Jaan Ehlvest. He sipped from his tea. Garry looked back at the screen for a minute or so, and then raised a pinky, enough of this. The happiness over today’s win against Beliavsky was a dangerous indulgence. If he lost tomorrow, the Beliavsky game would be meaningless. He began turning through the Informant for the most recent games of Ehlvest.

  “Bobby, do you think that Paul Morphy played better than you?” Bjelica pressed.

  Fischer giggled. “I don’t know. We both won.” Despite Bobby’s charming, shy manner, he had an inner strength. Fischer had beaten Spassky without the help of coaches, while Spassky had had the benefit of a factory of Soviet grandmasters for opening preparation and adjournment analysis.

  Soon Fischer began speaking of the first official world championship match, which had been between Wilhelm Stei
nitz and Johannes Zukertort. Fischer was kind in his assessments of their play.

  “Zukertort-Steinitz? Compared to modern players? Incredible,” answered Kasparov derisively. To Josh, he added, “First category,” meaning that those early games were amateurish by modern standards. Fischer was proving to be too strong a presence to ignore. Kasparov turned in his chair and watched the screen. He cocked his head to the side, and there was a flush of color on his nose and cheeks. He seemed to be thinking beyond the discussion of Steinitz. How could he not wonder who would have proven the greater player if he and Fischer had been contemporaries? After all, they were the two greatest of all world chess champions. Each had raised the game to a higher level. Each had played matches replete with political symbolism. In the United States, Bobby’s 1972 defeat of Spassky had been interpreted as a victory against communism, much as Kasparov’s recent defeat of Karpov had been hailed by democrats in the Soviet Union as a political victory. After beating Spassky, Bobby Fischer had been an all-American hero, a role model, much as Garry was in his country.

  “This is not a serious discussion,” Kasparov said, back in the moment. “These older world champions are playing poor chess. They cannot be held to a modern standard.”

  “Capablanca was one of the best of all time,” said Bobby.

  “Nonsense,” answered Kasparov. “Bobby says that he is not sure he could have beaten Capablanca. Ridiculous. He would have won easily. To compare players from different eras makes no sense. My games against Karpov would not be understood by the great players of the nineteenth century. If you took someone like Ljubojevic, who will finish near the bottom in Linares, and put him back into the twenties, Capablanca’s time, he would have been world champion without a question. The only way to judge the old players is relative to the other players of their period. Fischer was far ahead of the other players of his day. By this measure, I consider him the greatest world champion.”