by David Shenk
Thomas Jefferson tells a similar story: Jefferson to Robert Welsh, 4 December 1818, supplied by Kristen K. Onuf, Monticello Research Department, online at monticello.org/reports/quotes/chess.htm.
“In the Age of Reason”: Larry Parr and Lev Alburt, “Life Itself,” National Review, September 9, 1991.
“He seldom goes to bed till day-break”: John Conyers, “Annual Register for the year 1767,” Characters (1800), online at humanities.uchicago.edu/homes/VSA/Conyer.htm.
In 1754, the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn: Daniel Johnson, “Cold War Chess,” Prospect, no. 111 (June 2005), www.tiea.us/5195.htm.
Mendelssohn’s last written work: From “Controversy with Jacobi over Lessing’s Alleged Pantheism,” online at plato.stanford.edu/entries/mendelssohn/#7.
Admirers frequently worked to pair him with good players: Names from Bill Wall, geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/prez.htm.
Of Jefferson, a friend wrote: Ellen Wayles Coolidge Letterbook, p. 37(1853), supplied by Kristen K. Onuf, Monticello Research Department, online at monticello.org/reports/quotes/chess.htm.
“I call this my opera”: Hochberg, The 64-Square Looking Glass, p. 7.
His standing was such: “Chess: The Fickle Lover,” online at angelfire.com/games/SBChess/Morphy/fickle.htm.
playing two games simultaneously while blindfolded: Seven years later, he pushed it to three blindfold games at once.
Dating all the way back: So says John B. Henderson, in his column “The Scotsman,” at http://www.rochadekuppenheim.de/heco/ar0203.htm. Murray, on the other hand, says that the Muslim Borzaga was possibly the first exponent of the art of blindfold play, circa 1265. History of Chess, p. 192.
Philidor, it was said: Henderson, “The Scotsman,” at rochadekuppenheim.de/heco/ar0203.htm.
In his memoirs, Rousseau: The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Book 7, online at etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/r864c/book7.htm.
THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 6 AND 7
the evolution of chess play: In fact, one of the great masters of the early twentieth century, Richard Reti, suggested that every player’s personal learning curve in chess instinctively repeats chess’s evolutionary path. “Such evolution,” he offered, “has gone on, in general, in a way quite similar to that in which it goes on with the individual chess player, only with the latter more rapidly.” Furthermore, Reti provocatively declared, “[in] the development of the chess mind we have a picture of the intellectual struggle of mankind.”
Even after Philidor: With his novel approach, Philidor was one of the earliest players to advocate a closed game—one in which Pawns are not exchanged early on, but instead work toward a united and formidable front. This was in contrast to the open game, the universally popular style of Pawn exchanges or sacrifices that forced vertical openings in the fence of Pawns and encouraged a quicker, more aggressive contest.
CHAPTER 6
the Café de la Régence: George Walker, “The Café de la Régence, by a Chess-player,” Fraser’s Magazine 22 (July to December 1840).
his underling opponents frequently found it inconvenient to win: Thierry Libaert, Revue du Souvenir Napoléonien, no. 424 (1999), p. 55. Conveyed by Peter Hicks, Fondation Napoléon.
exiled to the tiny island of St. Helena: St. Helena measured 122 square kilometers (47 square miles). The story finally came to light in 1928, during an exhibition of Napoleonic artifacts. Source: Mike Fox and Richard James, The Complete Chess Addict (Faber & Faber, 1987).
A chess set designed for Napoleon, with cannons for Rooks. From the treatise Nuovo giuoco di scacchi ossia il giuoco della guerra (Genova, 1801), by Francesco Giacometti, online at chessbase.com/columns/ column.asp?pid=166.
“There’s all sorts of anecdotal evidence”: Emma Young, “Chess! What Is It Good For?” Guardian, March 4, 2004.
the British public became fascinated: “The London Correspondence Match,” online at bm3.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ecchist2.htm. Between 1834 and 1836 Paris and London competed in another high-profile correspondence match, which Paris won.
That event fed interest: Adolf Anderssen later said that he learned chess strategy from another William Lewis book, Fifty Games between Labourdonnais and McDonnell (1835).
Travel and long-distance communication were cheaper: brynmawr.edu/library/speccoll/guides/travel/europe.htm.
timed to coincide with a major international fair in the same city: The five-and-a-half-month festival of industrial and culture offerings from around the world attracted some six million visitors to London’s Hyde Park. The chess competitors gathered about a mile away, at the St. George Club at Cavendish Square.
“Comfort is not particularly high”: From an old article translated and reprinted on avlerchess.com/chess-misc/Translate a Finnish Article on London 1851-182037.htm.
In 1103 the knight Pierzchala: Jerzy Gizycki, A History of Chess (Abbey Library, 1972), p. 31.
In 1564 a mock-epic poem, Chess: The poem, by Jan Kochanowski, paraphrased an earlier effort by the Italian poet Marco Girolamo Vida. Source is Prof. Edmund Kotarski at monika.univ.gda.pl/~literat/autors/kochan.htm.
a major Polish revolt against Russian rule: “During the Polish uprising, the Jews suffered, as always, at the hands of both sides: the [Russian] Cussaks who suppressed them and the revolutionaries who demanded money from the Jewish community.” Dr. Kasriel Eilender, A Brief History of the Jews in Suwalki, http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/suwalki/history.htm. (I have altered the punctuation in this quote for clarity.)
In 1884–85, Rosenthal led a Paris team: Carlo Alberto Pagni, Correspondence Chess Matches between Clubs 1823–1899, Vol. 1 (1996).
In 1887 he was awarded: Tadeusz Wolsza, Arcymistrozowie, mistrzowie, amatorzy: Slownik biograficzny szachistów polskich, tom 4 (Wydawnictwo, 2003).
Rosenthal was said by Wilhelm Steinitz: He had chess columns in Le Monde Illustré and Republique Française. Steinitz said Rosenthal averaged 20,000 francs per year in the last thirty years of his life (Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion to Chess). That amounts to $57,670 in 1991 U.S. dollars. (Average exchange rate in this period was 5.15 francs per dollar. One U.S. dollar in 1875–1900 equates to $14.85 in 1991 U.S. dollars, so 20,000 nineteenth-century francs = $3,883.50 nineteenth-century dollars = $57,670 1991 dollars. Sources: nber.org/databases/macrohistory/contents/fr.htm, nber.org/databases/macro history/rectdata/14/m14004a.dat, and http://web.archive.org/web/2004112408 5221/http://www.users.mis.net/~chesnut/pages/value.htm.)
Both soldiers and players: From obituary in French newspaper, September 1902.
Though for three decades: He won the first French chess championship in 1880. See http://www.logicalchess.com/info/history/1800–1899.htm.
he “reigned supreme as the leader of Parisian chess”: Chicago Tribune, October 12, 1902, p. 12.
he managed to beat legendary players: chessgames.com database has all actual games.
Franklin, who had described chess as battle without bloodshed: Papers of Benjamin Franklin, XXXII, p. 54.
CHAPTER 7
A number of chess masters: Alfred Binet, Mnemonic Virtuosity: A Study of Chess Players, translated by Marianne L. Simmel and Susan B. Barron (Journal Press, 1966); S. Nicolas, “Memory in the Work of Binet, Alfred (1857–1911),” Année Psychologique 94 (no. 2), pp. 257–82; Douwe Draaisma, Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind (Cambridge University Press, 2000); Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Basic Books, 1993); F. Galton, “Psychology of Mental Arithmeticians and Blindfold Chess-Players” (Review of Alfred Binet, Psychologie des grands calculateurs et joueurs d’échecs),” Nature 51: 73–74; O. D. Enersen, Alfred Binet, whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1299.htm; René Zazzo, “Alfred Binet (1857–1911),” Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education 23, no. 1/2 (1993), pp. 101–12.
Binet’s original hypothesis might: W. G. Chase and H. A. Simon, “The Mind’s Eye in Chess,” Visual Information Processing: Proceedings of the 8th Annual Carnegie Psycholo
gy Symposium (Academic Press, 1972); Herbert A. Simon and Jonathan Schaeffer, “The Game of Chess,” Handbook of Game Theory, edited by R. J. Aumann and S. Hart, vol. 1 (Elsevier, 1992); M. E. Glickman and C. F. Chabris, “Using Chess Ratings as Data in Psychological Research” (Unpublished article, 1996, available at http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Glickman1996.pdf ); D. Regis, “Chess and Psychology”; Fernand Gobet, “Chess, Psychology of,” The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, edited by R. A. Wilson and F. C. Keil (MIT Press, 1999); N. Charness, “The Impact of Chess Research on Cognitive Science,” Psychological Research-Psychologische Forschung 54, no. 1, pp. 4–9: Helmut Pfleger and Gerd Treppner, Chess: The Mechanics of the Mind (David & Charles, 1989); William Bechtel and Tadeusz Zawidzki, Biographies of Major Contributors to Cognitive Science, online at mechanism. ucsd.edu/~bill/research/ANAUT.htm; “Brief survey of psychological studies of chess,” online at jeays.net/files/psychchess.htm; K. Anders Ericsson, “Superior Memory of Experts and Long-Term Working Memory,” online at http://web. archive.org/web/20041019073517/http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.mem.exp.htm.
young chess luminaries like Fischer and Waitzkin: Michael J. A. Howe, Jane W. Davidson, and John A. Sloboda, “Innate Talents: Reality or Myth?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, no. 21 (1998), pp. 399–442; “Nature vs. Nurture in Intelligence,” online at wilderdom.com/personality/L4-1IntelligenceNatureVsNurture.htm; D. R. Shanks, “Outstanding Performers: Created, Not Born? New Results on Nature vs. Nurture,” Science Spectra, no. 18 (1999); K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness, “Expert Performance—Its Structure and Acquisition,” American Psychologist 49, no. 8 (August 1994), pp. 725–47.
“He has become a fine player at a very young age”: Tom Rose, “Can ‘old’ players improve all that much?” online at: chessville.com/Editorials/Roses Rants/CanOldPlayersImproveAllThatMuch.htm. Rose adds: “Of course he still had to do the hard work. With the same advantages many would not make such good use of them.”
CHAPTER 8
“Chess-play is a good and witty exercise”: Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy.
For about a decade: Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion to Chess, p. 395.
“He approached the structure and dynamics”: Anthony Saidy, The March of Chess Ideas (David McKay, 1994), pp. 14–15. Steinitz himself said, “Chess is a scientific game, and its literature ought to be placed on the basis of the strictest truthfulness, which is the foundation of all scientific research.”
For a time, he was confined to a Moscow asylum: The Steinitz Papers: Letters and Documents of the First World Chess Champion, edited by Kurt Landsberger (McFarland & Co., 2002).
In 1779 the accomplished French physician: Franklin’s response is not recorded.
“A nameless excrescence upon life”: H. G. Wells, Certain Personal Matters (1898), quoted in Norman Reider, “Chess, Oedipus, and the Mater Dolorosa,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 40 (1959), p. 442.
The tally included: for Gustav Neumann, see Hooper and Whyld, Oxford Companion to Chess, p. 270; for Johannes Minckwitz, see geocities.com/silicon valley/lab/7378/death.htm; for George Rotlewi, see chessgames.com/perl/chess player?pid=10262; for Akiba Rubinstein, see Anne Sunnucks, The Encyclopaedia of Chess (St. Martin’s Press, 1976), p. 414; for Carlos Torre-Repetto, see chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=12991, for Aron Nimzowitsch, see Hans Kmoch, “Grandmasters I Have Known: Aaron Nimzovich (1886–1935),” online at chesscafe.com//text/kmoch02.txt (additional material online at chessgames.com/player/aron_nimzowitsch.htm?kpage=1); for Raymond Weinstein, see Sam Sloan, “I Have Found Raymond Weinstein,” online at samsloan.com/weinste.htm; for Bobby Fischer, see Rene Chun, “Bobby Fischer’s Pathetic Endgame,” Atlantic Monthly (December 2002). I found Rene Chun’s article on Fischer to be comprehensive, but also mean-spirited and grossly insensitive to the cruel realities of mental illness. Long after Chun establishes beyond any doubt that Fischer is crippled by mental illness, he rhetorically piles it on, ridiculing Fischer for his bizarre behavior.
“Most of his novels”: Personal e-mail with Anna Dergatcheva.
Sigmund Freud’s biographer and protégé: Alexander Cockburn, Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death (Simon & Schuster, 1974), pp. 22–23.
While Freud himself apparently never considered: Sigmund Freud, “Further Recommendations in the Technique of Psycho-Analysis,” Collected Papers, vol. 2 (1913), p. 342.
In 1937 Isador Coriat: Isador Coriat, “The Unconscious Motives of Interest in Chess,” based on a paper read before the Boston Psychoanalytic Society, October 12, 1937, online at psychoanalysis.org.uk/chess.htm.
In 1956 Reuben Fine’s: Reuben Fine, The Psychology of the Chess Player (Dover, 1956).
Writer, psychiatrist, and serious chess player: Charles Krauthammer, “The Romance of Chess,” in Hochberg, The 64-Square Looking Glass (Times Books, 1993).
A third plausible route to chess madness: Gizycki, A History of Chess, pp. 259–61.
THE IMMORTAL GAME: MOVES 12–16
the leading Spanish player Lucena: These are paraphrases, not quotes from Lucena.
CHAPTER 9
A Nazified version of chess called Tak Tik: Author’s direct observations of the game in Ströbeck chess museum.
After slipping in and out: Andrew Soltis, Soviet Chess, 1917–1991 (McFarland & Co., 2000), p. 7.
When the Germans captured France in 1940, Alekhine agreed: Bill Wall, online at geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/nazi.htm.
There are persistent claims: Nardshir appears in the Kethuboth 61b tractate of the Babylonian Talmud. The Alexander Kohut quote is from Victor A. Keats, Chess in Jewish History and Hebrew Literature (Magnes Press, 1995), p. 26, also online at mynetcologne.de/~nc-jostenge/keats.htm.
Abraham ibn Ezra, the Spanish poet: Keats, Chess in Jewish History.
World champion Wilhelm Steinitz: There is some question about whether he was educated in a yeshiva.
Tarrasch and Lasker became such bitter rivals: J. O. Sossnitsky cites Soltis, The Great Chess Tournaments and Their Stories (Chilton Book Co., 1975).
six pro-Nazi essays: Brian Reilly, distinguished editor of the British Chess Magazine, was the one to actually see Alekhine’s Nazi letters. He reported it to several people in the field, but was later reluctant to see himself credited for this. In his reluctance he inadvertently cast some confusion on the matter. The chess historian Edward Winter definitively puts the issue to rest with a juxtaposition of letters and conversations collected on his “Chess Notes Archives” page, online at chesshistory.com/winter/winter06.htm.
the first ever official team sporting event for the USSR: Denker–Botvinnik, USA–USSR Radio Match, 1945.1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e4 b5 7. e5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Nxg5 hxg5 10. Bxg5 Nbd7 11. exf6 Bb7 12. Be2 Qb6 13. O-O O-O-O14. a4 b4 15. Ne4 c5 16. Qb1 Qc7 17. Ng3 cxd4 18. Bxc4 Qc6 19. f3 d3 20. Qc1 Bc5+ 21. Kh1 Qd6 22. Qf4? Rxh2+! 23. Kxh2 Rh8+ 24. Qh4 Rxh4+25. Bxh4 Qf4
One pithy illustration: Bill Wall, online at geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/nazi.htm.
Russia had a special relationship with chess: I. M. Linder, Chess in Old Russia (Michael Kühnle, 1979), p. 62.
“Marx adored chess”: Daniel Johnson, Prospect, no. 111 (June 2005), online at tiea.us/5195.htm.
“grew angry when he lost”: Maksum Gorky, V. I. Lenin (first published 1924), online at marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/1924/01/x01.htm.
Russian prime minister Alexander Kerensky: Gizycki, A History of Chess, pp. 169, 170.
Not long after the 1917 takeover: Larry Parr and Lev Alburt, “Life Itself,” National Review, September 9, 1991.
“Take chess to the workers”: Soltis, Soviet Chess, p. 25.
“The Bolsheviks’ motives”: Checkmate, BBC Radio 4, online at http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:cIlITNvUY5wJ:www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/discover/archive_features/22.shtml+The+Bolsheviks%27+motives+for+promoting+chess+were+both+ideological+and+political,+Daniel+King&hl=en& client=firefox-a.
By 1929, 150,000 se
rious amateur players: Soltis, Soviet Chess, p. 82.
“a dialectical game”: Taylor Kingston, “Recounting the Course of Empire,” cited by Soltis, Soviet Chess, p. 25.
“Following every move”: Italics mine.
“I had an adjourned game”: Rene Chun, “The Madness of King Bobby,” Guardian, online at observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/story/0,6903,870785,00.htm.
Bobby Fischer
“I’ll never play in one of those rigged tournaments again”: Chun, “The Madness of King Bobby.”
“There were some agreed draws at Curaçao”: Chun, “The Madness of King Bobby.”
After a tournament in Yugoslavia: “Robert Fischer, The World’s Greatest Chess Player,” online at chess-poster.com/great_players/fischer.htm.
“If you were out to dinner with Bobby in the Sixties”: The friend is Don Schultz. Source: Rene Chun.
“I told Fischer to get his butt over to Iceland”: Rene Chun.
the match began: All Fischer–Spassky games are online at chess-poster.com/great_games/fischer_spassky_en/game_1.htm.
Spassky was world champion for a reason: Boris Spassky, Wikipedia, online at onelang.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Boris_V. Spassky.
Ironically, just as Fischer: Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson, “Files Reveal How FBI Hounded Chess King,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 31, 2005.
“Spassky stood on stage applauding”: Archived online at: http://web.archive.org/web/20041014080956/http://www.chessclub.demon.co.uk/culture/worldchampions/fischer/fischer_spassky_match.htm.
CHAPTER 10
“I always loved complexity”: These two statements came from different interviews. The first sentence comes from Achille Bonito Oliva, editor of The Delicate Chessboard: Marcel Duchamp: 1902/1968 (Centro Di, 1973). “With chess one creates beautiful problems” comes from Yves Arman, Marcel Duchamp: Plays and Wins (Galerie Yves Arman, 1984).
“As metaphor, model and allegory”: Martin Rosenberg, “Chess Rhizome: Mapping Metaphor Theory in Hypertext,” archived online at http://web.archive.org/web/20041030015424/http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/sls/abstracts/rosenberg.htm.