ChessStrategist
Bob Forsythe
Rocky Mountains, United States 
Member Since: Aug 21, 2009
Last Login: Jan 4, 2010
Profile Views: 222
Points: 120
Homepage: bob_forsythe@msn.com
About Me:
I first learned chess at around age 10, from a neighbor kid. I didn't play much until age 15. At that time, I had a part-time job in the evenings at a news stand in N.Y.C. adjacent to the subway station.
Sol, owner of the news stand was about 55, and he was a club chess player. He always wore a fedora hat and smoked a cigar when we played chess. We played late at night, in between deliveries of the newspapers. It was my job to get the newspapers as they were dumped from the trucks and collate the various sections.
Lots of idle time, especially very late at night, getting ready for the morning newspaper sections to be delivered. So, we played chess. I could beat anyone in the neighborhood who stopped by for a game. But, I couldn't beat Sol. He always spotted me a rook.
I went to the library and read every chess book available. One night, I brought 13 chess books to the news stand. To peruse, in between working and playing chess. Sol spotted me a rook. We began to play. Someone walked up from the subway and wanted to buy a pack of cigarettes from Sol. I said something to Sol and he replied: "Go ahead kid...make your move", while he was dispensing the cigarettes and the change.
"OK", I said. "Checkmate!!"
Sol looked...looked harder, his face scowling and beet red. Then he screeched, letting the lit cigar fall from his mouth, ashes cascading down his coat: "You cheated!" He grabbed the chessboard and flung it up in the air, the pieces scattering every-which-way.
Indignant and in a huff, I grabbed my 13 chess books and departed, telling Sol: "I quit!". And, I vowed to myself never...NEVER...to return!
By the next evening, I felt somewhat regretful about the incident. I had played honorably, yet, still... So, I went back to see Sol. He greeted me with a smile. And, better yet, he gave me a 10-cent per hour raise.
Life was good, again. Also, Sol took me to his chess club. It was in a rather small, dingy room over a hardware store. A bunch of old geezers...like Sol...around 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning...doing what? Playing Blitz.
What a treat...here I was, 15 years old, playing Blitz at a bona fide, exclusive chess club! Now, that's what I call "high living"! On top of that, Sol never had to spot me a rook again.
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Well, that happened in real life to me in 1959. If you have read this far, let me also share with you an unfinished short story that I wrote around 1970. I worked for HP as a Tecnical Writer, played on the chess ladder and wrote fiction in the evening.
I had the idea of writing a short story, based on chess. Someone told me it wouldn't fly...chess is too boring. I didn't think so. I took up the challenge...see for yourself.
I never did finish the story. Maybe there should have been thunder and lightning, the lights went out and...when the lights were turned back on...one of the players was dead. Hit on the head with the chess clock...or stabbed in the heart by the shard of a broken king.
Anyway, no one but another chess player would understand what I was attempting to say.
The Old Warriors
by ChessStrategist
Arthur idly drummed his fingertips on the cold, green-and-white marble table top. In the spray of light from the stained-glass picture window across the room, his face glowed as if sculpted in bronze. His features were refined, a neatly trimmed shock of salt-and-pepper hair, a Roman nose and keen blue eyes. He wore a velvet jacket with satin trim, deep blue...in stark contrast with a bright, red ascot, punctured with a scintillating diamond stickpin.
Even in the splash of sunlight, the expansive room had the chill of an old castle, and Arthur felt an arthritic stiffness in the joints of his arms and legs. From time to time, he glanced at a gold pocket watch, shook his head in dismay, and continued to absent-mindedly drum his fingertips in annoyance on the table top as though it were the keys of a piano.
Suddenly, the twelve-feet-high, solid mahogany double doors burst open and a portly, square-shouldered man barged in. He strode across the room, his squat frame leaning on a bamboo cane, and sat opposite Arthur at the table. His cocoa-brown suit was rumpled and his head, bald except for a horseshoe strip of silver, was beaded with perspiration.
"Are you ready to be butchered like a swine?", the man inquired, his accent unmistakably German.
Arthur smiled sardonically. "That is what I like best about you, Otto – no social amenities. But sometimes I wonder how such an artless individual ever became a grandmaster."
"This time, I show you no mercy!"
"Perhaps you will at that," Arthur chuckled. "But if luck had anything to do with strategy, Napoleon would have won the battle at Waterloo."
Opening a drawer in the table, Arthur withdrew a leather box and opened it. Cushioned against a red-velvet lining were gleaming chessmen…sixteen hand-carved pieces of ivory and another sixteen of jade. He selected a pawn from each and extended them, one in each closed fist, toward Otto. "Choose your weapon," he said.
Rubbing his chin, Otto carefully studied one hand and then the other. His huge, brown eyes appeared to see through the curled fingers…as if he had X-ray vision. Finally, he tapped the left hand, which held a white pawn.
"You see, Otto said, lining up his pieces for the attack. "Fate is already on my side".
Arthur, ignoring the remark, set the clocks. Then Otto opened with a Queen’s Gambit. Arthur declined the baited queen’s bishop pawn and countered with a Nimzo-Indian Defense.
Play-by-play, the game see-sawed back and forth after the first few moves. Black pinned a white knight. White countered by forking the queen and a rook. The battle took on an eerie fervor…totally out of context with the realities of time and place. It was as if two aged gentlemen from the twentieth century had been transported back in time to an ancient, gladiator arena in Rome.
When Otto checked the black king, slamming his piece on the board and threatening the exchange of a bishop for a rook, he started to hum. It began as a muffled, groaning sound with a broken rhythm. Then, as Arthur pondered his move, it grew in volume until it sounded like a bleating frog.
"Am I boring you?”, Arthur queried, his eyes leveled across the chess board like loaded gun barrels.
"Sorry, Otto said, clearing his throat. His swarthy face took on a pinkish-green patina. "it won't happen again."
Craning his neck over the chess board, Arthur continued. He escaped the contrived exchange and pinned the white queen in front of the king. Otto countered by interposing the king bishop and threatening a queen sacrifice, followed by checkmate in three moves.
Arthur brought a knight into play on the king five square, attacking the bishop. Otto parried the attack by castling his king on the queen side...securing his king behind an impenetrable barricade of pawns.
Otto wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
Arthur sat quietly, musing about the shielded king in an attempt to find a chink in the armor. He was oblivious to the second hand on the clock, ticking away in Otto's favor.
Otto smiled, smugly, and lit a long, fat cigar...as fat as a thumb. He sat back and exhaled a stream of gray smoke across the table. The bilious cloud of foul smoke wafted dead center into Arthur's contemplative face.