Developing Openings One Position At A Time

The year was 1968. I heard the book would be available in America. The place to obtain it was at 80 East 11th Street in New York City. The United States Chess Federation had been at home there for a few years. In the same building, on another floor, there was a bookseller who handled foreign language books. He had a number of rooms and one of them was full of chess books. His name was A. Buschke. I was one of his customers. So was Bobby Fischer, who I saw there another time reading Professor Doctor Max Euwe's volume 10 of "Theory of the Chess Openings." The American future world champion was reading the Dutch former world champion's book which was written in German. That volume included the Spanish Game or Ruy Lopez, which Fischer made great use of. At the time, I thought that Bobby already knew everything that would be in the book. Nowadays, when I say, "I am still learning," perhaps I should add, "especially what I already know."

The book I wanted was also printed in German, but not in the west. The author was Isaac Boleslavsky, a top Soviet grandmaster and theoretician. His book, "Caro-Kann bis Sicilianisch," was from East Berlin. It had close to 500 pages on the Caro Kann, Scandinavian, Alekhine, Nimzowitsch, and Sicilian defenses. The book was there and I bought it. I did not expect to read it straight through from cover to cover. At least not right away. I first read what interested me and tried to grasp specific positions that I would aim to reach. Ten years later, I found that I could get to one of those positions for the first time. As I got into it, I had second thoughts and improvised at the board.

The game that follows is the result. Later, both players would become national masters and then life masters.