My First Win Ever

On August 31st, 1972, Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky to become history’s 11th official World Chess Champion. Interest in chess suddenly surged in the United States. Though the book, “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess,” was originally published in 1966, sales skyrocketed after Bobby won the crown. Among the purchasers of this book was my father, United States Chess Expert Paul C. Greiner. As was the case with many fathers who took interest in chess, my dad had hopes that one of his kids would be the next prodigy. Sadly, those hopes were dashed, as I was the only one of his kids to ever take chess seriously.

It was on December 25th 1972, that I received my copy of the book as one of my Christmas gifts. And so at the age of 8 I first learned how to move the pieces. 333 pages of programmed instruction were studied little by little each day and at least one game against my dad would be played at the end of each session. We used descriptive notation in those days, and I learned it quickly as my dad required me to write down every single game whether it was serious or not. By the time the school year was ending in 1973, I had already played my dad Close to 200 games of chess, losing every single time. Most of my games were laden with blunders. However, I craved my dad's attention and so I never got discouraged enough to give up. It was May of that year, and we kids were happy that my dad got us an early dismissal to drive down to Cape May, NJ where we would visit his parents. I often wonder if the familial visit was dad's true motivation, because as it turns out the Cape May Grand Prix was being held that very weekend.

When we arrived at my grandma's house, and sat for dinner, my grandpa mentioned the tournament to my dad. Dad and grandpa both decided that they would play in the event. Almost as an afterthought my dad said to me, “Danny, you'll probably lose every game, but how would you like to play in your first tournament?” Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity, and as predicted by my dad, I lost four games in a row.

In the 5th and final round of the event, I was paired with a man named Peter Catalano. He had a near Expert rating, but was having a terrible tournament. It must have been frustrating to him to be paired with an unrated beginner in the fifth round. On the other hand, I would imagine that in his mind he consoled himself by guaranteeing that he'd finally get a win. In a twist of ironic drama, this man had already lost both to my father and grandfather. Imagine facing three generations of players in the same tournament.

The game began with a Queen's Gambit Declined (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6), but quickly transposed to a Closed Catalan by move four (3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2). My opponent had a very comfortable game coming out of the opening (4. …Be7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Nc3 dxc4 7. Ne5 Nc6 8. Nxc6 bxc6 9. Bxc6 Rb8 10. O-O) with nice control of the long a8h1 diagonal as seen in the following position:

Of course, I felt compelled to challenge the control of the long diagonal and played Bishop to Knight two (10. …Bb7). Imagine my surprise when my much stronger opponent played Bishop to Knight five (11. Bb5), going after a stray pawn, rather than trading Bishops. I decided to attack the center with Pawn to Bishop four (11. …c5), but after Pawn takes Pawn (12. dxc5), I realized I could use my Queen and Bishop together to go after the White King. Thus, I needed to avoid a Queen trade. I also had to prevent him from pushing his former Queen's Pawn forward to attack my Bishop. Queen to Bishop one (12. …Qc8) was the only way to do this.

What could be more natural than for my opponent to bring out his last piece with an attack on my Rook? And yet, Bishop to Bishop four (13. Bf4??) is a costly blunder that allows me to attack with vigor. I pushed my King's Pawn forward (13. …e5!) to attack his Bishop and open the c8h3 diagonal for my Queen. I'm sure my opponent's rudeness was an uncharacteristic outburst that resulted from the culmination of horrific play on his part that weekend. he said, “I can just take that, kid,” and he snatched it up with his Bishop (14. Bxe5) as a demonstration of his statement, renewing the attack on my Queen's Rook. Without much hesitation, I moved my queen diagonally from one edge of the board to another (14. …Qh3), threatening to deliver checkmate on the magic square.

My opponent's eyes widened suddenly as he seemed to see the reality of the position for the first time. Recognizing that he could not push his pawn forward to attack my Bishop as it would allow a forced checkmate in conjunction with my Knight and Queen (e.g. 15. c6 Ng4 16. Re1 Qxh2+ 17. Kf1 Qxf3#), he inexplicably played his Knight to Queen five (15. Nd5) to which I replied with a snide, mimicking voice, “I can just take that, kid,” snatching it off the board with my Bishop (15. ...Bxd5), renewing the checkmate threat. he pushed his Bishop’s Pawn forward one square (16. f3) to obstruct the long diagonal.

Finding the move that chess.com has now identified as a brilliancy, I placed my Knight at Knight five (16. …Ng4!!), threatening checkmate with Queen takes Pawn. The Knight cannot be captured as that would allow the original checkmate on the magic square (i.e. if 17. fxg4?? Qg2#). My opponent had no choice but to defend against the checkmate threat by advancing his King's Rook (17. Rf2).

With multiple advantageous captures available to me, I paused for another period of contemplation. Once again I resisted capturing his Bishop with my endangered Rook and rather pinned his Rook by capturing his Pawn with my Bishop (17. …Bxc5!!). Upon chess.com analysis, this move was awarded a second consecutive double exclam!!

The game would continue for another dozen moves before my opponent tipped his king and left the table without a word. Not only had I won a game of chess for the first time in my life, but it was a rated tournament game against a very strong player. A brilliancy prize was to be awarded at that tournament, and to be eligible the game had to be nominated by one's opponent. It seems my opponent had a change of heart regarding his bad behavior, and he nominated my game. The decision was unanimous, and I walked away with $25 in my pocket. Big bucks for a kid who was two months shy of nine years old.