©Renate-Irene

Gifts of Kindness: William Lombardy

Updated: Nov 25, 2022, 12:52 PM | 10

I was dejected as I walked into the skittles room. I had just lost a game; the person was rated 300 points higher, but somehow, I felt that I played better than he did. Lombardy saw me and offered to go over the game with me. Who could refuse such an offer? So, we sat down at one the wooden tables and Lombardy started going over the moves. After a couple of moves, I heard Lombardy say, “You know chess, but your opponent doesn’t.” That startled me. “But he won,” I responded. “I thought so,” Lombardy said, with a sad voice. His hands flew over the game, and then it stopped.

“Here, you should have castled Queen-side!” I remembered that position. I had spent a long time trying to figure out how to get the rook into the middle. Queen-side castling would do it – in one move, the move that I had been looking for and that eluded me. I told Lombardy that I tend to forget about Queen-side castling. “They don’t teach castling Queen-side to beginners,” was his comment -- and then he returned to analyzing the game. He stopped again at a critical position. “Here, you should have done this.” Again, it was a position that I recognized -- I knew what needed to be done, what I wanted to do, but I did not know how to do it. This happened a number of times. It was as if he could read my thoughts; he understood what I was trying to do and he showed me how to do it.

As he went over my moves, I heard him repeat, “You are only a beginner.” It was as if he felt my frustrations, my internal conflict of what I saw, what I understood, and my performance. It was as if he was trying to put his own frustration into perspective. Unspoken, he sent me a message: “You see, you understand, but you are a beginner. Learn, and you will be able to succeed.” It gave me hope. Thank you, Lombardy, for this great gift.

@Renate-Irene

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I have decided to start a series of blogs in the new year. As I thought about it, many ideas presented themselves. I may pursue them later, but as it is Christmas time, I thought I would start with a series of blogs honoring three people who have deeply and profoundly affected my attitude toward chess and life. The first blog, today’s blog, will set the background.

Toward the end of his life, William Lombardy visited the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco, California. I remember when he came in and sat next to me on the first day of the Imre Koenig event. This was a special two-day round-robin event where invited grandmasters competed against each other. If I remember correctly, there were only four players, Daniel Naroditsky and Sam Shankland among them.

I did not recognize the stranger who sat next to me, but John Donaldson, the MI chess director, did. He greeted him and brought out an old picture of a chess event with Lombardy sitting in the front row. Handing the picture to Lombardy, he asked Lombardy if he remembered. Lombardy smiled. Then John invited him to join us the following day for a special grandmaster luncheon.

After the luncheon, while I was cleaning up, Lombardy and I talked. I asked him what I could do to improve in chess. I told him I studied games by analyzing them, but It was a very slow and time-consuming process. He suggested that I spend 10 minutes a day going quickly through as many games as possible. “That won’t work,” I responded. So he tried a different track; he asked me if I stopped it every few minutes to analyze it when I listened to music. Hmm, he had a point; I do not stop the music every few minutes while listening. Lombardy and I spent an hour or two that afternoon discussing many things. We had a wonderful time.

After that event, Lombardy often visited the MI, especially on Tuesday nights when the place was buzzing with people. Tuesday is the night of the historic Tuesday Night Marathon, which often draws more than 100 players.

As participants finish, they gather in the skittles room, a special room with walls covered with pictures of famous chess players. A tall picture of Tal smoking his cigar is on one side, a photograph of Spassky giving a simultaneous exhibition at the Mechanics Institute on the other side. Over the door to the office is a framed picture of Bobby Fischer on the cover of Time magazine. Additional pictures are scattered over the walls, such as Frank Sinatra and Walter Browne playing chess, giving the room the comfortable feeling of a home rather than a club. The room is filled with solid wooden chess tables, each with its history.

On Tuesday nights, the room is full as the players of the Tuesday night marathon stream in. “What would you have done if I played this?’’ “Why did you play this move?” “What were you thinking here?” “You nearly got me there.” “Why didn’t you play this move?”

These questions, asked quietly at various tables as players analyze their games at each table, give the room a quiet buzz of fellowship and camaraderie. Lombardy and I were sitting at one of the tables across from each other. He had been talking to one of his friends, who just had left. So I set down across from him, handing him a poem I wrote about Bobby Fischer. I always wondered if my portrayal of Bobby Fischer was accurate, and here I had someone who knew him well. I was not going to let this opportunity slip by.

At first, he was reluctant to read it, but he agreed. As he started reading the poem, I heard him comment, “I like this….” “The wording here needs to be changed…” etc. When he had finished, I looked eagerly at him. “Did I capture Bobby Fischer?” He nodded; there was a pause, and then I heard him quietly say, “It could have been me.”