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Searching for the Soul of Chess
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Searching for the Soul of Chess

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"What is chess, do you think? For those who play for fun or not at all, it is a game; those who devote their lives to it, for the most part, think of it as a science. It is neither. Bobby Fischer got beneath it like no one before him and found at its center – Art."

(Pandolfini in the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer)

Introduction

Sometimes I say something unmediated and unexpected, yet I know I stumbled upon a great personal truth when I say it. I do not think this is uncommon, but it is often unnoticed and lost. Yet when it does catch our attention, it changes our course, and we embark on an adventure. For some, like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, an experience on which the future of nations depends; for others, it is simply an exploration of new territories, like my search for the essence of chess.

Sam in the Lord of the Rings sums it up this way:

"But I suppose that it is often that way. The brave things in the old tales, and songs, Mr. Frodo, adventures as I used to call them. I used to think they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that is not the way of it with the tales that mattered or the ones that stay in your mind. Folks seem to have just landed in them, usually- their paths were laid that way, as you put it."

(Tolkien. J.R. Lord of the Rings, p. 711 )

The conversation occurred in an area of rocks and cliffs,  © Renate-Irene.

Often the initial steps are innocuous, such as Frodo joining Bilbo at Bags End or me joining the Mechanics Chess club.[1] My chess adventure has been an eventful journey from the beginning, but in this blog, I will focus on the event that helped me clarify my goal.

Background

The chess Festival, held every June, is a big chess event combining tournaments, lectures, and other chess-related events. A one-day grandmaster chess camp precedes it. Despite my low rating, I signed up for the intermediate camp; I like to stretch myself. I enjoyed the session and learned a lot about the fundamental positional concepts, but the pivotal event happened at the beginning of the session.

GM Ron Henley opened the session by asking the participants about their chess goals. Answered Although the specific answers varied, all participants wanted to increase their ratings or become titled players. My turn was last. I heard myself saying: I want to understand the game and discover its beauty and soul. Although I do not remember the exact words, the essence of the goal stayed with me and would, after that, shape the decision-making of my life.

Insight © Renate-Irene

On my journey, I was often side-tracked by burnouts, elusive wins, ratings, longing for acceptance as a chess player, and other distractions. Yet always, there was the search for truth, the heart of the game, to discover its soul, the elusive quest that will not let me go. Lasker was right when he said. "

"On the Chessboard, lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in the checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite." ― Emanuel Lasker

(https://chessarticle.com/100-best-chess-quotes-chess-quotes-on-life)

The search for the heart of chess is often a painful but rewarding inner struggle for the truth that can only be found in one's soul.

Ten years have passed, and my performance rating has not perceptibly changed; if anything, it seems to be worse. Yet I feel I have reached a new horizon, a new understanding, and made discoveries, edging me forward on my journey.



© Renate-Irene

In the background, I still can hear John Donaldson's comment, so often repeated in his lectures at the Mechanics Institute. Chess is like a dark room, where one light after another is light. I do not remember the exact words, but I see a ballroom filled with Chandeliers; each one is turned on, increasing the room's brightness and revealing new details hidden until then.

Before a chess tournament, Bali Hotel Vegas. Renate-Irene

The Gift of a Book for the Journey

One of the books I have in my chess library is Reinfeld's Treasure of Chess Lore. It is an old tattered copy, yet very precious to me. My favorite chess story that has intrigued me and that I have reread multiple times is called "The Last Round." The author uses a minimalistic approach to describe the setting, the tournament hall, the other players, and the spectators. Yet the opponents are described in vivid colors, rich in detail, like a Rembrandt painting drawing in the reader the two opponents' most important part of the milieu.

The story is written from the viewpoint of the protagonist, recording every thought, every reflection, and every movement allowing the reader to experience two parallel struggles simultaneously the desire to win the tournament and the desire to create an immortal game of beauty as illustrated by the two quotes below:

… As he waited, the old question arose once more in his mind. "Could this be it, the perfect game, the thing of beauty, the work of art? Could there come out of this tension of the mind, this conflict of wits, anything more than victory or defeat? This unknowing search for secret beauty? What was the perfect game of chess?

(Svendsen, K. in Reinfeld, Fred. (1951), Treasures of Chess Lore. p. 138)

Then faced with the reality that he needed a win while his opponent only needed a draw, a new question arose:

"Could he win? He lingered a moment over what a win would mean. The cash prize. Exhibitions. Tours. New additions of a champion's works, Contracts for others. No more the poverty of a chessmaster's life, articles, and annotations for short-lived journals, books that barely paid their way, lessons to sharkish amateurs who only wanted to beat each other."

(Svendsen, K. in Reinfeld, Fred. (1951), Treasures of Chess Lore. p. 139)

The story's impact is heightened as we see the struggle of the opponents through the protagonists' eyes. Recorded with the same precision, a grandmaster tracks his game. Every move, every gesture, observed and interpreted. One feels the tension, the struggles between the ideal and the real, and between the opponents, interweaving – a work of art.

But my favorite quote from this story is:

"There could be no mistake now. Out of defeat, victory. Out of death, life. Out of the tangled emotions of this fleeting game, a beauty to endure forever. Those fifty tortured years of his had not been in vain after all. This was perfection, a work of art, an abstraction of force into an eternal tension utterly withdrawn from its creators, from the moment, from the unmoved chessboard itself. A superb sequence of power began with the most daring stroke of all Chessdom, the sacrifice of the most powerful piece, the queen."

(Svendsen, K. in Reinfeld, Fred. (1951), Treasures of Chess Lore. p. 145, bold added)

The part that resonates with me the most is the plural in the comment "withdrawn from its creators." A beautiful game of chess, an immortal game, requires the best of both players. In the true sense, it is a co-creation of the opponents, and therein lies the beauty of chess- Two opposing forces co-creating a masterpiece.

I have often read this story. It always touches something profound in the soul. The deeper I venture into the chess theory, the more its beauty is revealed. And yet, until my last reading, I missed that the game described was real, played in 1893 and published in Chess World 1947.

Although a summary of the game is provided at the end of the story, I did not look at it closely until I decided to write a blog. Then I discovered the reference: Charousek-Wollner, Kaschau, 1893.

Who was Charousek? Googling the game, I found the game listed on his Wikipedia webpage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Charousek) with the following note:

"Another of Charousek's games, which Grandmaster Andrew Soltis described as "one of the prettiest ever," was the basis for the story Last Round by Kester Svendsen,[7] which Soltis called "perhaps the finest chess short story."

Enjoy the artistic rendition of the game given below."

The first Hungarian superstar: Charousek vs Wollner (1893)

Yet I found so much more. I felt like a treasure hunter trying to find an old coin and discover a treasure cove.

 Renate-Irene

My journey took another turn, inspired by Reuben Fine's quote:

 "Playing over his games is like reading Keats poetry: you cannot but help feeling a grievous, oppressive sense of loss, of promise unfulfilled."

A new trail has opened, promising wonderful chess compositions, art, and beauty. But that is the story of another blog.

 

To be continued….

[1] For details of my "discovery of chess," see my blog. You can run, but you cannot hide.

@Renate-Irene

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Bill Lombardy and Bobby Fischer Poem

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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.”