Curiouser and Curiouser

About 10 years ago I posted this in the forums: Gosh! That's Amazng!

Here is a related pseudo-reprint of an article from Chess Life and Review from May, 1979. It follows on the heels of a previous presentation about Korchnoi in 1978,  1978, Drama Is Thy Name

If one read that presentation, it should be obvious that Korchnoi put a lot of stock in the paranormal (if his game with the deceased Geza Maroczy via medium Robert Rollans,  wasn't evidence enough.  Korchnoi's first choices for a dead opponent were Capablanca and Keres, but Rollans couldn't locate them --seriously).

On with the show....

     

 

 

Forty-four-year-old Harry Kresge, Jr., alias "The Amazing Kreskin," is a slender dynamo of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Spock of the TV series Star Trek. Billing himself as "the world's foremost mentalist" he earns several hundred thousand dollars a year mystifying millions with his startling demonstrations of "extrasensory perception." His repertoire has included everything from "reading" a Social Security number in a lady's purse at 200 feet
to "levitating" Johnny Carson during one of 80 appearances thus far on the Tonight Show.

On the Ides of March I received an invitation from T. A. Kreskin's public relations firm to attend "the most unique chess exhibition ever held."

The accompanying press release informed me that on Tuesday morning, March 20th at the United Nations Plaza Hotel, Kreskin would be demonstrating his extraordinary mental powers by playing a two-board simultaneous against Grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi and Robert Byrne. In addition, he would be heavily blindfolded and would neither touch the pieces nor be told his opponents moves!

A successful preview of this unusual type of "mental-chess" was given by Kreskin in New York City last August with writer Cleveland Amory and ballet star Jacques d'Amboise, both longtime chess enthusiasts, participating. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was present for that display, concurred with the consensus of viewers, "I don't know how he did it."

My curiosity aroused, I decided to attend the Kreskin-Korchnoi-Byrne extravaganza. At about 11 A.M. I was seated in a tiny room along with forty or so other spectators. I spotted camera crews from NBC and ABC in the crowd as well as several USCF officials and over a dozen reporters. A few chess masters were also in the audience besides me—IM Andy Soltis, IM Murray Chandler, Larry Kaufman, Bill Goichberg, Bruce Pandolfini, and Jack Collins. Upon the arrival of Korchnoi and Byrne, I couldn't get over the feeling that Kreskin had already performed a truly amazing stunt—how could anyone else have possibily persuaded that many strong masters to wake up early in the morning for a chess match!?

Tom O'Neall and I were selected to act as Kreskin's assistants for the exhibition. Our assignment was to carry out the actual moving of the chess pieces for the mentalist after he jotted down his intentions on his magic slate. As a convenience to Kreskin, who admitted that he was 'unfamiliar with any of the conventional systems of chess notation, the squares on each of the two wooden boards were numbered from 1 to 64.

Kreskin made it clearly understood at the outset that his goal was not to defeat the grandmasters. "I'm a mentalist, not a miracle worker," he explained. "If I can last more than eight moves in each game I would surpass the predictions of the experts."

While our star was being blindfolded by a professional eye surgeon I hastily examined Korchnoi's table, set, and board for telltale signs of electronic devices or magician's gimmickry, but I couldn't detect anything unusual. Perhaps it was significant, however, that the two games were separated by an opaque partition, giving only Kreskin the opportunity to observe both positions at the same time.

The showdown finally got under way at about High Noon. Before responding to each of the grandmaster's moves Kreskin fidgeted anxiously in his seat, his hands nervously hovering over the chessmen. The visible anguish that he displayed throughout the exhibition was highly dramatic and effective. It made the whole thing seem hard, which is what any good showman would want to do, and Kreskin is above all a superb showman. At almost every turn I he was able to stall for time or draw attention away from illegal move attempts by keeping up a steady flow of amusing patter, typically... "I think I just made a stupid move." "What do you think I am, a mind reader?" "What a way to make a living." "Is Mr. Korchnoi still awake?" "Folks, these are only the thirteenth and fourteenth chess games of my career."
And as you will see, he wasn't lying.

The Amazing Kreskin vs. Robert Byrne

Viktor Korchnoi vs. The Amazing Kreskin
Part I

Part II
after the illegal 11...0-0

Yes Korchnoi did allow Kreskin to castle illegally and there is an amusing story behind it. Before Kreskin scribbled the move on his slate, Korchnoi slipped me a handwritten note. It said that if Kreskin writes down 11...0-0 I should permit him to do it, as he probably does not know all the rules of chess. As fate would have it, Kreskin did indeed castle, whereupon Korchnoi's face lit up like a Christmas tree. In later interviews he explained that the mentalist was obviously able to divine the contents of that handwritten message. Now, I don't wish to rule out that possibility, but couldn't it be said with equal justification that it was Viktor himself who performed a miracle of prophecy by "foretelling" his opponent's next move?

Viktor Korchnoi, in fact, turned out to be one of the few true believers in Kreskin's ESP abilities. "His fingers are very sensitive," said Korchnoi. "He can feel where the pieces are standing." The grandmaster seemed to be most impressed with Kreskin's so-called "hypersensitivity," which enables him to zero in On the subliminal brain waves of his subjects. The implications of this are fascinating. Can you just imagine the next World Championship match in which Kreskin is employed by Korchnoi to neutralize the evil whammy of Soviet parapsychologist Vladimir Zukhar.

Robert Byrne dismissed the feat as a clever parlor trick while most of the other masters present also exhibited varying degrees of skepticism. Some of their theories were:

• Kreskin was somehow able to see through his blindfold.
• He had paid accomplices in the audience (Kastner and O'Neall?) who relayed the moves by means of a secret code of coughs and sneezes.
• He is in reality a master "Kreigspeil" player. The illegal moves that he tried to make were intentional so that he could gather information about the locations of his opponents' pieces.
• He was playing Korchnoi and Byrne against each other. that is whatever move Korchnoi made as White, Kreskin made as White against Byrne, then, when Byrne replied, Kreskin made that move as Black against Korchnoi. Note the similarity of the openings and the use of a partition to isolate the games. ***
• He was secretly coached beforehand.
• When he waved his hand over the chessmen he was picking up electronic impulses from the board.

"The Amazing Kreskin" remarked after the two-and-one-half hour session that this was the toughest feat he had ever attempted. His next step is to convince Karpov and Fischer to play a similar two-board simul with him. Now that would truly be amazing, Kreskin'.

     

***  a trick later utilized by British magician/illusionist Derren Brown...see Chessbase 
The Chessbase article suggests this same trick had been used against Alekhine and Bogoljubov but offers no substantiation and is probably apocryphal since the same claim been made using a variety of players.

In his recently published (and highly recommended) book, Chess Board Options: A Memoir of Players, Games and Engines, GM Larry Kaufman recalls the event and the fact that he found the exhibition somewhat underwhelming.

 

Viktor Korchnoi vs. Maroczy's Ghost

GM Kaufman says that Korchnoi was paid for his involvement. If that's the case, then so was Byrne.  It's interesting that Kreskin chose two diametrically opposed opponents: one prone to believe and one prone to disbelieve (as Bryne stated afterwards). 

For those who don't understand the title, it's from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. After she eats the cake, she starts to grow large and to show how startled she is by this strange happening, Carroll wrote:

"'Curiouser and curiouser!' Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English)." 

I used to watch Kreskin on TV.  I'm old.  At the time he seemed believable.

but no longer?

My memory could be faulty, but didn't Kreskin always begin his performances with a disclaimer saying it was only for entertainment purposes? (Implying that there was a bit of subterfuge going on...)

In the 60's I was young and impressionable.  Is Kreskin even still alive??

Truly amazing. I am a scientist and very skeptical of magic but find it entertaining.

beautiful afternoon

I saw Kreskin too back then, also when I was young and gullible. Now I am a thorough skeptic (as in the Skeptic’s society).

I may have thought he was Spock at one time too.

I didn’t know he did crazy stuff with Korchnoi, but i am not surprised given all the hypnotic telepathic games that were played in Baguio.

It’s too bad magician James Randi couldn’t have been in attendance.

i am the gamer boy neon ◑﹏◐

You also took the wrong subway train.

   ---   Yes he used to do some very interesting things ( but how were they done ? ).

You can ask that question of any magician, which is what he was, and a good magician will never tell you the secret, because the secret impresses no one.

Well, Penn and Teller's clear cup & ball trick is pretty funny...

hi

   ---   He may well still be around. There is a video of him over on YouTube from last year where he performed a interesting segment on a show called Huckabee's Jukebox ( TBN ). At that time he was aged 85 and seemed to be doing quite well.

It's Amazing what you can do once you put your mind to it.

In the link to the other topic I made about Kreskin 10 years ago: Gosh! That's Amazing!, Isaac Asimov, who observed Kreskin's performance with Cleveland Amory, the chess playing columnist and with the world class ballet dancer also known for his obsession with chess, Jacques d'Ambroise, wrote an article about it for the New York Magazine in which he acted unimpressed with Kreskin's performance but his proffered reasons fall flat--

e.g: Kreskin is blindfolded and facing away from the board. Amory places a Knight on a random square. Kreskin, (who doesn't know notation, and in the same way as he did in the games above, uses a 1 to 64 numbering system to identify the squares) guessed the correct square (which baffles Asimov), then performs a blindfolded Knight's Tour. Asimov suggests any chess payer could memorize a Knight's Tour, unaware of how many variations there are and how square-specific each variation is, so that even if he could and did memorized them all, that feat in itself would be just as amazing. 

Asimov was an amazing guy and I read many of his books. I am currently watching Foundation on AppleTV.

But he is not a magician. Having him explain magic tricks is like asking Penn and Teller to reconcile relativity and QM.

Penn and Teller, professional magicians, had a show called “Fool Penn and Teller” or something like that. They mostly figured stuff out, but even the lifelong professional magicians were fooled on many occasions.

Most magic tricks, especially the really good ones, have the stupidest explanations for how they work.

I used to have people pick a card from a deck, and I would try to guess the card a couple of times, and fail. Then I would tell them how technology could succeed where I failed, and shake my iphone, and behold the card they picked appeared on my phone. It was so stupid. But no one could figure it out.