Santasiere's Revolutionary Suggestion

                                                       "Chess Life"  November 20, 1957

     Now the we are fairly convinced that the aim of chess is  a) not to score a point, but as an artist, to create beauty;  b) not to hate the opponent, but to respect him as a partner in a labor of love,  we may ask —How can we proceed from there to organize a tournament in the light of a new standard?
                         Listen!  I will be honest with you,
                         I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer new prizes.
                                  WALT WHITMAN—Song of the Open Road

     We must not be afraid to break a new path.  Beethoven, Nimzovitch, Einstein, Freud, Alekhine, Jesus and many others did so, ad opened new worlds of loveliness.
     Now we have had enough philosophy, enough flag-waving.  et us get down to brass tacks.
     Here is a committee organizing a great chess tourney.  They are brave enough to wish to put the spotlight only on the quality of the chess played.   What decisions shall they make?  Shall they have money prizes?   Of course!   By experience the inducement of money prizes will attract the best of genius in quantity.
     To whom shall these prizes be awarded?   To the ones who play the most beautiful chess.
     Here is the sharp break from tradition.  We will not reward the point: we will reward the creation.
     Now we may quote from a typical tournament announcement of the future (after conditions, entries, etc.):
                                  

    A revolution?  Of course, and why not?   Must we be slaves to Dogma?

He doesn't advocate Brilliancy Prizes,  he advocates ONLY Brilliancy Prizes - no prizes for merely winning.

BTW, you can read about him here: https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/santasieres-folly and refresh your memory.

I second that emotion!   More brilliant games please.   

Santasiere, the ultimate romanticist, was actually pretty passionate on the subject.  He totally despised players who only waited for their opponents to make a mistake (and especially those who played the Queen's Gambit).  He gave such players - at the time Capablanca might have been the worst "offender" - their due for talent, technique and ability, but he found their games arid and bereft of anything worthwhile and their very existence a bane to chess.

I suspect Santasiere, were he alive today, would be one of the biggest critics of computer chess.

Why? They are totally brilliant. Even if a little unfathomable.

They aren't brilliant at all, though they might be unfathomable.  That would be Santasiere's contention, I imagine.  Calculating every conceivable line doesn't require brilliance, just.... well calculation.

And for the longest time I regarded "flashy" games as childish and without merit. Prizes like this are interesting, but of course subjective.

I once played a game I was proud of. From the opening choice, I decided to try for a certain endgame I knew could be reached, and I knew how to play it. I eventually got it. It wasn't winning, but one of those positions where you could "play forever" and pressure your opponent. After a lot of maneuvering my opponent's position deteriorated and I found a combination to win.

My state publishes games in a newsletter a few times a year. Are my games ever chosen? Very rarely. They prefer to have some idiotic sacrifice that was totally unsound, and losing, but there were 12 blunders after that so the idiot ends up winning. A terrible game of chess, IMO, but it looks nice. These are the preferred games.

As I try to round out my game, I'm getting a little more appreciation for "flashy" play though.

I was reading recently about a game played long ago that won a Brilliancy Prize over some other seemingly equally deserving game.  The game was later found to have contained an unsound sacrifice and the prize was revoked and given to the winner of the other game.  I can't find the example, but it tells me that Brilliancy Prizes at least, aren't about flashiness as much as ...well brilliance. 

I think Santasiere wasn't condoning wild play, but rather fearless play and a willingness to take chances in order to produce some aesthetic creation . It's said that the French thought Morphy's  chess was always (in their opinion) sound or "solide." The English considered Morphy's chess too risky.   I believe Santasiere looked for this exact combination of soundness and daring.

What Santasiere envisioned, as I interpret it, is definitely a subjective prize system but one anchored in the evaluations of highly skilled masters who understand and appreciate the nuances in games.

Probably more idealistic that anything.  Anyway, such ideas are what made Santasiere unique.

Not trying to nitpick here, but this seems to be a fairly major flaw in the concept.

By definition, the "best of genius" does not exist in "quantity".

Genius level players are rare enough, and limiting it to the best of them makes this a VERY exclusive qualification.

The times in chess when some of the "best of genius" actually lived in the same era and played each other are few, and those battles are legendary even today with good reason.

Kasparov vs. Karpov comes to mind as one of the most famous examples, but there are a few others.

The idea to attract players like that in "quantity" to a single tournament seems more like a PR stunt to me than a realistic hope.

The idea, as I understand it, isn't to attract certain players or players of any "genius" through the format (the monetary rewards supposedly will attract the best of the best) but to encourage, perhaps even force, a certain daring attitude.  I would imagine that gambits would be de rigueur.

Seems like you need some cooperation from your opponent to win one of these prizes.  If they blunder badly and you take advantage and win the game, you won't win the prize.

I could also imagine pre-arranged games with crazy lines popping up in order for players to split the prize, or fabricated games/doctored score sheets.  

Well, Santasiere considered a game of chess a creation of two people.  It wouldn't surprise me, from his own words, were he to have suggested both the winner AND the loser of a game deemed particularly "meritorious"  share the prize.  Collusion can occur in almost any form of competition.

"Here, in America, we have been far too anxious to worship success — in chess, as in finance. To play a good game of chess one had to be the winner; to have a great reputation, the number of first and second prizes was the only proper criterion. It matters not that we have on display the heart and soul, the reasoning of a human being — we brush it all aside with the sweeping question — did he win the game? "

Well, as long as "master" means strong GM I'm fine with that. No offense, but I wouldn't want a few 2200s judging my games  (Of course they'd be the first to admit they don't know it all.)

AFAIK back then "master" meant something like top tier. Perhaps one of the best in the country.

 Master wasn't an exact term nor were there specific qualifications until the 1950s. Probably results indicated who was considered such.

Santasiere's idea is a strange one, but it has a certain appeal too.

I remember Bronstein sharing similar opinions many times, I bet Santasiere wouldn't have had a better choice to be spanked by in that radio match.