BBC's The Master Game

The Master Game chess program from the BBC has been issued on DVD in response to online interest, including lobbying by bloggers like Mark Weeks and the obvious consumer interest in the program evidenced by many popular copyright infringements on YouTube.  I have compiled PGN files of the games in Series 1-7 and information for purchasing DVDs and books below.

The Master Game was the first program to show chess on television in a way that had a chance of connecting with the larger chess-playing public.  As producer Robert Toner notes:

I had seen many forms of television chess coverage, but none of them was satisfactory.  Pieces would disappear from one square and appear in another, and only experts seemed to be able to follow a game.  Also, it was all so remote, I felt no involvement with the game or the players.  What we needed was direct access into their thoughts, not the high-speed technical thoughts of a chess-playing mind, but thoughts put in such a way that anyone who knew the rules would be able to follow the most complicated game. (Foreword, The Master Game, 1979)

The system Toner developed had players compete in a knock-out tournament at a BBC studio, where the games themselves were recorded; then, about two days later, the players recreated their thoughts during the game in a sound studio.  The games were played under tournament conditions, with forty moves in two-and-a-half hours followed by an hour sudden death.  (In the first three series, with absolute knockout format, there were also rules for replaying drawn games, but in later tournaments the rules were changed to avoid replays.)  The game play was edited to a 30-minute program, so the audience did not have to endure long and unpredictable delays between moves, and commentary by the players was added.  

What made the program so successful was the fiction that the players were commenting on the games as they were happening, with the comments always expressed in present-tense form, thus creating a sense of engagement and immediacy that is not achieved in other formats, except perhaps in the now ubiquitous videos where players comment on their blitz games while in progress.  The types of comments offered by the players were also quite effective at communicating the way GMs usually choose a move, relying more on chess reasoning and intuition than the calculation of long variations, except where the position called for that.  Though we now have access to a lot of chess on video, no one seems to have invested the time and resources to create a similar product, though Maurice Ashley's Speed Chess DVD comes close, substituting exciting play-by-play commentary for the players' own thoughts.

Besides serving as excellent instructional videos, these DVDs are worth having for the living history they contain.  Where else are you going to find the great players of the 70s and 80s commenting on their games?  The Series 7 DVD also contains a bonus documentary feature about Matthew Sadler titled "The Lowdown: The Master of the Game" (1989).  Highly recommended.

Purchase DVDs
The videos can be purchased directly from Odeon Entertainment as DVDs or digital downloads.  So far they have re-issued Series 6 and Series 7, which can also be purchased from New in Chess, Chess & Bridge and other European online re-sellers. I have not been able to identify a U.S. distributor, but I had no trouble ordering from New in Chess, which always provides excellent service.  One important note: the DVDs are "Region 0" and PAL format, so they will not play on older DVD players made for the U.S. market.  I have a ten-year-old DVD player on which they do not play, but they do work on my computer's DVD player with no problem.

BBC: The Master Game Series 6. Contains all 13 30-minute programs for a total of 390 minutes on two DVDs, featuring Bent Larsen, Nigel Short, Svetozar Gligoric, Vlastimil Hort, Robert Byrne, Tony Miles, Lothar Schmid and Jan Hein Donner.

BBC: The Master Game Series 7.  Contains all 13 30-minute programs for a total of 390 minutes on two DVDs, featuring Andras Adorjan, Nigel Short, Walter Browne, Eric Lobron, Raymond Keene, Larry Christiansen, Miguel Quinteros and Hans-Joachim Hecht.

Games and PGN File Downloads
I have annotated one of the better games in "How Passed Pawns Win 'Master Games'" on this blog, which includes several passed pawn puzzles from the series.  I have also collected all of the games played in the Master Game tournaments and posted them as separate PGN files for download or Java replay:   
Series 1 - 1975 (PGN) (Java replay)
Series 2 - 1976 (PGN) (Java replay)
Series 3 - 1977 (PGN) (Java replay)
Series 4 - 1979 (PGN) (Java replay)
Series 5 - 1980 (PGN) (Java replay)
Series 6 - 1981 (PGN) (Java replay)
Series 7 - 1982 (PGN) (Java replay)

Special thanks to Tom Martinak from the Pitt Chess Archives for supplying me with the PGN files from the first three series, which saved me a lot of trouble compiling them by hand.  The Pitt Archives were taken down due to security concerns over their FTP hosting, but I understand they will eventually be available again when a new host is chosen.  I found PGN files of other games at 365chess and Chessgames.com, and some games I added by hand from the books (see below).  I have followed the books for game order and moves where sources disagreed.  Unfortunately, only very late in my research did I discover Mark Weeks's excellent zipped PGN of the games, which saved me from having to compile Series 6 by hand.  I think the files are now complete, but I welcome corrections and additions if I have overlooked anything.

Books

The copies of the books I own are wider than represented.

The books of The Master Game are out of print but available for purchase from various online sellers of used books.  I was fortunately able to purchase them both for under $10 each (with shipping), but I suspect the price will rise significantly as the series attracts renewed interest.  Both are excellent books and I hope the BBC considers re-issuing them to accompany the DVDs.

The Master Game by Jeremy James and Leonard Barden, British Broadcasting Corporation (1979).   Contains all of the games from the first three series (1975, 1976, and 1977), with a foreword by producer Robert Toner, biographies of the players in each series, and the 36 annotated games (with notes drawing from the GM commentary on the show), plus opening and player indexes.  In algebraic notation.  This is a very attractive and well edited book.

The Master Game, Book Two by Jeremy James and William Hartston, British Broadcasting Corporation (1981).  Contains 41 annotated games from Series 4, 5, and 6 (1979, 1980, and 1981), plus the game scores from the first three series.  Like the first volume, it has biographies of players and indexes.

Videos Online
There have been a number of people posting The Master Game videos online, but most have been taken down recently as the publisher has moved to protect the copyright in anticipation of re-issuing them on DVD.  Only the first two videos below are official trailers, so the others may vanish at any time.








 


Links

• The Master Game at Wikipedia
• Chess for All Ages on The Master Game by Mark Weeks
• Mark Weeks PGN Zip
• BBC: The Master Game revived on DVD, ChessBase (July 2, 2013)
• The Master Game by Jonathan Berger
• BBC's The Mater Game on YouTube by Peter Doggers
• BBC Master Game Series 1 by RedShield at Chessgames.com
• BBC Master Game Series 2 by RedShield at Chessgames.com
• BBC Master Game Series 3 by RedShield at Chessgames.com
• BBC Master Game Series 4 by RedShield at Chessgames.com
• London BBC TV 1975 at 365chess
• London BBC TV-B 1979 at 365chess
• London BBC TV-A 1979 at 365chess
• London BBC TV-final 1979 at 365chess
• London BBC TV-A 1981 at 365chess

Anderssen - Lange, Breslau 1859

I think I truly fell in love with chess when, as a teen, I first played over Anderssen - Lange, Breslau 1859, which I saw in The Golden Treasury of Chess.  It is a truly spectacular game and probably my main inspiration for taking up Bird's Defense.  I was very disappointed to learn, years later, that Lange's entire combination was flawed and that Anderssen could have won with 10.Qe1! (see notes by Bob Basala, for instance, who expresses having a similar disappointment upon learning that).  So you can imagine how much more disappointed I am to learn today in "Edward Winter's Chess Explorations (61)" at ChessBase that the game itself is almost certainly nothing more than "analytical exploration" between the players in question.  All of the romance of chess seems to evaporate into air...

Jeremy Gaige (1927-2011)

According to the The Philadelphia Inquirer, chess historian Jeremy Gaige died in that city on February 19th of emphysema at the age of 83.  His Chess Personalia: A Biobibliography has been an indispensable desk reference for all chess journalists.  Hat tip to Mark Weeks.

50th Anniversary of U.S. Victory at Leningrad

Spassky vs. Lombardy

Eliott Hearst's "Victory at Leningrad: The 50th Anniversary" has been posted in full at the USCF website for all to read (a slightly shorter version of the article appears in this month's Chess Life).  It tells the story of the great American victory at the 7th World Student Team Chess Championship, which represented one of the most important international titles ever won by U.S. players during the long period of Soviet / Russian dominance of the game since WWII.  I posted an article on the event  about four years ago and analyzed  many of the better games (also a subject I returned to later). I was most impressed by the deep games of Charles Kalme, especially those where he played the King's Indian Attack.

BBC's "How to Win at Chess"

The BBC has produced a wonderful hour-long documentary titled "How to Win at Chess," most of which has been posted at zaphod319's YouTube channel.  It is also widely available for download, though not yet available for sale.  Structured rather like David Shenk's The Immortal Game, it follows an arranged game between British chess personalities Ray Keene and Daniel King (which the two players use as a vehicle for instruction) while jumping off into various aspects of chess history, culture, and competition.  Highly recommended.

Hat tip to Mark Weeks, who often posts about videos on Friday.

Paul Morphy vs. Mephistopheles

Retzsch's Die Schachspieler (1831)

In Die Schachspieler and the Morphy Anecdote, Part I and Part II, Sarah Beth Cohen reproduces multiple interpretations of a fascinating painting by Friedrich Moritz August Retzsch depicting the familiar theme of a chess game with the devil. She then goes on to reproduce the interesting Paul Morphy anecdote that became attached to that painting by a series of articles in the Columbia Chess Chronicle (which can be found online at Google Books). According to the "Anecdote of Morphy" (August 18, 1888, p. 60), the American chess champion joined a dinner party at a home in Richmond, Virginia, where a copy of Retzch's painting hung on the wall. After studying the painting for some time, Morphy said that he could "take the young man's game and win," which he proceeded to prove several times to the other dinner guests in turn. The story provoked some controversy in the Chronicle, and Ms. Cohen reproduces the letter exchange that followed in its pages. She neglects to include, however, the letter of Charles Gilberg (see below, from September 22, 1888) which purports to reproduce the game position that Morphy defended.


Of course, a comparison of the position with the painting should prove to anyone that Gilberg's rendition is completely incorrect. Just for starters, he does not notice that all of the devil's remaining pieces stand on dark squares (since he represents the dark side, of course). In fact, the one thing he could get right about the position -- which is the situation of the pieces -- he gets completely wrong.

However, while it seems possible to reconstruct the situation of the pieces (see below), a close examination of the pieces themselves quickly reveals that no definitive statement can be made about the chess pieces they represent. After all, the pieces are intended to depict a battle between the seven (or eight) virtues and the seven deadly sins, and chess seems to function in the painting mostly as a metaphor. However, in my opinion, the fact that no definitive statement can be made about the chess pieces depicted only lends credence to the "Anecdote of Morphy," since it seems entirely possible to construct a chess position (and probably several) that would be quite competitive or even winning for White using the situation of the forces given in the painting.

Unfortunately, the only view of the painting I have available is the one online at ArtFact that Ms. Cohen references and reproduces with her article. But even from this rather limited view I think I can reconstruct the situation:

The situation of the pieces

We can say only a few things definitively, however, about the pieces depicted:

• the board is set up correctly, with a light square on the right;
• the small pieces are clearly intended to represent pawns;
• since all of the Black pieces remaining stand on dark squares, the piece that the young man has captured must be the light-squared Bishop;
• and the painting does not depict a full set of pieces and pawns for both sides.

Here is one possible way of rendering the position on a chessboard:

Morphy vs. Mephistopheles?

I think from that position, Morphy would have offered his challengers a sporting chance (Fritz thinks Black still has a slight edge after 1.Qxd4+). And he might even have held that "Modern Mephistopheles," the chess computer, to a draw. Below is one possible continuation (or see PGN) with best play for Black--something Morphy would certainly not have encountered in Richmond.

Immerse Yourself in Chess History

Google Books has an amazing collection of magazines, many of which feature articles on "chess." I recommend you start with "Chess Champion Bobby Fischer in Deep Training" and work your way down.... But be sure to come up for air occasionally. (Hat tip Mark Weeks.)

Chicago and Lake Hopatcong 1926

Those of us who collect chess books often choose works as much for their rarity and beauty as for the games and ideas they contain. Dale Brandreth's Caissa Editions has long catered to collectors, supplying limited editions of truly beautiful books, complete with library bindings, high quality paper, very readable fonts, multiple diagrams per page, attractive layouts, rare photographs, excellent indexes, and careful editing. Yet Caissa books not only exhibit rare quality but also supply rare content, as is the case with Robert Sherwood's excellent book of the Chicago 1926 and Lake Hopatcong 1926 Chess Tournaments, which finally brings to light many games that had long been missing from the historical record.

I have posted a page of four Tactical Puzzles from Chicago 1926.

As Jeremy Silman mentions in his review, even his "database of over 3,850,000 games only has 27 from the Chicago 1926 event, while the tournament book we’re about to discuss has 78!" Why is it that, until now (for the databases are already adding them), we have only had access to about a third of the games? Because, as with many tournaments, the majority of the games were never published. Only the games of the tournament stars (especially Marshall, Torre and Maroczy) were of much interest to the public, and so only the best of their games and a few others ever made their way to print and subsequently into the databases. Frank Marshall was personally responsible for adding two to the record, analyzing his games with Kupchik and Maroczy (certainly among the best of the tournament) in his Marshall's Best Games of Chess. And Gabriel Velasco collected all of Torre's games from the event for his book on the Mexican GM. But we owe a debt of gratitude to author Robert Sherwood for returning to photostats of the original score sheets (some of which proved "impossible to decipher") to puzzle out most of the moves for the rest.

Ironically, despite Sherwood's efforts, I think my favorite games from the tournament remain those that have long been known, including Marshall - Kupchik, Marshall - Maroczy, Maroczy - Chajes, and Showalter - Torre -- the last of which features a truly challenging tactical idea from Torre (see diagram below and in the puzzles), who found not only a winning idea but also the only move to survive (a move you can forgive Showalter for having overlooked when he played 20.Qxg7?).

Showalter - Torre, Chicago 1926
Black to play and win.

Yet some of the long unkown games are of interest as well, mostly for their fascinating endgames, as in Marshall - Isaacs and Kashdan - Lasker. In fact, I would say that those who love to study endings will find much to appreciate in Chicago 1926, since all of the games were hard fought (every draw and win well earned) and therefore typically feature some endgame play. The openings, meanwhile, were the standards of the time, including the Queen's Gambit, Ruy Lopez, Caro-Kann, Colle-Zukertort, and the London System, as well as the surprisingly popular Alekhine's Defense. There are a couple absolutely classic Ruy Lopez attacks (most notably Ed. Lasker - Chajes and Chajes - Showalter with their queen sacrifices) and classic Queen's Gambits (especially Marshall's games cited above). But it is in the endings where the games have the most to offer those more interested in the theory of the game than its human history. Sherwood has done a marvelous job of annotating every game to maximize its value to us.

Kupchik - Capablanca,
Lake Hopatcong 1926
Position after 19.Rf3? h5!

The section on Lake Hopatcong 1926 is also very well put together, with many notes in addition to those in the original tournament book by Herman Helms and C.S. Howell. Readers of these pages will likely recall my own fascination with the two Lake Hopatcong tournaments of 1923 and 1926. Comparing in a few places my own annotations to those of Mr. Sherwood, I am impressed by how much he adds to my understanding of these games.

My favorite game from Lake Hopatcong 1926 is probably Kupchik - Capablanca, where Capablanca's 19...h5 (see diagram above) long puzzled me, so that I was only too happy to accept C.S. Howell's fascinating explanation that the move was part of a deep-seeded plan to distract Kupchik's forces by luring them over to the kingside, thus strengthening his own queenside attack. I am still convinced that something like that happens in the game. But Sherwood's explanation of 19...h5! is even more persuasive. Having pointed out that 19.Rf3? was in error because the superior 19.Rg1 planning a g4 push would have given White some kingside chances, Sherwood notes that Capa's 19...h5! "takes advantage of the now blocked d1-h5 diagonal to forever preempt White's g2-g4, thereby freeing himself to operate unhindered on the other wing." This note is simply one of many that offer a deeper insight into these excellent games.

My only regret is that author Sherwood and editor Brandreth did not conceive of a separate volume devoted to the Lake Hopatcong tournaments of 1923 and 1926 -- creating coherence of geography rather than chronology. Most of the 1923 games had long been lost to the historical record and are only now making their way into the databases. I was able to uncover 42 from Herman Helms's Brooklyn Eagle chess columns -- though I now discover that Phony Benoni (a.k.a. David Moody) has posted even more at ChessGames.com in an excellent page devoted to the event. And clearly Brandreth knew the event well, since he includes a great photo of the 1923 players (one of many photos that alone repay the cost of the book).

I think the combination of the two Lake Hopatcong events would have been at least as interesting as the current volume. My favorite game from 1923 is the long known Kupchik - Marshall, which Marshall annotated in his collected games. But there are many more of value, including the interesting game Kupchik - Chajes, which offers what I called "An Opening Novelty from 1923." Though the Chicago 1926 tournament (which takes up only 152 pages) likely needed something more to fill out a book, perhaps there were other events that could have done it. Most of the action in 1926 was in Europe, of course, but there was a Chicago-London cable match and I see tantalizing hints in the game records of a New York 1926 event from which comes Maroczy - Tenner. I certainly understand the choice of Lake Hopatcong 1926, and I probably appreciate more than most the additional information on this historic New Jersey event; I simply regret the missed opportunity for a fascinating separate volume.

As I hope is clear from this review, I heartily recommend the Chicago 1926 and Lake Hopatcong 1926 Chess Tournaments, which can be had by sending a check for $40 plus $4 for shipping and handling to:

Dale A. Brandreth
Caissa Editions
P.O. Box 151
Yorklyn, DE 19736

Tal - Stoyko, Simultaneous Exhibit 1990

Tal - Stoyko 1990
Black to play.

Tal - Stoyko 1990
Black to play.

I have annoted the game Mikhail Tal - Steve Stoyko, Simultaneous Exhibit 1990. I was visiting with Steve when he found the game score after many years. "I sacced a piece against Tal," he said as he handed it to me. It was an impressive performance by both players and a very interesting game. In the two diagrammed positions, Stoyko plays combinations that do not win material but do improve his position significantly and help to create winning chances for Black.

Chessidim

There is an interesting article today in the New Jersey Jewish Standard titled "Chessidim" by Josh Lipowsky (USCF 1650) which details the important role that Jews have played in the history of chess.  An accompanying article by the same author discusses "Bobby Fischer: The Self-Hating Jewish Champion."

This is not the first time that the historical importance of Jewish chess players has been highlighted.  There have been a number of books (especially by Victor Keats), articles (see "Chess and Jews" by Edward Winter), and websites ("Jews in Chess") on the phenomenon.  A New York Times article a few years back ("Researchers Say Intelligence and Diseases May Be Linked in Ashkenazic Genes" -- see also ChessBase News) even suggested a genetic link, caused by the social marginalization of Ashkenazi Jews to"occupations that required more than usual mental agility."  Whatever the reason, there is no question that Jewish players have made important contributions to the game and Mr. Lipowsky's articles do a good job of detailing their history.

Anand on the Indian Origins of Chess

"The March of Chess" from India

In a Time Magazine essay titled "The Indian Defense," reigning world chess champion Viswanathan Anand writes about how the origins of the game helped him to feel entitled to pursue the crown:

In 1991, at my first international tournament, in Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, a Russian grandmaster condescendingly told me I could at best be a coffee-house player because I had not been tutored in the Soviet school of chess, which then dominated the sport. With the arrogance of youth — I was 21 — I thought to myself, "But didn't we Indians invent chess? Why shouldn't I have my own route to the top of the sport?"  

It would take me 17 years to find that route, and along the way I've had hundreds of conversations about the origins of chess — with players, fans, officials, taxi drivers, barbers and who knows how many people who sat next to me on a plane.  I've heard the ownership of chess being claimed by Russians, Chinese, Ukrainians, Arabs, Iranians, Turks, Spaniards and Greeks. My own view is that the sport belongs to everybody who plays it, but the question of its origins is easy enough to answer: chess comes from India.

An interesting personal reflection and worth a look.  Hat tip: ChessBase News.

Masters & Hustlers

"Masters & Hustlers" is an interesting new media website by Columbia University grad students Jennie Cohen and Radha Vij that tries to capture chess culture in New York City. It is a good effort for a school project and worth a look. Hat tip: Dylan Loeb McClain's Gambit blog. Note: some people have had trouble loading the site.

The Story of the Lewis Chessmen

There is a wonderful article by Allan Burnett (see "Stale Mate") in the Sunday Herald of Scotland about the famous Lewis Chessmen. It is also widely excerpted by other blogs, including Susan Polgar and the BCC Weblog. Whether or not you are interested in the Scottish claim on these beautiful pieces, you will surely enjoy Burnett's compelling tale, which makes history come to life.

Irving Ellner (1918-2008)

Former Kenilworth Chess Club president (1975-1985) and correspondence master Irving Ellner passed away on Thursday. He was 90 years old. I have annotated two of his better games at our site. One of those games appeared today in The Newark Star Ledger. It had been sent in by his long time friend Mike Wojcio, who intended it as a surprise for Irving, who always read the Ledger's chess column. As fate would have it, Irving died only days before the game appeared. Read more about Irving's role as president of our club in A History of the Kenilworth Chess Club.

Chess Amateurism

"Amateurism seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the groundrules of society. The amateur can afford to lose."
-- Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message"

I recently discovered an excellent essay by Federico Garcia that has gotten me thinking about the history of chess amateurism and its implications for today. In his paper “Steinitz and the Inception of Modern Chess” (2003/2005), Garcia argues that the break between romantic and modern chess should be understood as marking the difference between amateur and professional play. He begins with a very interesting question: why is it that the Romantics so rarely defended (accepting every offered sacrifice, for instance), most evidently in games like the Evergreen or the Immortal? To this Garcia responds:

To find an answer we must turn back to the social conditions that influenced chess at the time—in fact, the answer is closely related to what has been said about professionalism. The ethics of the amateurism, that ethics which finds so offensive any material, ‘mundane,’ interest, is also the ethics of ‘what matters is competing, not winning.’ A passive defence, or a passive attack for that matter, would be seen as cowardice. If you are attacked, anything other than a counterattack is an offense to chess and to your opponent. It is a matter of fair play not to escape your opponent’s bright combination with fastidious stubbornness (should the occasion arise, look for an even brighter combination!) In Romantic times, “you either won gloriously, or you succumbed to a counterattack and lost gloriously.” At stake, amateur decorum required, was honor—fairly independent from victory or defeat. Now, what is decidedly not independent from the victory or defeat is the accorded prize for the winner. The establishment of chess as a profession, one of whose consequences is an upheaval in priorities (for, no matter what, money, when needed, will always be a higher priority than honor), is probably the major factor at play for the appearance of defensive play and technique. Again, the fact that Steinitz was the first to assume his professionalism helps explain why it should be he the first to develop the defence. For even if Zukertort and the rest were professionals (in the sense that they earned a living through chess), they were—tied to the received scale of values—still ashamed of it, and they would not pursue the ignoble business of not fighting with knightly disinterest.

To look back at chess history through the lens of amateurism vs. professionalism is very compelling. Was it his amateurism that made Paul Morphy indulge in a sometimes unsound and tactical mode of play that causes some to devalue many of his games today? Was Mikhail Botvinnik's completely scientific approach to the game simply a natural expression of Soviet-era professionalism, and practically an extension of his work as an engineer? Was Frank Marshall's well-deserved reputation as a tactical swindler due to his occupying a liminal position, having absorbed the romantic ideals of the past but needing to make a living as a professional?

I am less interested in the answers to these historical questions than I am in thinking about the meaning of amateurism today, especially since I think we are entering a new era of chess amateurism, not just among players (since it seems very few U.S. players live as full time chess professionals) but most importantly among those who are promoting, writing about, and generally contributing to the game. This new form of chess amateurism, encouraged by the transformations of the internet, can only have a positive long-term effect on chess. After all, the word "amateur" (Latin root amat = "to love") is related to "amoré," and an amateur is one who participates for the love of it.

I am not sure I can say what effects it has had on the type of game played by the top players. In fact, I'm not even sure that's so important any more. This is the new age of the amateur, and the professionals are not necessarily setting the audience's agenda. For instance, very few try to keep up on "main line" theory anymore -- how could they? The amateur game is getting more interesting for amateurs (certainly more worth looking at and commenting on), and amateur participation in the game more important to its continued evolution.

Chess in the schools (though it certainly provides some professional opportunities for coaches) is one institutional mechanism that feeds the growing tide of amateurism by creating more educated chessplayers. Ann Hulbert develops this point in her essay "Chess Goes to School: How, and why, the game caught on among young Americans" (Slate, May 2, 2007), arguing that "chess has held onto a certain purity, along with its penury" and that's a good thing:

In an era when sports in the United States are a big business, as well as a fraught element of college admissions, chess offers kids in our overprogrammed youth culture a rare exposure to the real meaning and value of amateurism—the mastery of something for its own sake. Chess isn't going to earn anybody much of a living, but it can teach kids about learning....

Chess is not only entering grade school, it is now becoming important at the college level as well, as described by recent articles: "Rah! Rah! Block That Rook!" in The American (regarding the recruiting practices at UTD and UMBC) and Dylan Loeb McClain's "Good Opening Can Be a Scholarship" (focused on academic chess scholarships at Texas Tech). Even Judith [Susan] Polgar, always on the cutting edge, has an academic appointment. And while you can argue that chess scholarships, like athletic scholarships, are a form of "pay for play," I think that having chess in the schools has only reinforced its amateur status. But schools are only one institution.

Chess is increasingly being sustained by amateur involvement on the internet, where Web 2.0 and user paticipation has made it possible for amateurs to play extensively, produce knowledge (chess blogs have proliferated beyond measure, and amateurs even produce quality videos), join online discussion forums, and generally help to sustain chess culture. Some suggest that "the cult of the amateur," by producing lots of free content, is making it more difficult for the professionals to sustain themselves. But personally I think the rise of amateurism simply means that the professionals will have to raise the bar for what they do if they want to distinguish themselves from the rest.

In the short term, more voices online will mean more noise. But in the long term, more voices mean more varied and original ideas. As Sir William Haley argued in an essay on "Amateurism" (American Scholar 1976), in defense of amateur writers:

Mankind has benefited immeasurably from the cross-fertilization of ideas. It is from amateurs, and these include specialists straying out of their own domain, that cross-fertilization comes. Cross-fertilization is a desirable end.

As John Watson has argued, cross-fertilization is certainly a desirable end in chess theory. And while amateurs may not always unearth forgotten chess analysis or ideas, they will always enrich our cultural understanding of the game. You no longer have to be a professional chessplayer, after all, to write about chess, and amateur players have contributed a great deal
to cross-fertilizing and reframing our understanding chess in history and politics. Witness the work of Daniel Johnson, Paul Hoffman, and David Shenk, to name just a few amateur players who have nonetheless made very important contributions.

It's a mistake to think that the decline of professional chess in the U.S. suggests that the game itself is in decline. Nothing could be further from the truth. Perhaps the possibility of a lucrative professional U.S. chess circuit built from the top down basically "jumped the shark" in 2005 with the $500,000 HB Global Chess Challenge. There may be more top-down developments (such as the US Chess League's promise to pay top players) that make life a little easier for some professionals. But America's titled players make more from poker these days than they do from chess and that "Tournament for the Rest of Us," the US Amateur Team, will always be much bigger than all of them and more important to the longterm health of chess...and of professionals. It seems to me that to focus on professional players of the game in the U.S. is a mistake until we have built up the amateur base significantly. The places to focus our attention, then, are the amateur institutions: amateur tournaments, the schools, the web, and literature. If you focus on the amateur institutions, you will be very hopeful about the future....

Daniel Johnson's "White King and Red Queen"

Daniel Johnson's White King and Red Queen: How the Cold War was Fought on the Chessboard, reviewed quite favorably today by David Edmonds at the Times Online (with an extract) and recently by Sally Feldman ("Check Republics") at New Humanist, is the latest in a long line of culturally and historically informed books on chess, which includes David Shenk's The Immortal Game (reviewed here last year), Paul Hoffman's King's Gambit (which is great and I've been meaning to review it forever), Michael Weinreb's The Kings of New York (also great, with a review half-written), J. C. Hallman's The Chess Artist, and Edmonds and John Eidinow's Bobby Fischer Goes to War. I imagine Johnson's will be a very fine addition to this mushrooming literature, and better (in my view) than Edmonds's own book focused on the Fischer-Spassky match, which seemed satified merely to retell (albeit in excellent detail) the story of the 1972 World Chess Championship, with little in the way of cultural context.

I've referenced Johnson's work here before, and likely some of the current book derives from his excellent essay "Cold War Chess" (also in PDF) in Prospect, which was mentioned here in connection with NM Scott Massey's 2005 lecture on Moscow 1925. He also had one of the earliest reviews of Kasparov's How Life Imitates Chess (see "Garry Kasparov's Deadly Game"), which--like Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning, Bruce Pandolfini's Every Move Must Have a Purpose, and Peter Kurzdorfer's The Tao of Chess--analyzes the meanings of the game for the PowerPoint crowd. Though these books are also interesting in their way, I generally prefer my chess analysis to go a little deeper than that, and Johnson's writings show that he has an impressive ability to do just that. I look forward to getting my copy for Holiday reading.

First American Chess Congress, October 1857

GM Andy Soltis's ever-excellent Chess to Enjoy column in this month's Chess Life and Chess Life Online reminded me that the First American Chess Congress began 150 years ago this week in New York on October 6, 1857. You can find his column online, along with the puzzles section that features six selections from the tournament. You might also like my own "Puzzles from New York 1857" along with the selected games from which the puzzle positions come.

I would like to take a moment to compliment the editors of Chess Life for producing one of the best issues I have seen (not to mention the sexiest-ever chess magazine cover photo!) and for putting all of this excellent content online for the entire chess community to enjoy. Bravo!

Moncure Daniel Conway on Chess

Moncure Daniel Conway was an American Transcendentalist writer and Methodist minister of the mid- to late-nineteenth century and one of the earliest cultural critics of chess in the United States. Here are some interesting selections from his works regarding the game, including commentary on his meeting with Paul Morphy.

Selections from “Chess” (The Atlantic, June 1860: pp. 662-672)

There is no call for any one to vindicate this game. Chess is a great, worldwide fact. Wherever a highway is found, there, we may be sure, a reason existed for a highway. And when we find the explorer on his northward voyage, pausing a day in Iceland, may pass his time in keen encounters with the natives,--that the trader in Kamtschatka and China, unable to speak a word with the people surrounding him, yet holds a long evening’s converse over the board which is polyglot,--that the missionary returns from his pulpit, and the Hindoo from his widow-burning, to engage in a controversy without the theologicum odium attached,--the game becomes authentic from its universality. It is akin to music, to love, to joy, in that it sets aside alike social caste and sectarian differences: kings and peasants, warriors and priests, lords and ladies, mingle over the boards as they are represented upon it (664).

Looked at simply as a diversion, chess might naturally impress a man of intellectual earnestness…. It is not a diversion; a recreation it may be called, but only as any variation from ‘the shop’ is recreative. But chess has, by the experiences of many, sufficiently proved itself to have serious uses to men of thought, and in the way of an intellectual gymnasium. It is to the limbs and sinews of the mind—prudence, foresight, memory, combination, analysis—just what a gymnasium is to the body. In it every muscle, every joint of the understanding is put under the drill; and we know, that, where the mind does not have exercise for its body, but relies simply on idle cessation for its reinforcement, it will get too much lymph. Work is worship; but work without rest is idolatry. And rest is not, as some seem to think, a swoon, a slumber; it is an active receptivity, a masterly inactivity, which alone can deserve the fine name of Rest. Such, we believe, our favorite games secures better than all others (665).

Chess has even its Mythology,--Caissa being now, we believe, generally received at the Olympian Feasts. True, some one has been wicked enough to observe that all chess-stories are divisible into two classes,--in one a man plays for his own soul with the Devil, in the other the hero plays and wins a wife,--and to beg for a chess-story minus wives and devils; but such grumblers are worthless baggage, and ought to be checked (669).

One who knows the game will feel that it is sufficiently absorbing to be woven in with the textures of government, of history, and of biography. It is of the nature of chess gradually to gather up all the senses and faculties of the player, so that for the time being he is an automaton chess-player, to whom life and death are abstractions. … Some of the ealiest writers on chess have given their idea of the all-absorbing nature of the game in the pleasant legend, that it was invented by the two Grecian brothers Ledo and Tyrrheno to alleviate the pangs of hunger with which they were pressed, and that, whilst playing it, they lived weeks without considering that they had eaten nothing (670).

He who masters chess without being mastered by it will find that it discovers essential principles. In the world he will see a larger chess-field, and one also shaped by the severest mathematics: the world is so because the brain of man is so,--motive and move, motive and move: they sum up life, all life,--from the aspen-leaf turning its back to the wind, to the ecstasy of a saint (671).

Selections from Autobiography: Memoirs and Experiences (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1905)

Despite all my freedom there was a curious survival in me up to my twenty-seventh year of the Methodist dread of card-playing. The only indoor game I knew was chess. There was a flourishing Chess Club in Cincinnati, and I entered into the matches with keen interest. For a time I edited a weekly chess column in the Cincinnati Commercial, and wrote an article on Chess which Lowell published in the Atlantic Monthly. Whenever in New York I hastened to the Chess Club there, and watched the play of Lichtenstein, Thompson, Perrin, Marache, Fiske (editor of the Chess Monthly), and Colonel Mead, president of the club. This was at a time when the wonderful Paul Morphy was exciting the world. In July, 1858, I called on him at the Brevoort House, New York. He was a rather small man, with a beardless face that would have been boyish had it not been for the melancholy eyes. He was gentlemanly, and spoke in low tones. It had long been out of the question to play with him on even terms; the first-class players generally received the advantage of a knight, but being a second-class player I was given a rook. In a letter written at the time I mention five games in which I was beaten with these odds, but managed (or was permitted) to draw the sixth. It is added:--

When one plays with Morphy the sensation is as queer as the first electric shock, or first love, or chloroform, or any entirely novel experience. As you sit down at the board opposite him, a certain sheepishness steals over you, and you cannot rid yourself of an old fable in which a lion's skin plays a part. Then you are sure you have the advantage; you seem to be secure--you get a rook--you are ahead two pieces, three!! Gently, as if wafted by a zephyr, the pieces glide about the board; and presently as you are about to win the game a soft voice in your ear kindly insinuates, Mate! You are speechless. Again and again you try; again and again you are sure you must win; again and again your prodigal antagonist leaves his pieces at your mercy; but his moves are as the steps of Fate. Then you are charmed all along, so bewitchingly are you beheaded: one had rather be run through by Bayard, you know, than spared by a pretender. On the whole, I could only remember the Oriental anecdote of one who was taken to the banks of the Euphrates, where by a princely host he was led about the magnificent gardens and bowers, then asked if anything could be more beautiful. "Yes," he replied, "the chess-play of El-Zuli." So having lately sailed down the Hudson, having explored Staten Island, Hoboken, Fort Hamilton, and all the glorious retreats about New York, I shall say for ever that one thing is more beautiful than them all--the chess-play of Paul Morphy.

This was in July, 1858. I had already received a domestic suggestion that it was possible to give too much time to an innocent game, and the hint was reinforced by my experience with Morphy. I concluded that if, after all the time I had given to chess, any man could give a rook and beat me easily, any ambition in that direction might as well be renounced. Thence­forth I played only in vacations or when at sea.

Odds-giving

Sarah Beth Cohen has posted a very interesting article titled "The Romance of Chess--A Perspective on the Art of Odds-giving," which provides an impressive history of the practice of playing chess at material or time odds to compensate for disparities in strength. As she notes, the practice has been especially popular at chess clubs, where players of varied strength typically congregate:

The practice of odds-giving never entirely vanished and it's still practiced today at various clubs, especially in their handicap tournaments. Most handicap tournaments do not use material odds, but of the ones that specify that particular type of play, the Hobart International Chess Club of Tasmania serves as a fine example. This club was formed in 1994 by acquiring the equipment from the original Hobart Chess Club founded in 1887. They hosted blitz odds tournaments. Their method of applying odds is that the stronger player must offer 1 pawn's worth of material for each 100 pt. rating difference. Another such club is the Winchester Epiphany Chess Club of Winchester, Massachusetts. Their "Herbert Handicap Chess tournament," played at 20/10 has a very specific formula, listed on the link above, for who gets what odds.

The idea of "1 pawn's worth of material for each 100 pt. rating difference" seems a bit extreme to me, since I can hardly imagine getting two-pawn odds from even one of our strongest masters. A more reasonable rate might be a pawn per 300 points, since I have given piece odds with success to 1100 players and can almost imagine someone of Kasparov's (or Rybka's!) strength being able to spot me a piece. Likely a time-odds tournament would be even more attractive to higher-rated players.

What do people think of an odds tournament some day at the Kenilworth Chess Club?

Monte Carlo 1902

Sarah Beth Cohen has posted some interesting materials about Monte Carlo 1902 at her blog. You can download a PGN file of the games from the Pitt Archives.