Love for wise men

I bought my first chess books in 1986. Chess Informant 38, the wrapper designed in a depressing shade of brown, and Batsford Chess Openings, written by Garry Kasparov and Raymond Keene, whose cover too I remember very well, a white background with squares of blue and pink. Pink!

[Both of them are not with me anymore - I gifted away most of my Informants to a chess-lover friend collecting old chess books, and gifted away the BCO once I had made that important graduation from BCO & MCO (Modern Chess Openings) to ECO (Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings). No one will believe me now, but a local hero of a chess player had smugly advised a bunch of us wide-eyed fans, "ECO is for you, BCO is for your opponents!", emphasising the difference in class. No one will believe me now if I say the local hero is still around!]

Of course, all I dreamt of becoming was an opening theoretician, firmly believing that it was pointless to study endgames. After all, I was going to play flawless opening theory in every game, checkmate my opponents bamboozling them in daring attacks following flawless opening theory. Just like every other kid who plays competitive chess, whether they admit it or not.

And then Garry Kasparov happened. He was the first Harry Potter for my 17 year old self. After all, as painted by most of my matured seniors of Coimbatore where I grew up learning chess, he played such mind-boggling 'attacking' chess and defeated that Anatoly 'Voldemort' Karpov, who used to play such 'boring' chess and became world champion only because his opponents were all taken to task in long games and lost somewhere along the way, not able to stand the boredom after 8 hours of sitting in uncomfortable chairs through the afternoons. And firmly convinced that the 16th and 24th games of the 1985 world championship match were the best ever creations that a chess player can hope to produce on a chess board ever.

So, undoubtedly, even though I continued buying Informants ('Informators' as the Tamil chess players used to call them, for some reason), Fighting Chess by Garry Kasparov was the next big thing which happened. And I was confirmed about my beliefs that I had about Kasparov. Great games! I probably read that book from cover to cover for about 10 times. (Only later did I find out that the original version was Test of Time, and how the editors of Batsford publishing had done such a disservice to humanity with the monstrous miniaturisation).

When my respected chess teacher chided me for studying only openings and handed me a copy of 'My System' by Aaron Nimzowitsch, it was all French and Latin inside. Whoever could understand the concept of 'Prophylaxis'? Let alone the chess usage, I couldn't understand the word at all - at school, even the medium of education was Tamil! And of course, you wouldn't want to ask anyone and show your ignorance, wouldn't you?

So, logically, as I felt, I continued with 'Life and games of Mikhail Tal' by Mikhail Tal, and it puzzled no end why such a bold attacker would occasionally choose to play so solid with white pieces, by opening with 1.c4? After all, 1.e4 was the proven way to play 'attacking' chess, and somewhere along the future, there should be a checkmate...

Life went on, and I really started chasing, collecting and copying up from chess books. Yes, once upon a time in this world, we chess players used to carry handy note books, where we used to write down opening analyses. Along with my brother I even almost copied up a whole book by hand, convinced that the effort was going to pay sure dividends - it was the 'Spanish 5.d4' by A.Thomas. After all, the variation was a clever and cunning device to sidestep the dangerous Marshall Attack by black. I was puzzled no end that my beloved Garry wasn't using this shortcut, and instead (still) fighting Karpov in closed Ruy Lopez.

As inevitable, I grew up, and came to appreciate books even more, spending considerable portion of my prize monies into buying books. It would be difficult for many to understand, but yes, there was a time when there were no computers and databases. Life as a chess player was a really pathetic drag. Books were the only solace. And wonder of wonders, slowly it was getting apparent that studying openings all the time was not a good idea after all...

Then, as I started building my own chess library, many people happened.  Broadly speaking, those grand old men who played important chess starting with two names from 1886. Even such obscure and strange people, like Rashid Nezhmetdinov, Grigory Sanakoev, Paul Morphy, Carl Schlechter, Hans Ree, Genna Sosonko, Jonathan Rowson, Mark Dvoretsky, Jonathan Speelman, Gerald Abraham, Mikhail Shereshevsky...

Now, past month has been a time of atonement for all those beginning years of sin and Satan worship, as I have found pleasure in particular company of these wise men, who arrived at my mailbox.

Two of them - Capa and Misha - scaled the tallest peak, and went their own ways in playing chess during their times. Not only chess, their lives too were inspiring. Looking at that young and handsome Capablanca, dressing up properly during public appearances looked so appealing, instead of the quintessential Indian chess player's uniform of a T-Shirt on a Jeans. And reading up - and hearing stories from his old friends - on Misha, that beloved darling of chess players who graced this earth with his sheer brilliance and charm, it became clear that doing what we love to do to the extent of pointedly ignoring material accumulation and indulgence, becomes not only natural, but inevitable too.

William Lombardy's game collection is special among these books. The comments are witty, and there are many recollections funny and outrageous! A sample:

'As my game with Sammy (Reshevsky) reached the late opening stage, Sammy went into a huddle. I therefore took a break from the board and went to the Manhattan Chess Club's main room. There I saw a group of enthusiasts pouring over the game. Among them was Moses Mitchell, a club director. Moe asked me: "How ya doin' Bill?" I answered, "I seem to be alright." "That's funny," Moe quipped. "Sammy was out here while you were on move and we asked him the same question for benefit of our amateur analysis!" Moe went on, "Reshevsky said he was 'killing' you!" '

Ah, those old times... when everything was innocent, when 'engines' made just enough noise, not the 0.00 and +2.50 if fed with fuel; when 'bluetooth' meant you touched ink on your teeth when clutching an unyielding fountain pen between them trying hard to open it; when you knew everyone enjoys a good pun when you joke around during games...

I have had the pleasure of enjoying Blitz with Senor Lombardy when I met him at the Manhattan Chess Club in New York in the late 90s, and enjoyed his sarcastic wit, once the awe of meeting Fischer's second waned over...

Mark Izrailovich Dvoretsky is one of those real men of wisdom and intrigue, forcing you to sit up and listen whenever he wields the pen. It was a pleasure meeting him at Moscow during World Championship 2012, and the conversations were stimulating. There could be no chess player who aspires to further his chess without studying all his books. You may not agree with whatever he says, but he deserves your ear (both of them!) after all. The following excerpt explains my point:

(From Anand - Karpov, Las Palmas 1996, after 23.Rb3)

[This is a game etched in the memory of every fan of Vishy Anand, when the raising force of his  brilliance simply bamboozled the great wall of Anatoly Karpov].

'Apart from the continuation (Karpov) had chosen 23...Bxe5?, annotators also examined 23...Bc8, 23...Qc8 and 23...f6. There are no evident positional markers, and to estimate the consequences of any decision is just plain impossible. The truth (and quite probably, not an ultimate one at that) could be found only as a result of a most painstaking examination, and that is just what the analysts busied themselves with.

...Today, it is easy to find faults in grandmasters' play with the assistance of a computer. This fact serves to create an illusion that "chess is easy" to some amateurs. So, they assume a slightly disdainful manner of speaking about players who are capable of "such ridiculous" (from an amateur's point of view) blunders. Malinenko examined not the moves made at the board, but extensive comments to the game, and I seem to detect a just a little touch of this tone in his attitude towards annotators.

...It is universally known that Karpov possesses great intuition; there are countless brilliant confirmations of this fact. But, this particular case has nothing to do with his intuition.

...It is perfectly understandable that Karpov, quite reasonably, considered his position extremely dangerous after any of Black's 23rd moves, and many a chessplayer would agree with him. There are no grandmaster's revelations and no reason for raptures there. And to set a player's emotions during or after the game against analytical work aimed at finding and proving an objective assessment of a position is so much rubbish!'

Respect!