Chess to Enjoy / Entertainment
ers—made the bulk of their progress in the first eight years that they took chess seriously. Over the years I’ve stumbled upon other observations, such as how most world champions were the second oldest brother in their family. Or what I called the Law of Diminishing Tactical Sight—If you don’t see a tactical shot as soon as it’s your turn to move, you’re not going to see it after spending 10-20 min- utes thinking. Sometimes I challenged readers. In an
early Chess to Enjoy I showed four prob- lems that have baffled the world for more than a century and said anyone who solved just one would become famous. In the Eight Officers problem the task is to place the eight first-rank pieces—a king, queen, two rooks, two knights and two opposite- colored bishops—on an empty board so that every square is attacked. It sounds easy ... until you realize that a square occupied by a piece isn’t attacked by it. Strangely, the closest to a solution any-
one has come up with is 63 squares. Three readers sent me extensive mathe- matical proofs that showed how 64 squares is impossible. And one of them said he used a computer to study the problem for 400 hours. Another rule I set for myself was to
avoid the cop-out of annotating one of my own games. In fact, I rarely annotate a single game. I did it in 1983 when I ana- lyzed the new record holder for longest-ever tournament game. (It was a mere 193 moves. That number has been topped 20 times since then.) Another of the exceptions proved embar- rassing. In March 1985 I analyzed:
Two Knights Defense, Wilkes Barre Variation (C57) Christophe Van de Loo M. Hessling Weekend Tournament, Holland, 1983
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7. Ke3 Qe7 8. c3 Nd4 9. Kxe4 Qh4+ 10. Ke3 Qf4+ 11. Kd3 d5! 12. Bxd5 Bf5+ 13. Kc4 b5+ 14. Kc5 Qh4 15. Nxe5 0-0-0 16. c4 Rxd5+ 17. cxd5 Rd8 18. Nc3 Nc6 19. Qa4!!?
Most of these moves
were played before and deserve one or two excla- mation points for reasons that would require five pages to explain. White’s last move, which avoids various mates, is “the most stunning theoretical novelty on record,” I
16 January 2014 | Chess Life
41. c7! Qg4 42. Rf7+! Ke8 43. b4 Rc2 44. a4 h5 45. a5 h4 46. b5 h3 47. Nc6 h2 48. Rxg7!, Black resigned.
Four years after this, USCF member
Bob Wolf wrote me to say that he and his wife were in Holland when they showed Chess Life to members of a club in Utrecht. The local chess columnist used the game in the Utrechtse Nieuwsbald. It was only after that that Wolf learned the game was composed. “But it’s still a great game as far as I’m concerned,” Wolf wrote. Yeah, but I had been hoaxed. That’s hardly the only mistake I’ve made.
My blunders included getting the names of the White and Black players reversed and making dumb mistakes in analysis. In case you haven’t noticed, I avoid chess programs whenever possible. Several years ago I wrote about my technological inep- titude: I don’t have a website, a home computer or even e-mail. In fact, I said, I don’t even have a toaster.
wrote. But now I wonder if 19. Qg4!! isn’t better.
19. ... Qe7+ 20. Kxb5 Qxe5 21. Qc4 Nd4+ 22. Ka4 Bd7+ 23. Ka5 Nc6+ 24. Ka6 Nb8+ 25. Kxa7 c6 26. Nb5 Bf5 27. d4 Rd7+ 28. Ka8 Qe7 29. dxc6 Be4 30. d5 Bxd5 31. Qxd5 Rxd5 32. Na7+ Kd8 33. Kxb8 Qc7+ 34. Ka8 Ra5 35. Bg5+! Rxg5 36. Rad1+ Ke8 37. Rhe1+ Kf8 38. Rd7 Qxh2 39. Ree7 Qxg2 40. Rb7 Rc5
That changed a month later. A Chess
Life reader mailed me a toaster. Despite my “never repeat” rule I did
return to some favorite subjects, such as the way that the game scores of great players have been either lost or changed. I recently noticed another example of this:
Saidy’isn’t so IM Anthony Saidy GM Bobby Fischer U.S. Championship, 1963-64
This is the celebrated endgame that Fis-
cher needed to win to score a history- making 11-0. In My Great Predecessors, Garry Kasparov claims White blundered after 47. ... Nh5 with 48. Be1?. Black went on to win after 48. ... Kg4 49. Ke2 Ng3+ 50. Kd3 Nf5! 51. Bf2 Nh4! and 52. ... Nxg2. Kasparov gave a long line of analysis
that proves White can draw with 48. a5! Kg4 49. Bf2. There’s nothing wrong with his analysis. He just got the moves wrong. Fischer actually played 47. ... Ne4! so
that Bf2 in Kasparov’s line just hangs the bishop.
One of the first things I discovered about
Chess to Enjoy was that I could never predict the response a column would get. In February 1986, for example, I wrote a simple survey of blindfold chess, giving some celebrated examples. What could be controver- sial about that? I found out quickly
1999
when a member of the USCF policy board (the predecessor to our current executive board) berated me for 30 minutes over the phone and indicated I might be fired. My crime: I didn’t mention George Koltanowski who, I was told, was synonymous with blindfold play. He was entitled to be men- tioned whenever the words “blindfold chess” appear in Chess Life, I was informed.
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