Chess to Enjoy / Entertainment
Mate, American Style
So much of what the chess world takes for granted today originated or was popularized in the United States before winning acceptance
elsewhere. By GM ANDY SOLTIS
THE WORDS OF A WORLD CHAMPION are always worth hearing—even when they turn out to be nonsense. So, fans and fellow grandmasters alike weighed Boris Spassky’s words carefully when he had this to say, early in his cham- pionship reign: “During tournaments and team com-
petition I never use (opening) preparation. I do not have a chess set in my room. If you fill your mind with analysis, there won’t be room for creativity when you sit at the board.” Spassky went on, in an interview at the
Olympiad at Siegen, West Germany in 1970, to say that preparing openings before a game was a bad American idea. “Just to have a fresh head—that, I think, is more important,” he said, so you can think up new ideas at the board. During that tournament Spassky backed
up his words in a game against an Amer- ican opponent who was obsessed with opening preparation:
Exchange Grünfeld, Classical Line (D87) GM Boris Spassky GM Bobby Fischer Siegen, 1970
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bc4 c5 8. Ne2 Nc6 9. Be3 0-0 10. 0-0 Qc7 11. Rc1 Rd8 12. h3 b6 13. f4 e6 14. Qe1 Na5 15. Bd3 f5! 16. g4! fxe4 17. Bxe4 Bb7 18. Ng3
move at the board. Black met it well and could have favorably simplified with 18. … Bxe4!? 19. Nxe4 Qc6, e.g. 20. Ng5 h6 21. Nf3 Nc4. He wanted more.
18. ... Nc4 19. Bxb7? Qxb7 20. Bf2 Qc6 21. Qe2 cxd4 22. cxd4 b5 23. Ne4 Bxd4! 24. Ng5 Bxf2+ 25. Rxf2 Rd6 26. Re1 Qb6 27. Ne4? Rd4 28. Nf6+ Kh8 29. Qxe6 Rd6
Black apparently counted on winning
with 29. ... Rd1. Here he discovered that it would have been refuted by the spec- tacular 30. Qf7!! Rxe1+ 31. Kg2 Ne3+ 32. Kf3 Qc6+ 33. Kg3 Rg1+ 34. Kh4!.
So much of what the chess world takes for granted today—including online games, Elo ratings, bullet chess, opening data- bases, games with time delays and in cre ments—originated or were popularized in the United States before winning accept- ance elsewhere. Even the idea of a national chess cham-
pionship seems to have begun in the United States, with an unofficial match in 1845 and a more recognized tournament in 1857. That was decades before the first national title events in Europe and Russia. We can’t claim credit for originating
Swiss system pairings. But thanks to tournaments like those at Lone Pine, Cal- ifornia (1971-1981), the Swiss has replaced the round-robin invitational as the most popular format for international events. The result? The number of players who
take part in international chess has grown exponentially around the world. When it comes to talking about the
game, grandmaster annotators speak in Americanisms: Seven-time Russian champion Peter
After White’s next move Black might
have still drawn with 30. ... Rad8 31. g5 Rd2! but he played too hard to win.
30. Qe4 Rf8? 31. g5 Rd2 32. Ref1 Qc7? 33. Rxd2 Nxd2 34. Qd4 Rd8? 35. Nd5+ Kg8 36. Rf2 Nc4 37. Re2 Rd6 38. Re8+! Kf7 39. Rf8+, Black resigned.
This brought Spassky’s score against Fischer to three wins and two draws. He had an explanation for it. Bobby “studies everything. It means
that during the game, in the fight, he is not very creative,” he said. “This is the weakness of Bobby. He plays too stereo- typed, too practical, too American style.” Spassky’s comments seemed reasonable
Spassky came up with his original 16th 16 July 2015 | Chess Life
then. But they look ridiculous in 2015, when some 10-year-olds spend the hours before their next tournament game mem- orizing openings 15 moves deep. It often takes decades for things that are “too American” to become the norm.
Svidler will write that White’s move is “a lemon” and add that Black should follow the principle of “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Vishy Anand of India annotates a game with a note that says the key move “wins the house.” Russian Alexander Grischuk will admit he “chickened out.” And every- one says a position is “OK” or that one side is “busted.” U.S. chessplayers are known for their
counter-intuitive approach to strategy. You might detect this in the games of Hikaru Nakamura and Ray Robson. But did you know there is an “American school” of problem composition—and it is marked by surprise and originality? Perhaps the most characteristic quality
of Americans in general and American chessplayers in particular is pragmatism. It’s also the quality that is most ridiculed by foreign grandmasters. Here’s a backhanded compliment, by Soviet-trained GM Victor Bologan, in his report on the Pamplona 2003 international for New In Chess:
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