MARK RUBERY CHESS
The cocktail of politics and chess remains a consistent evil; what should essentially be a battle between two minds often involves issues that obscure the game itself. One could mention the young Korchnoi being denied a place in the Soviet Olympiad squad as he dared to air views that were considered controversial or closer to home, the even more extreme case the former editor of the Daily Dispatch, Donald Woods. Known internationally for the portrayal of his life in the film ‘Cry Freedom’, Woods found playing a game of chess in East London at one time to be no simple exercise. During the years when he was a ‘banned person’ it was stipulated that he was not allowed to be in the same room with another person; thus chess games would take place with his opponent on the edge of the living room next to the kitchen, where Woods himself would be seated…
The pressures of the government of the former USSR brought to bear on Botvinnik’s opponents lest they unseat their preferred choice of World Champion-particularly Bronstein and Keres-are only now coming to light. On returning home from his 0-6 drubbing at the hands of Fischer in 1971, the Soviet GM Mark Taimanov was stripped of his title of ‘Master of Sports’, removed from the national team and forbidden to play in tournaments abroad. The then minister of sports attempted to rid him of his GM title (which even he could not do) because Taimanov was found to have on him a book by the banned author Solzhenitsyn. A bitter joke that did the rounds was that Solzhenisyn was in trouble as he was found in possession of Taimanov’s book on the Nimzo-Indian! The early clashes between Kasparov and Karpov were fraught with behind-the-scenes political manoeuvring. Their first match held in Moscow 1984/85 was abandoned when entering its 6th month as the champion, Karpov, was looking extremely fragile.
Thus sometimes, for the wrong reasons, chess can be regarded more than just a mere game.
WHITE TO PLAY AND DRAW
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The4 r6 dh o4 n6 ad mx e! e6 sf ix ts6 mg o2 dK e5 re nx meaning to chess. Originally it was used during the times when knights (of yore) would face each other in ‘combat’ and these events were described as tournaments. After six hundred years these contests eventually died out until in 1839 the Earl of Eglintoun recreated the tournament with a lavish feast as entertainment. The chess writer George Walker wrote about chess events in the publication ‘Bell’s Life’ there he used jousting terms in his reports, and a gathering of Yorkshire players in Leeds 1841 was described as a ‘tournament’. After that the term caught on and was firmly established at the time of the first international event in London 1851.