Chess

Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek once said it is “degrading” to think of chess as merely a game.

“It has cer tain elements of science and ar t and some competitive elements that have even to do with spor t,” he told The Washington Post. “It tests your imagination; it tests a lot of things. Sometimes it is not all pleasure. Sometimes you suffer.”

Kavalek, 77, died of lung cancer Jan. 18 at home in Reston, Va. He was a twotime Czech champion who defected in 1968 and became a three-time U.S. champion. He won more than 20 important tournaments, according to the World Chess Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 2001. Kavalek also ser ved the game as a coach, organizer and columnist for The Washington Post and then Huf fpost.

Kavalek played a key role at the 1972 world championship in Iceland. Although there as a journalist, he accepted U.S. challenger Bobby Fischer’s request for advice and provided analysis to help the American defeat Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. Kavalek said Fischer was “obsessed with winning and was not happy until he had exhausted all possibilities.”

A brilliant Kavalek win is listed at No. 7 in the book “The 100 Best Chess Games of the 20th Centur y, Ranked” by grandmaster Andy Soltis. “If he had only played that one game, he would be famous in chess,” Soltis told the Post.

In that game, seen below,

Kavalek defeats Eduard Gufeld of the Soviet Union in 1962, finishing with only his king and eight pawns.