The Immortal Game (26 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

B
OOKS
, I
HAVE LEARNED,
begin with essential and unexpected sparks. I’d like to begin by gratefully acknowledging those who helped kick off this long project. Watching the illusionist Ricky Jay in a live performance one evening in New York, I found myself captivated by his blindfolded “Knight’s tour”—moving a Knight to every square on the chessboard without looking and without landing on any square twice. By chance, I saw around this same time an episode of the television show
West Wing
that prominently featured ancient Indian chess sets and deployed the game as a metaphor for real-world military and diplomatic finesse. With considerable tact, the show’s writer Aaron Sorkin simultaneously evoked the game’s medieval resonance and its contemporary relevance. It got my mind whirring.

But the real
eureka
moment came when I stumbled onto an illuminating paragraph in
Tikkun
by the writer Daniel Schifrin. It began

The game of chess—with its richness, complexity and barely suppressed violence—is an extraordinary metaphor for the human condition. Some of the most important fiction writers and poets of the last two centuries—Nabokov, Borges, Tolstoy, Canetti, Aleichem, Eliot, and others—have fully recognized the uncanny ability of a chess game to represent the contradictions, struggles, and hopes of human society.

Immediately I knew I wanted to tell that story in nonfiction form. I contacted my literary agent and decade-long collaborator, Sloan Harris, who, true to form, instantly understood the concept better than I did. Bill Thomas at Doubleday, the masterful editor of my previous book
The Forgetting
, welcomed me back with enthusiasm and a towering vote of confidence that every writer should have at the start of a long project.

My next lucky move was to make contact with medieval literary scholar Jenny Adams, now at the University of Massachusetts, who quickly became my academic benefactor—dispensing much raw material and sage advice. Even as she worked on her own book about part of chess’s history, Jen was the model of the heartening side of academia—generous, scrupulous, wise.

As my research began in earnest, I came into contact with a legion of other well-established chess historians—some professional, some amateur, all serious and generous: Michael Negele, Tomasz Lissowski, Ernst Strouhal, Ken Whyld, Myron Samsin, Jean-Louis Cazaux, Bill Wall, Hans Ree, Mark Weeks, Ralf J. Binnewirtz, Jurgen Stigter, Egbert Meissenburg, Paul Harrington, Andy Ansel, Kurt Landsberger, Carmen Calvo, José A. Aarzón, Govert Westerveld, Edward Winter, Kevin Brook, David Li, Lawrence Totaro, and Gerhard Josten. Marilyn Yalom was, like me, venturing into chess history for the first time, and aiming for a general audience; rather than throw up a defensive block, she was helpful and encouraging. Thanks also to two impressive chesshistory collectives, the Ken Whyld Association and the Initiative Group Königstein; and to Stephen Zietz and the rest of the staff at the extraordinary John G. White Collection at the Cleveland Public Library.

As the book’s broad scope became clearer, I was propelled into a wide array of other specialized fields. Thanks to Kate Ohno at the Yale University Library and Roy Goodman at the American Philosophical Society (in Philadelphia) for important assistance with Benjamin Franklin. For help in better understanding Duchamp, thanks to Allan Savage and Andrew Hugill. Anna Dergatcheva helped with Nabokov; Nancy Mandlove with Borges. Steven Gerrard was immensely important with respect to Locke and Wittgenstein.

Critical insight into the ancient Islamic Empire came from Anne Broadbridge and Alex Popovkin. For specifics on Persia, I am grateful to Bo Utas, Antonio Panaino, Josef Wiesehöfer, and especially Ahmad Ashraf at Columbia University’s
Encyclopaedia Iranica
project. Roman Kovalev helped with medieval Russia; Leonard Kress with Poland. For help with Spanish history, I am indebted to Govert Westerveld, José Antonio Garzón, and Josep Alio. Barbara Wolff was a great help at the Albert Einstein Archives in Jerusalem. In London, Simpson’s general manager Robin Easton supplied valuable history. Jimmy Weir and Jon Shenk pitched in from Afghanistan. For my visit to Ströbeck, Germany, many thanks to my generous hosts: Susanne Heizmann, Josef Cacek, Renate Krosch, and Rudi Krosch.

Crucial text translations came from Danielle Vasilescu, Eric Berlow, and Victoria Lesser (French); from Sara Ogger (German); from Malgorzata Marjanska-Fish and Paul Fish (Polish); and from the vastly underappreciated Russian scholar Gersh Kuntzman.

Fleshing out Harold Murray’s life required a team which included the
British Chess Magazine
’s Paul Harrington, Peter Gilliver, and Niko Pfund at the Oxford University Press, and Hilary Turner, Geoffrey Groom, and Greg Colley at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. I had important help with the Immortal Game from Stephen Hubbell and A. J. Goldsby. Thanks to John Fernandez and Frederic Friedel for helping a neophyte wade through the Kasparov–Deep Junior match.

Needless to say, I am extremely grateful to Chess-in-the-Schools in New York City for their extensive cooperation with this book. Particular thanks to Marley Kaplan, Ella Baron, Reginald Dawson, and of course Nicholas Chatzilias. I also want to thank Robert Ferguson, at the American Chess School, who supplied much important source material on chess and education. Joan Dubois from the U.S. Chess Federation kindly gave me permission to adapt their text “Let’s Play Chess.”

Thanks, in addition, to Aodhnait Donnelly, Bill Price, Donald Jackman, Shaul Markovitch, Robert Cooper, Craig Hamilton, Margaret Freeman and the Coglit List, David Joyce, Edward Sandifer, Adrian Kok, Alan Borwell, Alex Kraaijeveld, Marc Rotenberg, Ben Rubin, David Glenn Rinehart, the
Atlantic Monthly
’s Lucie Prinz, my twenty-year science guru Eric Berlow, the Feilers & the Benders, the Wunsches, Andrew Kimball, Andrew Shapiro, Steve Silberman, Richard Gehr, Roy Kreitner, Jeremy Benjamin, Linda Hirsch, and Richard Shenk.

I am indebted to my cousin Claire Heymann, the family archivist, for helping me become better acquainted with the life and legend of Samuel Rosenthal. Another cousin, Ian Cohn, gave me a look at the long-lost, and well-preserved, watch. It did not disappoint.

Samuel Rosenthal’s watch.

The watch, it turns out, was a gift to Rosenthal from his chess club mates, team members in a grueling year-long correspondence match between the cities of Paris and Vienna in 1884–85. I will surely never know what it feels like to play world-class chess, but I do know the exhilaration of a solitary pursuit being transformed into a collective effort. Over three years’ time, Bill Thomas and Sloan Harris deftly kept me on the right course. Kurt Hirsch was there first, last, and in between, and I hope he will take much pride in the result.

I am also very grateful to readers and critiquers of various drafts: Mitch Stephens, Jordan Goldstein, Joanne and Sidney Cohen, Jon Shenk, Bonni Cohen, Tom Inck, Katharine Cluverius, Kendra Harpster, Stephen Hubbell, Michael Strong, Andras Szanto, Steven Johnson, Sarah Williams, Josh Shenk, Peggy Beers, Michael Negele, and David Booth Beers.

Lastly, and mostly, my thanks and incalculable love to Alex, Lucy, and Henry.

Appendix I

THE RULES OF CHESS

Chess is a game for two players, one moving the White pieces and the other moving the Black pieces. At the beginning of the game, the pieces are set up as pictured below.

These hints will help you to remember the proper board setup:

1. Opposing Kings and Queens sit directly opposite each other.

2. The square in the lower right-hand corner is a light one (“light on right”).

3. The White Queen goes on a light square, the Black Queen on a dark square (“Queen on her color”).

White always moves first, and then the players take turns moving. Only one piece may be moved at each turn (except for “castling,” a special move explained below). The Knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces. All other pieces move only along unblocked lines. You may not move a piece to a square already occupied by one of your own pieces, but you can capture an enemy piece that stands on a square where one of your pieces can move. To capture, simply remove the enemy piece from the board and put your own piece in its place.

T
HE
P
IECES AND
H
OW
T
HEY
M
OVE

The Queen

Possible Queen moves

The Queen is the most powerful piece. She can move any number of squares in any direction—horizontal, vertical, or diagonal—if her path is not blocked. She can reach any of the squares with dots in this diagram.

The Rook

Possible Rook moves

The Rook is the next-most-powerful piece. The Rook can move any number of squares vertically or horizontally if its path is not blocked.

The Bishop

Possible Bishop moves

The Bishop can move any number of squares diagonally if its path is not blocked. Note that this Bishop starts on a light square and can reach only other light squares. At the beginning of the game, each player has one “dark-square” Bishop and one “light-square” Bishop, and each Bishop remains on its same-color squares throughout the game.

The Knight

Possible Knight moves

The Knight’s move is special: it is the only piece that can hop over other pieces on its way to a new square. Think of the Knight’s move as an
L.
It moves two squares horizontally or vertically and then makes a right-angle turn for one more square. The Knight always lands on a square opposite in color from its original square.

The King

Possible King moves

The King is the most important piece. When he is under attack (“check”), the defending player must immediately attempt to secure his safety. If he is unable to escape (“checkmate”), his whole army loses and the game is over. The King can move one square in any direction—for example, to any of the squares with dots in this diagram. (An exception is castling, explained later.)

The Pawn

Possible Pawn moves

The Pawn moves straight ahead (never backward), but can only capture diagonally. It normally moves one square at a time, but on its first move it has the option of moving forward one or two squares. In the diagram, the squares with dots indicate possible destinations for the Pawns. The White Pawn is on its original square, so it may move ahead either one or two squares. The Black Pawn has already moved, so it may move ahead only one square at a time. The squares on which these pawns may capture are indicated by an X.

If a Pawn advances all the way to the opposite end of the board, it is immediately “promoted” to any piece of the player’s choosing—usually a Queen. (It may not remain a Pawn or become a King.) Pawn promotion makes it possible for each player to have more than one Queen or more than two Rooks, Bishops, or Knights on the board at the same time.

S
PECIAL
M
OVES

Castling

Castling is a special move that lets a player move two pieces at once—the King and one Rook. In castling, the King moves two squares to his left or right, toward one of his Rooks. At the same time, the Rook involved hops over the King toward the center of the board and lands on the square beside him (see illustrations below). In order to castle, neither the King nor the Rook involved may have moved before.

The King may not castle out of check, into check, or through check. Further, there may not be pieces of either color between the King and the Rook involved in castling. Each player may castle only when conditions allow and only once during a game.

Castling is often a very important move because it allows you to place your King in a safe location and also allows the Rook to become more active. When the move is legal, each player has the choice of castling Kingside, Queenside, or not at all, no matter what the other player chooses to do.

Before Kingside castling