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Chessville
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The Only Move By Rick Kennedy
Cecil Purdy had it right. When you play over an annotated chess game, there is always a player helping you select your moves. There is another one playing hard against you. Meanwhile, a third player is commenting on the progress of your game. How can chess not be enjoyed in such fine company? I would rather play over one game, replete with such wisdom of the masters, than struggle through a dozen contests that arrive un-commented-upon, no matter how brilliant they might be. The only thing that matches, for the sheer joy of it, the act of reading those annotations - other than, of course, creating the original games - is providing those explanatory notes, themselves. From patzer to expert, we are all kibitzers at heart. At the present time, I was concentrating my expertise in the role of that helpful third party: pushing pieces around on an analysis board, and adding my comments to the games of the celebrated Chauvenet - Salov match. I had just finished assessing a particularly fine move by the American, when there came a sudden, raspy voice from over my shoulder. “ ‘Oh, those exclamation points!’ ” it scratched, “ ‘how they erode the innocent soul of the amateur...’ ” I turned slowly to face Perry the PawnPusher. A grimace tightened my jaw. A pawn slipped out of my hand and rolled across the board, coming to rest against the Russian’s Rook. The quote, of course, was from past World Champion Tigran Petrosian – the lucky man. When Petrosian had heard enough of any troubling conversation, he simply snapped off his hearing aids, and reveled in his deafness. I did not have that advantage. “No exclamation points, Perry,” I sighed, wearily. Of course he had to have read my many contributions to the Chess Club’s weekly bulletins. Would he ever learn? “How will we know, then, which moves that you, in your Caissic wisdom, bless, and bestow your favor; and which ones you despise and condemn?” Perry asked, and he screwed up his face in a caricature of puzzlement. “Words,” I replied, and I tossed back another of Iron Tigran’s quotes: “The notorious ‘!!’ can never approximate the human emotions which accompany ‘an excellent move’ or ‘a great idea’ .” Perry drew himself up to his full five feet something, and smirked, “I fancy myself an enthusiast of the E.J. Diemer school of chess annotation, anyway.” When I didn’t respond, he pushed on. “Diemer favored using double exclams and double queries, as often as possible, and once pulled off an amazing ‘??!!’ - although I think he might have sprained his wrist in the effort.” I pushed my glasses up onto my forehead with my finger, and swung fully around to face him. “Staunton probably had the right idea all along, Perry. He was the first to use ‘!’ and he used it,” I hinted broadly, “to indicate a bad move.” This seemed to interest the patzer. “Like Velasco’s use of a tiny little bomb in his annotations, to indicate ‘terrific move’ eh?” he wanted to know, with a chuckle. “Get it? ‘Da bomb’ ?” “I don’t think so, Perry...” I sighed. What mysteries were revealed to this clouded mind! But he was only getting started. “Or Gerzadowicz’s use of an ‘X’ in his notes to mean ‘played with my fingers crossed.’ Pretty slick.” Perry moved a Rook on the board in front of me, and hopefully crossed fingers on both hands. I found myself reaching idly up behind an ear for a hoped-for off-switch. And then reaching with both hands towards his collar. Perry danced back a couple of steps, and circled his fingers on either side of his nose . “What do you think about Watson and Schiller’s little peering eyes, meaning ‘worth looking at’? Or their spider web that means ‘sets a trap’ ?” “What do you think about Soltis’s suggestion of using ‘$’ for the offer of a bribe?” I asked, waving a faded George Washington in the direction of the hall – and the coffee vending machine. “Box,” said Perry, as he snatched the bill and spun on his heels, already making his exit. “Double exclam,” I muttered, as I returned to my analysis board.
[The references are to Gabriel Velasco’s Masterpieces of Attack The Brilliant Games of GM Marcel Sisniega Campbell; Stephan Gerzadowicz’s Journal of a Chess Master; John Watson and Eric Schiller’s The Big Book of Busts; and Andy Soltis’ “Chess to Enjoy” in Chess Life.]
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