Novels based on the Royal game

I'm just starting to read "The Luzhin Defense" by Vladimir Nabokov. The foreword to the book is interesting and I am already captivated by his sparkling prose. I'll show you some examples here - starting with the pun included in the title of the book, thus:

"the name Luzhin rhymes with 'illusion', if pronounced thickly enough to deepen the 'u' into 'oo'.".

That reminds me of the openings I play in my own games.- on the surface they might seem sound enough but this is just an illusion LOL. Nabokov goes on to point out something I never considered before - how  devastating it must be to know that one of the losing moves you made (which we all make from time to time) can become 'cast in stone', thus:

"Anderssen fondly recalling his sacrifice of both books Rooks to the unfortunate and noble Kieseritsky - who is doomed to accept it over and over again through an infinity of textbooks, with question marks for each monument.".

Nabakov then plays a merry little game with potential reviewers of his book by providing a quick glossary of the chess references - to save them the trouble of actually reading the book. Thus:

"In this connection, I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers - and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading and cannot be expected to tackle a dialogueless book when so much can be gleaned from its Foreword - by drawing their attention to the first appearance of the frosted-window them (associated with Luzhin's suicide, or rather 'sui-mate') as early as Chapter 11, ...".

This is a delightfully sarcastic way to deal with the superficial manner by which certain book reviewers, opera critics and their ilk write their copy. Before you point out that I have admitted to not having read the book yet myself - well, this post is not intended as a review as such!

As for the title of this post, well, I've often thought about how a convincing tale could be wrought around the Royal Game. I exclude such artificial creations as the anthropomorphising the chess pieces themselves, as for example in Alice in Wonderland. No, I am basically looking for a good read, based on my favourite game - and hoping that Nabakov will provide same.

Here are two hopeful signs that chess is an intrinsic part of the book.

1.    "My story was difficult to compose, but I greatly enjoyed taking advantage of this or that image and scene to introduce a fatal pattern into Luzhin's life and to endow the description of a garden, a journey, a sequence of humdrum events, with the semblance of a game of skill, and, especially in the final chapters, with that of a regular chess attack demolishing the innermost elements of the poor fellows sanity.".

2.   "The entire sequence of moves in these three central chapters reminds one - or should remind one - of a certain type of chess problem where the point is not merely finding of a mate in so many moves, but what is termed 'retrograde analysis', the solver being required to prove from a back-cast study of the diagram position that Black's last move could not have been castling or must have been the capture of a white Pawn en passant.".

Which naturally leads me to consider the idea of 'retrograde analysis' in all its glory. The foremost internet authority is possibly that of Angela und Otto Janko at 'The Retrograde Analysis Corner'.

Now for a genuine 20 carat 'retro' problem. This one is by Eric Angelini, Europe Echecs 433, Apr. 1995 - the solution of which is at Wiki.

I very much like the video example of a 'retro' problem provided by Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk - you are taken through the solution in a very 'easy-to-follow' way (essential for one such as I). For completeness I also include here a video about her ie Alexandra Kosteniuk - the Women's World Chess Champion. Before you ask - The Women's World Chess Championship, 2010 will take place in Turkey in December 2010.

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The next book I intend to buy is ...

This post will eventually find its way towards some thoughts on chess - the connection is real, if subtle. Incidentally, I should make it clear to you, gentle reader, that this blog was always intended to celebrate the way chess has acted as a catalyst for me , confronting me with so many aspects of humanities trials, triumphs and tribulations. I am a chess player and will always report on the many purely chess items that interest me - whilst remaining free to roam as I will. I hope that you agree with me that this an interesting course to follow.

Having got that off my chest - the next book I intend to buy is ... Peter Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution" written in 1902. Here's an Amazon review by Lynette Yetter, thus:

"Dog eat dog. Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest.

We've heard these sayings so much we accept them as Laws of Nature. But Kropotkin proves that this is not how nature works. These sayings are actually lies some people have made up in order to justify their own selfishness and aggression. They call it "Social Darwinism." According to Kropotkin, Darwin never wrote that survival of the fittest means competing against members of your own species. Darwin was talking about competition between different species. On the contrary, he wrote that the survival of the species is guaranteed by mutual aid. With impeccably documented scholarship, Mutual Aid is full of examples of mutual aid within a multitude of species - including us homo-sapiens.".

So clearly this is a valid and thought-provoking book, challenging our accepted notions about the way we 'run' our so-called Western civilisation. She goes on to say:

"These circumstances of how I came to encounter Mutual Aid, and the impressive scholarship presented in this book, didn't prepare me for a surprise. In a Google search for a free public domain downloadable copy, I found Mutual Aid on a site of anarchist literature. My knee jerk reaction to the word "anarchist" was probably what many people feel -- a bit of fear. But, after thinking about it, I realized that true anarchism is not violent destruction. Anarchism is based on people developing our highest spiritual selves - to treat each other with the utmost respect. Treat your neighbor as yourself - the Golden Rule sort of thing. In other words - mutual aid.

Then we don't need to have government and police to tell us what to do. Like our mutually supportive indigenous ancestors on all continents, we can be guided by our inner wisdom, courage and compassion.".

You can see she's very special and, unlike most of us, is prepared to follow her muse - wherever it leads her to go. Here is part of her biography:

"People in the Andes (not all the people of course, but a whole lot more of the people than in the U.S. where I was born) live with a huge awareness of our interconnection with each other, the Earth and the infinite. This awareness permeates everything the people do, every interaction with everyone and with everything. This is often called, "the Andean cosmo-vision". The door to this cosmo-vision flung open for me the very first time I heard people performing the music of the Andes one sunny day by the water's edge at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco in 1993.

The sounds of these unique instruments, played by indigenous people of the land who have never forgotten what it is like to live in harmony with the earth, resonated deeply in my soul and compelled me to learn everything I could about the people who make this powerful music. I learned to play some of the instruments, to speak two of the languages and became a member of the Society for Ethnomusicology. Now I live in the Andes, making music and sharing rituals as well as daily life with new friends in Bolvia and Peru.".

I am in awe of someone like that - a fantastic lady! But now, let's return to Peter's book, as described by F. Galea:

"Anarchist classic, rooted in observation of natural phenomena and history. Challenges the conception that capitalism is a natural progression of Darwinism at work in the wild. The author cites numerous examples of compassion and innate goodness at work outside the bounds of a structured power-based society.".

In fact I have written on this subject on my other blog "Toad Tryouts" - a blog which offers some (hopefully) useful free trials ("Tryouts") of various online services eg blog customisation.

So how does this all fit in with playing chess? I liken the two sets of chess pieces to species, rather than armies. In other words, the paradigm changes from one of combatative armies at war into one relating to societies. The two societies, Black and White, will only succeed if their individual components give mutual support to each other - or "Mutual Aid" as in the title of the book. It interests me that we are conditioned to think in terms of competitive strategies when playing chess - finding the opponent's weak points, gaining strong outposts on the borders of the opposing armies and so forth.

Well, that's all fine - but how often have you got a great attack going, only to find that a particular piece was "overloaded" (the term is nicely explained at "Chess Corner"? You neglected "Mutual Aid" - in the sense that your position 'evolved' in such a way that your pieces got in each other's way instead of co-ordinating with each other. It can be thought of in terms of aesthetics of course - a 'balance' between the various elements of the position on the board.

Two names come to mind here - Jose Raul Capablanca and Tigran Petrosian. It seems to me that they both had a prediliction for placing pieces so that they are "mutually supportive" as in Lynette's comments. It may be a stretch, but I also think that these two players, in true anthropomorphical fashion, insisted that the chess pieces themselves should "treat each other with the utmost respect" (Lynette again).

As Kasparov has it, "Jose Raul Capablanca occasionally did not even bother to calculate deep tactical variations. The Cuban simply preferred to play moves that were clear and positionally so strongly justified that calculation of variations was simply not necessary".

As for Petrosian, I will choose a Wiki comment, carefully chosen to fit the present thesis, thus:

"He usually won by playing consistently until his aggressive opponent made a mistake, securing the win by capitalizing upon this mistake without revealing any weaknesses of his own."

So I offer the 18th match of the 1963 World Championship match between Mikhail M Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian as a superb example of piece co-ordination, resulting in a win for Petrosian which effectively secured the title for him. Firstly as a four part video with extensive analysis and secondly as an interactive game without analysis.

Do notice the wonderful "dance" performed by Petrosian's two knights!

(I should point out that I discovered Peter's book at "Calder's Updates" in his post about "hierarchical decision-making in a group of free-flying birds"

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Soul searching

I don't suppose that it is terribly radical to suggest that chess can help us live our lives a little better, to gain a little more self belief. We can assume that any activity in which we push everyday cares to one side - and enter into some sort of thoughtful, trance-like state will reap dividends. But, as I am sure you will agree - chess additionally pushes you to explore possibilities which are linked to many important characteristics of our human existence. Let me list a few of them, to see if you agree at all:

dominance/subservience
defence/attack
decision-making
behaviour under pressure from the opponent
time pressure when playing with clocks
behaviour when encountering a weaker/stronger opponent (human or computer)

I seem to be going through a stage where, although I try to place my pieces on their optimal squares, there is something in my subconscious which always contrives ways of leading me to positions where I have given up the centre or where I have allowed the opponent to assume control. Maybe this is some sort of self-destructive impulse - maybe a character defect? Oh dear, I don't want one of those, thank you very much!

Well, that's part of the fascination of the game. It allows one to recognise that such a possibility may exist, whereas otherwise we might not even be aware of it. And it may be that we are then able to develop strategies for dealing with it. Yes, I am suggesting that analysing chess positions will actually have the knock on effect of improving that aspect of my personality which predisposes me to automatically give way to others, to allow them to 'dominate' the conversation - the English problem of possessing an unassuming demeanour.

In the following tortuous analysis you may be able to discern some of my many attempts to avoid letting my opponent take control. Unfortunately this leads me to devise strategies which are simply too ambitious. I push too hard and experience the problems of being TOO aggressive. Again I have to say that this happens in real life too! Eventually I settle for Re1. As in any real-life decision it seems to be something realistic and sensible - the best a fair compromise to make given the circumstances. But as in real-life the possibility still exists of tripping up over one's own feet! We'll find out.

Here is the position where I need to find a move as White. I see that his weak d-pawn is a possible target, but also notice the discovered attack on my knight on f4 if he should move his king's knight.

13.Re1 e5 14.dxe5 Nxe5 15.Nxe5 Bxe5 16.Rxe5 Bc6 17.Ne6 Qd6 18.Bf4 Rfe8 19.Qe2 Bd7 - a first try.

13.Re1 Ne4 14.Bxe4 Bxf4 15.Bxf4 Rxf4 16.Bc2 Qb6 - the discovered attack problem.

At this point I begin to lose faith in Re1 - even though (after lots of analysis) this is what I actually play in the end.

13.Re1 Ne4 14.Bxe4 Bxf4 15.Bc2 Qb6 16.b3 Nb4 17.Ba3 Nxc2 18.Qxc2 Rfc8 19.Qd1 - not good.

13.Re1 Ne4 14.Bxe4 Bxf4 15.Bc2 Qb6 16.Bb3 Na5 17.Bxf4 Nxb3 18.axb3 Rxf4 - still flogging a dead horse.

My impression is that I should not have followed the 1996 game between Jianu, Vlad Cristian (White) and Petrosian, Davit Gevorgi (Black) [Wch U12 Menorca 1996 · French, Tarrasch, closed variation, main line (C06)] which lead me to this impasse. I show the game in interactive format below. Maybe my opponent simply found an improvement to Davit Petrosian's 12...Bd7.

Now you see me countering what I believe to be my innate passivity (?) with an aggressive idea, thus:

13.Ng5 Nxd4 14.Nxh7 Nxh7 15.Bxh7+ Kxh7 16.Qh5+ Kg8 17.Ng6 Kf7 18.Bg5 Qc7 19.Ne7+ g6 20.Qxg6++

Of course Black can easily avoid this (with 13...h6 for example) - well, it looked nice at the time. At this point I returned to 13.a3, just to be sure ... and 13.Ng5 for a second look. I concluded that the latter would only produce results if I could either move the wobbly knight on the fourth rank or protect it a second time. Finally I went for 13.Re1 with an immediate retreat if he should move his knight with a discovered attack on my knight.

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