Two dozen kids piled out of the cars and into the church basement, sprung from confinement after our three-and-a-half-hour trip to Terre Haute. Within minutes, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders had covered every available surface with big green-and-white vinyl chessboards. It was 10 PM, and everyone had to be up at 6:30 the next morning for the state chess finals. But no one rested until our top seventh grader (rated 1458) had beaten all comers in an impromptu speed-chess tournament.
Is this fascination commendable–or vaguely sinister? Sooner or later, someone is bound to point out that chess, after all, is only a game.
It may seem strange to describe a knock-down drag-out fight as “art,” but not if you know the language. Once mastered, this odd tongue turns out to be more nuanced and personal than chess’s arid intellectual reputation would suggest. In the opening few moves alone, no experienced player can mistake the pugnacious challenge of Alekhine’s Defense (e4 Nf6) for the cool, conservative Caro-Kann (e4 c6). The swashbuckling King’s Gambit (e4 e5, f4) contrasts vividly with the prim maneuvering of the Indian defenses (d4 Nf6, c4), the playful bounce of the Orangutan (b4 e5, Bb2), or the calculated sneer of the Saint George (e4 a6).
“I don’t like Fischer’s games. They’re too classical. I like baroque positions. To me, an ideal game is one in which both players have made 20 moves and haven’t exchanged any pieces yet. I like complications.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“I know all the masters. I help them financially, and I make them play me one game a year. So I’m playing Igor Ivanov [2637] last year–he’s the chess champion of Canada. He’s standing up–he can beat me doing a thousand other things. I’m sitting down, playing hard. He moves all his pieces out–bishops, knights, the works–and then he moves them all back to where they started. He’s only got the two pawns out. I say, ‘Look, I’m winning.’ He says, ‘Uh huh.’ And eight moves later he has me in a forced mate.
Chess ratings offer a similar appeal. Calculated from players’ wins, losses, and draws in officially sanctioned tournament games, they range from the abysmal 500 to the current top, world champion Gary Kasparov’s 2750. Not unlike SAT scores, they provide a semblance of precise measurement. It could take years to get to know a person, but if you know that person’s rating, you know a great deal about him or her as a chess player.
