Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains
Chess is an oasis of sanity in an insane world.
I just now lost a three-minute ICC game to a Ukrainian player whose 3-min rating is 1378. He calls himself IM Serg2008. I am happy to play the patzer for someone so beleaguered. (Actually, I am not merely playing the patzer; I am one.) Well, at least Serg has access to cyberspace for the nonce, and Caissa's consolation in any case.
Urine check!
I didn't make that up. It was at some cheesy Knight's Inn or similar venue in Phoenix in the early-to-mid 'nineties, when Myron Lieberman presided in his inimitable manner over well-attended tournaments and Ed Yetman, bandanna around his neck and sidearm strapped to his hip, manned the book concession. Say what you want about the chess scene, it is chock full of colorful characters.
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I posted the above on 21 October 2009. I received an e-mail message from Yetman today informing me of Lieberman's passing on Christmas Eve. Hats off to Myron and to Ed too for their services in promoting chess and organizing tournaments in Arizona.
Myron Lieberman (left) with former US Chess Presidents Harold Winston (center) and Don Schultz in an undated photo. US Chess archival photo
Anent the Yetman reference supra, the record will show that I am against open carry. Are You a Gray Man? explains.
The game of life is 'sudden death' with the time control unknown.
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin, 2002), p. 11:
Philosophy today gets no respect. Many scientists use the term as a synonym for effete speculation. When my colleague Ned Block told his father that he would major in the subject, his father's reply was "Luft!" — Yiddish for "air." And then there's the joke in which a young man told his mother that he would become a Doctor of Philosophy and she said, "Wonderful! But what kind of disease is philosophy?"
Well, to adapt a chess player's expression, better to make Luft than to make war! (One 'makes Luft' in chess by moving a pawn in front of the castled king's position as prophylaxis against back rank mate. The allusion is to the Vietnam era's 'Make love not war.')
As for 'Doctor of Philosophy,' 'doctor,' etymologically, means teacher (from L. docere, to teach) and 'philosophy' stands in for knowledge or science broadly construed. Thus as late as the 19th century, physicists were still referred to as natural philosophers. 'Ph.D.,' of course, abbreviates Doctor of Philosophy, which is why it is an abomination to see it written as 'PHD.' And when a Ph.D does it it is doubly abominable. But then I'm a linguistic conservative, as well as every other kind of conservative.
In fairness to Pinker, I should point out that after citing the above anecdotes he goes on to say some words in defense of philosophy.
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Addendum: Kevin Spraggett on the importance of making Luft. White to move.
In a chess game as in a philosophical debate, the outcome remains uncertain until the end is reached. What distinguishes the philosophical debate is that the outcome remains uncertain even when the end is reached.
Kai Frederik Lorentzen writes,
In your latest blog entry you refer to Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Being aware that you are a chess player, I want to ask: Do you know that his rule number nine had earlier been formulated by grandmaster Tartakower?
Alinsky: "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself."
Tartakower: "Die Drohung ist stärker als die Ausführung."
I am well aware of the saying, both in German and in English, but I was under the false impression that it originated with Aron Nimzowitsch, most likely because of the famous 'smoking threat' anecdote. Edward Winter, the chess historian, provides all the details one could ask for, and more:
Page 138 of Schach 2000 Jahre Spiel-Geschichte by R. Finkenzeller, W. Ziehr and E. Bührer (Stuttgart, 1989) ascribed to Tartakower a remark quoted as ‘Eine Drohung ist stärker als eine Ausführung’. In the English-language edition (London, 1990) that came out lumberingly as ‘A threat is more effective than the actual implementation’, whereas the usual rendering is ‘The threat is stronger than the execution’. Moreover, Nimzowitsch, rather than Tartakower, is customarily named as the coiner of the phrase, with everything tied into the famous ‘smoking threat’ anecdote.
On page 191 of the July 1953 CHESS M. Lipton pointed out two contradictory versions of the story of Nimzowitsch complaining that his opponent was threatening to smoke. On pages 31-32 of Chess for Fun & Chess for Blood (Philadelphia, 1942) Edward Lasker asserted that the incident, involving a cigar, had occurred ‘in an offhand game between Nimzowitsch and Emanuel Lasker in Berlin’ (although there was still, according to Edward Lasker’s account, an umpire to whom Nimzowitsch could protest). On page 128 of The World’s Great Chess Games (New York, 1951) Reuben Fine stated that the scene had been New York, 1927, and that Nimzowitsch complained to the tournament director, Maróczy, when Vidmar ‘absent-mindedly took out his cigarette case’.
New York, 1927 was also given as the venue by Irving Chernev (‘This is the way I heard it back in 1927, when it occurred’) on pages 15-16 of The Bright Side of Chess (Philadelphia, 1948). Nimzowitsch, we are told, complained to the tournament committee that Vidmar looked as if he wanted to smoke a cigar, but Chernev mentioned no remark about the threat being stronger than the execution. [. . .]
"The threat is stronger than the execution" is undoubtedly the best translation of Die Drohung ist stärker als die Ausführung. Winter, however, cites Eine Drohung ist stärker als eine Ausführung which is not as good in German or in English: "A threat is stronger than an execution."
As for Alinsky, it hadn't occurred to me that he was essentially repeating the Tartakower line. Very interesting, and I thank for pointing that out. We pedants derive inordinate but harmless pleasure from such bagatelles.
I don't know whether Alinsky played chess (many Jews do). I learned about this most famous Tartakowerism when I played the game seriously in my early youth. Not only with teenage peers but also with a grown up team in the third national league (Verbandsliga) where I played at board four (of eight) and had positive overall results in all three seasons. The teenage boy I was enjoyed making grown up men - architects, doctors, lawyers - sweat in their suits … I also liked to play Blitzschach a lot, with five or two minutes time for the whole match. I still have a beautiful English chess clock from the late 1970s but hardly ever play today. Other things became more important, and laymen often tend to avoid former club players. And if it doesn't sound too kulturpessimistisch, I may add that I sometimes have the impression that digitalization killed the poetic spirit of the game. Can Goddess Caissa survive the algorithms?
Chess is Jewish athletics, as the saying goes, and they dominate the game. See Jews in Chess. I would expect that Alinsky had some knowledge of the game. I conjecture that one of the roots of Jew hatred is envy. Jews have made contributions to high culture far out of proportion to their numbers.
If our paths ever cross, Kai, we will have to play. I am a patzer, but on a good day I rise to the level of Grand Patzer. My highest USCF rating was around 1720. So I am a 'B' player. I am 'strong coffee house' at least in the coffee houses around here. I came to serious play (tournaments) too late in life to to get any good. But I beat everyone around here and so people think I'm a master. A big fish in a small pond. I try to explain to them the hierarchical nature of chess and of life herself, but I rarely get through to them. I play a few 3-minute blitz games per day on the Internet Chess Club, the premier site for chess play.
The poetic spirit of the game will never die as long as there are romantics like me around. Caissa, like Philosophia, will ever evade the algorithms.
Chess is a beautiful thing, a gift of the gods, an oasis of sanity in an insane world. If I met Alinsky at the barricades we'd meet as enemies; over the chess board, however, as friends.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartakowerismen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2019/03/liberal-immigration-hyper-hypocrisy.html
I cited him often over the years and disagreed with him only once. I admired his penetrating intellect, but more importantly his good judgment. In his personal life he was a profile in courage.
He was a major contributor to the high quality of Fox commentary.
On the debit side, he was perhaps too much of the Washington establishment. He failed to make the right call re: Trump.
A good man who died too young. Let the encomia roll in.
Last but not least, he worshipped at the shrine of Caissa.
“The story at Starbucks isn’t racism but entitlement. The two men felt entitled to loiter on private property without buying anything. They decided that the rules didn’t apply to them. And apparently they were correct.” —Matt Walsh
I love hanging out in coffee houses, reading, talking, and most of all, playing chess. I fancy myself a strong coffee house player, which means that I'm a patzer, but I'll clean your clock if you learned the game from your uncle. (Full disclosure: I'm in the B category; highest USCF rating = 1720. I beat Reppert once in a coffee house (on the White side of a Smith-Morra gambit) and two or three experts (2000-2200) at tournaments.)
I consider myself entitled to take up space only if I have purchased something.
Being black is not carte blanche for bad behavior.
Good writing, paragraph one:
There is no place on earth more (less?) ideal than Jerusalem for pondering the mysteries of existence, and for a not-insignificant number of people mysteries don’t get more engrossing than the self-exile of chess prodigy Bobby Fischer. The all-time great retreated into obscurity—and, later, derangement—at the age of 32, shortly after refusing to defend his 1972 world championship, which he captured against Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky. Fischer played tantalizingly little high-level chess after 1972, joined a cult for a time, and then became a full-blown anti-American and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Having died in 2008, he is no longer alive to explain himself, but dwelling on the irrevocable and insoluble past is of course part of the reason to come to Jerusalem in the first place.
Related:
A: "We were bishops of opposite color."
B: "Sorry to hear that. In our case the union ended when she discovered I had insufficient mating material."
C: "We just couldn't get it together. Whenever she wanted to make love, I was busy making Luft."
D: "She blew her stack when I gingerly brought up the topic of back-rank mate."
E. "She got tired of my excuses, especially 'Sorry, honey, not tonight. After a hard day at the office I'm weaker than f7.'"
F. "The bitch had a way of putting me in psychological Zugzwang: no matter what I said or did, I only dug my hole deeper."
G. "In bed one night she called me a perv when I muttered something about the Lucena position.
H. "Her frigidity did us in. She'd allow a check but never a mate."
I. "She said I lacked ambition citing my penchant for underpromotion."
J. "We fought like knights and bishops."
I left the house at 5:15 this morning, hiked 45 minutes over the local hills to arrive at 6:00 sharp at Gecko Espresso where I met up with Lowell S. a local chess aficionado. We played under the influence of caffeine for a solid two hours, one game, recorded, to be analyzed when next we meet. I checkmated the old man.
Chess is a delightful game, especially when you win. An oasis of sanity in an insane world. But we must admit that it is a deeply racist game and that all who play it are racists. The following excerpt from a cognate post explains why.
Another proof that chess is racist and oppressive and ought to be banned is that blacks are woefully under-represented among its players. This evil can have only one explanation: racist suppression of black players. For everyone knows that blacks as a group are the equals of whites as a group in respect of intelligence, interest in chess, and the sorts of virtues needed to play the undemocratic and reactionary 'Royal Game.' Among these are the ability to study hard, defer gratification, and keep calm in trying situations.
For these and many other reasons, we must DEMAND that chess be banned.
We must manifest solidarity with our oppressed Taliban brothers who have maintained, truly, that chess is an evil game of chance.
Not only is chess racist, it is also sexist and patriarchal. The fact that the Queen is the most powerful piece on the board proves nothing to the contrary. The powers allowed to the Queen are in truth nothing more than so many sops thrown to the feminists to keep them quiet.
The sexism and patriarchalism of chess is proven by the dignity afforded to the King.
Wherein resides the dignity of the King? At every time in every possible game, the King is on the board. He cannot be captured: he never leaves the board while the game is on. He may be checked and checkmated; he is never captured. His royal consort, however, must submit to sacrifice, and is sacrificed gladly in the most beautiful of games. She has no dignity unto herself; she is but a means, nothing more than an overgrown pawn, and in some cases an ambitious upstart who has clawed her way to the eighth rank with the determination of a Hillary. She must die, when called upon, for the glory of His Majesty.
Another proof that chess is racist and oppressive and ought to be banned is that blacks are woefully under-represented among its players. This evil can have only one explanation: racist suppression of black players. For everyone knows that blacks as a group are the equals of whites as a group in respect of intelligence, interest in chess, and the sorts of virtues needed to play the undemocratic and reactionary 'Royal Game.' Among these are the ability to study hard, defer gratification, and keep calm in trying situations.
For these and many other reasons, we must DEMAND that chess be banned.
We must manifest solidarity with our oppressed Taliban brothers who have maintained, truly, that chess is an evil game of chance.
It is therefore most heartening to read that chess has been banned in some places in America. May this trend continue as we march forward, ever stronger, together to the land of social justice where there are no winners and no losers.