by Anthology
“The proportion of Soviet to American entries in the tournament represents pretty fairly the general difference in playing strength between the two countries,” Doc said judiciously. “Chess mastery moves from land to land with the years. Way back it was the Moslems and the Hindus and Persians. Then Italy and Spain. A little over a hundred years ago it was France and England. Then Germany, Austria and the New World. Now it’s Russia—including of course the Russians who have run away from Russia. But don’t think there aren’t a lot of good Anglo-Saxon types who are masters of the first water. In fact, there are a lot of them here around us, though perhaps you don’t think so. It’s just that if you play a lot of chess you get to looking Russian. Once it probably made you look Italian. Do you see that short bald-headed man?”
“You mean the one facing the Machine and talking to Jandorf?”
“Yes. Now that’s one with a lot of human interest. Moses Sherevsky. Been champion of the United States many times. A very strict Orthodox Jew. Can’t play chess on Fridays or on Saturdays before sundown.” He chuckled. “Why, there’s even a story going around that one rabbi told Sherevsky it would be unlawful for him to play against the Machine because it is technically a golem—the clay Frankenstein’s monster of Hebrew legend.”
Sandra asked, “What about Grabo and Krakatower?”
Doc gave a short scornful laugh. “Krakatower! Don’t pay any attention to him. A senile has-been; it’s a scandal he’s been allowed to play in this tournament! He must have pulled all sorts of strings. Told them that his lifelong services to chess had won him the honor and that they had to have a member of the so-called Old Guard. Maybe he even got down on his knees and cried—and all the time his eyes on that expense money and the last-place consolation prize! Yet dreaming schizophrenically of beating them all! Please, don’t get me started on Dirty Old Krakatower.”
“Take it easy, Doc. He sounds like he would make an interesting article. Can you point him out to me?”
“You can tell him by his long white beard with coffee stains. I don’t see it anywhere, though. Perhaps he’s shaved it off for the occasion. It would be like that antique womanizer to develop senile delusions of youthfulness.”
“And Grabo?” Sandra pressed, suppressing a smile at the intensity of Doc’s animosity.
Doc’s eyes grew thoughtful. “About Bela Grabo (Why are three out of four Hungarians named Bela?) I will tell you only this: That he is a very brilliant player and that the Machine is very lucky to have drawn him as its first opponent.” He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the scoreboard again.
“This Simon Great who’s down as programming the Machine. He’s a famous physicist, I suppose?”
“By no means. That was the trouble with some of the early chess-playing machines—they were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a psychologist who at one time was a leading contender for the world’s chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him for the programming job. Let me tell you—No, better yet—” Doc shot to his feet, stretched an arm on high and called out sharply, “Simon!”
A man some four tables away waved back and a moment later came over.
“What is it, Savilly?” he asked. “There’s hardly any time, you know.”
The newcomer was of middle height, compact of figure and feature, with graying hair cut short and combed sharply back.
Doc spoke his piece for Saadra.
Simon Great smiled thinly. “Sorry,” he said, “but I am making no predictions and we are giving out no advance information on the programming of the Machine. As you know, I have had to fight the Players’ Committee tooth and nail on all sorts of points about that and they have won most of them. I am not permitted to re-program the Machine at adjournments—only between games. (I did insist on that and get it!) And if the Machine breaks down during a game, its clock keeps running on it. My men are permitted to make repairs—if they can work fast enough.”
“That makes it very tough on you,” Sandra put in. “The Machine isn’t allowed any weaknesses.”
Great nodded soberly. “And now I must go. They’ve almost finished the count-down, as one of my technicians keeps on calling it. Very pleased to have met you, Miss Grayling—I’ll check with our PR man on that interview. Be seeing you, Savvy.”
The tiers of seats were filled now and the central space almost clear. Officials were shooing off a few knots of lingerers. Several of the grandmasters, including all four Russians, were seated at their tables. Press and company cameras were flashing. The four smaller wallboards lit up with the pieces in the opening position—white for White and red for Black. Simon Great stepped over the red velvet cord and more flash bulbs went off.
“You know, Doc,” Sandra said, “I’m a dog to suggest this, but what if this whole thing were a big fake? What if Simon Great were really playing the Machine’s moves? There would surely be some way for his electricians to rig—” Doc laughed happily—and so loudly that some people at the adjoining tables frowned.
“Miss Grayling, that is a wonderful idea! I will probably steal it for a short story. I still manage to write and place a few in England. No, I do not think that is at all likely. WBM would never risk such a fraud. Great is completely out of practice for actual tournament play, though not for chess-thinking. The difference in style between a computer and a man would be evident to any expert. Great’s own style is remembered and would be recognized—though, come to think of it, his style was often described as being machinelike . . .” For a moment Doc’s eyes became thoughtful. Then he smiled again. “But no, the idea is impossible. Vanderhoef as Tournament Director has played two or three games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately and has grandmaster skill.”
“Did the Machine beat him?” Sandra asked.
Doc shrugged. “The scores weren’t released. It was very hush-hush. But about your idea, Miss Grayling—did you ever read about Maelzel’s famous chessplaying automaton of the 19th Century? That one too was supposed to work by machinery (cogs and gears, not electricity) but actually it had a man hidden inside it—your Edgar Poe exposed the fraud in a famous article. In my story I think the chess robot will break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up and swing the deal. Only the millionaire’s daughter, who is really a better player than either of them . . . yes, yes I Your Ambrose Bierce too wrote a story about a chessplaying robot of the clickety-clank-grr kind who murdered his creator, crushing him like an iron grizzly bear when the man won a game from him. Tell me, Miss Grayling, do you find yourself imagining this Machine putting out angry tendrils to strangle its opponents, or beaming rays of death and hypnotism at them? I can imagine . . .”
While Doc chattered happily on about chessplaying robots and chess stories, Sandra found herself thinking about him. A writer of some sort evidently and a terrific chess buff. Perhaps he was an actual medical doctor. She’d read something about two or three coming over with the Russian squad. But Doc certainly didn’t sound like a Soviet citizen.
He was older than she’d first assumed. She could see that now that she was listening to him less and looking at him more. Tired, too. Only his dark-circled eyes shone with unquenchable youth. A useful old guy, whoever he was. An hour ago she’d been sure she was going to muff this assignment completely and now she had it laid out cold. For the umpteenth time in her career Sandra shied away from the guilty thought that she wasn’t a writer at all or even a reporter, she just used dime-a-dozen female attractiveness to rope a susceptible man (young, old, American, Russian) and pick his brain . . .
She realized suddenly that the whole hall had become very quiet.
Doc was the only person still talking and people were again looking at them disapprovingly. All five wallboards were lit up and the changed position of a few pieces showed that opening moves had been made on four of them, including the Machine’s. The central space between the t
iers of seats was completely clear now, except for one man hurrying across it in their direction with the rapid yet quiet, almost tip-toe walk that seemed to mark all the officials. Like morticians’ assistants, she thought. He rapidly mounted the stairs and halted at the top to look around searchingly. His gaze lighted on their table, his eyebrows went up, and he made a beeline for Doc. Sandra wondered if she should warn him that he was about to be shushed.
The official laid a hand on Doc’s shoulder. “Sir!” he said agitatedly. “Do you realize that they’ve started your clock, Dr. Krakatower?”
Sandra became aware that Doc was grinning at her. “Yes, it’s true enough, Miss Grayling,” he said. “I trust you will pardon the deception, though it was hardly one, even technically. Every word I told you about Dirty Old Krakatower is literally true. Except the long white beard—he never wore a beard after he was 35—that part was an out-and-out lie! Yes, yes! I will be along in a moment! Do not worry, the spectators will get their money’s worth out of me! And WBM did not with its expense account buy my soul—that belongs to the young lady here.”
Doc rose, lifted her hand and kissed it. “Thank you, mademoiselle, for a charming interlude. I hope it will be repeated. Incidentally, I should say that besides . . . (Stop pulling at me, man!—there can’t be five minutes on my clock yet!) . . . that besides being Dirty Old Krakatower, grandmaster emeritus, I am also the special correspondent of the London Times. It is always pleasant to chat with a colleague. Please do not hesitate to use in your articles any of the ideas I tossed out, if you find them worthy—I sent in my own first dispatch two hours ago. Yes, yes, I comet Au revoir, mademoiselle I”
He was at the bottom of the stairs when Sandra jumped up and hurried to the balustrade.
“Hey, Doc!” she called.
He turned.
“Good luck!” she shouted and waved.
He kissed his hand to her and went on.
People glared at her then and a horrified official came hurrying. Sandra made big brightened eyes at him, but she couldn’t quite hide her grin.
IV
Sitzfleisch (which roughly means endurance—“sitting flesh” or “buttock meat”) is the quality needed above all others by tournament chess players—and their audiences.
After Sandra had watched the games (the players’ faces, rather—she had a really good pair of zoomer glasses) for a half hour or so, she had gone to her hotel room, written her first article (interview with the famous Dr. Krakatower), sent it in and then come back to the hall to see how the games had turned out.
They were still going on, all five of them.
The press section was full, but two boys and a girl of highschool age obligingly made room for Sandra on the top tier of seats and she tuned in on their whispered conversation. The jargon was recognizably related to that which she’d gotten a dose of on the floor, but gamier. Players did not sacrifice pawns, they sacked them. No one was ever defeated, only busted. Pieces weren’t lost but blown. The Ruy Lopez was the Dirty Old Rooay—and incidentally a certain set of opening moves named after a long-departed Spanish churchman, she now discovered from Dave, Bill and Judy, whose sympathetic help she won by frequent loans of her zoomer glasses.
The four-hour time control point—two hours and 30 moves for each player—had been passed while she was sending in her article, she learned, and they were well on their way toward the next control point—an hour more and 15 moves for each player—after which unfinished games would be adjourned and continued at a special morning session. Sherevsky had had to make 15 moves in two minutes after taking an hour earlier on just one move. But that was nothing out of the ordinary, Dave had assured her in the same breath, Sherevsky was always letting himself get into “fantastic time-pressure” and then wriggling out of it brilliantly. He was apparently headed for a win over Serek. Score one for the USA over the USSR, Sandra thought proudly.
Votbinnik had Jandorf practically in Zugzwang (his pieces all tied up, Bill explained) and the Argentinian would be busted shortly. Through the glasses Sandra could see Jandorfs thick chest rise and fall as he glared murderously at the board in front of him. By contrast Votbinnik looked like a man lost in reverie.
Dr. Krakatower had lost a pawn to Lysmov but was hanging on grimly. However, Dave would not give a plugged nickel for his chances against the former world’s champion, because “those old ones always weaken in the sixth hour.”
“You for-get the bio-logical miracle of Doc-tor Lasker,” Bill and Judy chanted as one.
“Shut up,” Dave warned them. An official glared angrily from the floor and shook a finger. Much later Sandra discovered that Dr. Emanuel Lasker was a philosopher-mathematician who, after holding the world’s championship for 26 years, had won a very strong tournament (New York 1924) at the age of 56 and later almost won another (Moscow 1935) at the age of 67.
Sandra studied Doc’s face carefully through her glasses. He looked terribly tired now, almost a death’s head. Something tightened in her chest and she looked away quickly.
The Angler-Jal and Gravo-Machine games were still ding-dong contests, Dave told her. If anything, Grabo had a slight advantage. The Machine was “on the move,” meaning that Grabo had just made a move and was waiting the automaton’s reply.
The Hungarian was about the most restless “waiter” Sandra could imagine. He twisted his long legs constantly and writhed his shoulders and about every five seconds he ran his hands back through his unkempt tassle of hair.
Once he yawned self-consciously, straightened himself and sat very compactly. But almost immediately he was writhing again.
The Machine had its own mannerisms, if you could call them that. Its dim, unobtrusive telltale lights were winking on and off in a fairly rapid, random pattern. Sandra got the impression that from time to time Grabo’s eyes were trying to follow their blinking, like a man watching fireflies.
Simon Great sat impassively behind a bare table next to the Machine, his five gray-smocked technicians grouped around him.
A flushed-faced, tall, distinguished-looking elderly gentleman was standing by the Machine’s console. Dave told
Sandra it was Dr. Vanderhoef, the Tournament Director, one-time champion of the world.
“Another old potzer like Krakatower, but with sense enough to know when he’s licked,” Bill characterized harshly.
“Youth, ah, un-van-quish-able youth,” Judy chanted happily by herself. “Flashing like a meteor across the chess firmament. Morphy, Angler, Judy Kaplan . . .”
“Shut up I They really will throw us out,” Dave warned her and then explained in whispers to Sandra that Vanderhoef and his assistants had the nervous-making job of feeding into the Machine the moves made by its opponent, “so everyone will know it’s on the level, I guess.” He added, “It means the Machine loses a few seconds every move, between the time Grabo punches the clock and the time Vanderhoef gets the move fed into the Machine.”
Sandra nodded. The players were making it as hard on the Machine as possible, she decided with a small rush of sympathy.
Suddenly there was a tiny movement of the gadget attached from the Machine to the clocks on Grabo’s table and a faint click. But Grabo almost leapt out of his skin.
Simultaneously a red castle-topped piece (one of the Machine’s rooks, Sandra was informed) moved four squares sideways on the big electric board above the Machine. An official beside Dr. Vanderhoef went over to Grabo’s board and carefully moved the corresponding piece. Grabo seemed about to make some complaint, then apparently thought better of it and plunged into brooding cogitation over the board, elbows on the table, both hands holding his head and fiercely massaging his scalp.
The Machine let loose with an unusually rapid flurry of blinking. Grabo straightened up, seemed again about to make a complaint, then once more to repress the impulse. Finally he moved a piece and punched his clock. Dr. Vanderhoef immediately flipped four levers on the Machine’s console and Grabo’s move appeared on the electric board.
There was a short conference, inaudible at the distance, during which Grabo waved his arms and Vanderhoef grew more flushed. Finally the latter went over to Simon Great and said something, apparently with some hesitancy. But Great smiled obligingly, sprang to his feet, and in turn spoke to
his technicians, who immediately fetched and unfolded several large screens and set them in front of the Machine, masking the blinking lights. Blindfolding it, Sandra found herself thinking.
Dave chuckled. “That’s already happened once while you were out,” he told Sandra. “I guess seeing the lights blinking makes Grabo nervous. But then not seeing them makes him nervous. Just watch.”
“The Machine has its own mysterious pow-wow-wers,” Judy chanted.
“That’s what you think,” Bill told her. “Did you know that Willie Angler has hired Evil Eye Bixel out of Brooklyn to put the whammy on the Machine? S’fact.”
“. . . pow-wow-wers unknown to mere mortals of flesh and blood—”
“Shut up!” Dave hissed. “Now you’ve done it. Here comes old Eagle Eye. Look, I don’t know you two. I’m with this lady here.”
Bela Grabo was suffering acute tortures. He had a winning attack, he knew it. The Machine was counter-attacking, but unstrategically, desperately, in the style of a Frank Marshall complicating the issue and hoping for a swindle. AH Grabo had to do, he knew, was keep his head and not blunder—not throw away a queen, say, as he had to old Vanderhoef at Brussels, or overlook a mate in two, as he had against Sherevsky at Tel Aviv. The memory of those unutterably black moments and a dozen more like them returned to haunt him. Never if he lived a thousand years would he be free of them.
For the tenth time in the last two minutes he glanced at his clock. He had fifteen minutes in which to make five moves. He wasn’t in time-pressure, he must remember that. He mustn’t make a move on impulse, he mustn’t let his treacherous hand leap out without waiting for instructions from its guiding brain.
