Grandmaster

by David Klass

  “Amen,” Dr. Chisolm echoed, springing to his feet like a mountain goat leaping off a rock. “No doubt about it, family love is the most important thing here. Now come on, Eric. Let’s go slaughter them!”

  9

  The elevator doors opened to a mob scene. We stepped out onto the common area of the tournament floor where a crowd was clustered around large pairings sheets taped to the walls. Nervous fathers and sons jostled one another to try to get close enough to read what board they’d been assigned to and who they were supposed to play.

  I wormed my way forward and finally made it close enough to find my name. This tournament would follow the Swiss System—in every round players would be matched against opponents who had the same win-loss record. In the first round, since everyone had zero wins and zero losses, higher-rated players had been matched against lower-rated ones. I was supposed to play a guy named Liu Hong, who was rated more than three hundred points higher than me and who would most probably crush me.

  I scanned the list for my dad’s name and saw that he was matched against an expert named Marciano on board three. Experts are rated just below masters—which means they really know what they’re doing. A grandmaster wouldn’t normally have much trouble beating an expert, but I wondered how Dad would fare in such a tough first game after not playing for three decades.

  I forced my way out of the scrum and looked around for my father. He had wandered over to where the tournament rankings were posted. A series of computer printouts listed all four hundred and thirty-two players in order of their Chess Federation ratings, from highest to lowest. At the very top were five grandmasters. Morris W. Pratzer—with an asterisk next to his name because he hadn’t played for so long—was third, beneath Grandmaster Salvador Sanchez and Grandmaster George Liszt. I was ranked near the bottom, but there were several dozen players beneath me. Most of those players were just starting out and didn’t yet have ratings.

  Dad didn’t notice me walk up—he was studying the printout intently. I stepped next to him. “You’re pretty high up there, Killer.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t get hung up on ratings…”

  “By God, is that you, Morry?” a deep voice boomed from behind us. I turned and saw a burly man in what looked like a red flannel hunter’s shirt, with an untrimmed black beard that tumbled to his chest. Everything about him was big, from his loud voice to his ponderous stomach to his hands that seemed as large as baseball mitts. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw your name. But it really is you, isn’t it? I figured you had died back in the nineties.”

  “Hello, George,” my father said, and I noticed that despite the fact that they obviously knew each other from long ago, neither of them seemed inclined to shake hands.

  “And this must be your son.”

  “Daniel, this is George Liszt. An old…” My father searched for the right word.

  “Rival?” the big man suggested with a slight smile. “And admirer. I was always a big fan of your father’s, Daniel.” He smiled at me, but it was an ironic smile, as if he was signaling to me that his words had a hidden and quite opposite meaning. “He was the best of us,” Grandmaster Liszt told me. “No one ever played like him … with such all-consuming zeal…”

  “Enough, George,” my father warned. “Where’s your own son?”

  “Already at his board,” Liszt said. “At least I hope he is. His teammates call him the ‘Ghost’ because he’s impossible to find between rounds. He’s addicted to all sports and he just sits in our bedroom flipping through sports channels…”

  A buzzer sounded from inside the ballroom, and a voice announced over loudspeakers: “Round one will begin in five minutes. Chess players, find your boards.”

  My father put his arm around my shoulder. “Come.”

  We had to walk around the walrus of a grandmaster to get to the ballroom doors, and for a moment George Liszt blocked our way. “Best of luck, Morry,” he rumbled. “I hope you find some of the old magic.” He had developed a mocking tone to go with his ironic smile. “But not too much of it.”

  “Good luck to you, too,” Dad growled through gritted teeth.

  “A great pleasure meeting you, Daniel,” Grandmaster Liszt told me. “You have some big shoes to fill. Maybe we’ll run into each other again before we’re done here and find the time for a little chat.”

  I shrugged as my father yanked me away toward the ballroom. Dad’s head was down and his teeth were clenched so tightly it looked like he would grind his molars to powder. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Whatever that guy’s problem is, he’s clearly a jerk.”

  “I should never have come,” Dad murmured. “It was asking for trouble.”

  Side by side we walked through the gaping doors of the Palace Royale’s grand ballroom, into a massive playing space that looked as big as a football field. Dad wasn’t the only one feeling nervous. I gazed around and felt myself tense up. Hundreds of tables had been arranged in perfect rows and covered with white cloths. Chess pieces had been set up on boards and stood ready for action. The tables had numbers on their sides, and fathers and sons were wishing one another good luck and finding their places. I had played in a few club tournaments in New Jersey, but nothing on this vast scale.

  I knew I wasn’t a strong player, and I certainly hadn’t studied chess theory night and day, so I didn’t expect miracles. But now that I was here, I found myself hoping that I could do a little better than expected, especially with my father’s help. After all, he was a grandmaster and I was his son. I had inherited his athletic ineptitude and some of his mathematical ability, so wasn’t it possible that I also had some of his chess genes, if not genius? George Liszt’s mocking words had hit home—something extra was expected of me.

  “What board are you?” Dad asked.

  “One-ninety-seven,” I told him, which meant I must be near the back of the hall. “I’m playing a Chinese guy rated much higher. He’s probably going to crush me, but don’t worry about it. This is your show. You must be up on the stage.” The top five tables were on a kind of raised dais at the very front of the ballroom, near a dozen enormous trophies that glittered in the bright light.

  Dad didn’t head for the stage—he stayed right with me. “First of all, as I told you before, don’t get hung up on ratings,” he cautioned. “They mean less than you think, unless you believe in them and give them power. Just play carefully and you’ll do fine.” Dad pointed. “As for playing a Chinese guy, you got that wrong, too.”

  Looking down the long row of fathers and sons getting ready to square off against one another, I saw one teenage girl. She was seated at board 197. A short, pleasant-looking Chinese woman stood behind her, setting her chess clock.

  “Two minutes,” the voice boomed from the loudspeakers. “Find your boards.”

  “Go,” I told my father. “I’ll be all right.” I didn’t want him to be late. At chess tournaments, you have to make a certain number of moves in a set amount of time or you lose the game. Dad was out of practice, and I didn’t want him to give away any precious minutes.

  “I’ll just come and get you settled,” he said. “It’s okay if I’m a minute or two late. I play quickly.”

  I walked over to the girl. She was reading a novel and totally ignoring her mother and the chess insanity all around her. On closer inspection, the book was David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, which we had just finished in our freshman English class. “Hi,” I said. “I think we’re playing each other in round one.”

  She finished a paragraph and stuck a bookmark in the novel, but she still didn’t close it.

  “Liu, put away the book,” her mother commanded. “It’s time to concentrate on chess.”

  “Worry about your own game,” the girl told her mom in an irritated voice. Then she glanced up at me. She was wearing jeans and a light blue sweater, and she had tiny hoop earrings. Her hair hung down behind her in a long braid. “You’re late,” she said to me.

  I sat down opposite h
er. “Actually, there are still two minutes left. I’m Daniel Patzer…” I caught myself and shot her a goofy grin. “I mean Pratzer.”

  “I know who you are,” she said without smiling back. “I’ve already filled out both of our score sheets, since you seemed to have gotten lost.”

  “Liu,” her mother urged, “make an effort to at least pretend to be polite.”

  Liu shot her mom an exasperated glare and then flashed me a fake smile and held out her hand. “Hi, Daniel. Where did you say you were from?”

  I didn’t know what to do so I shook her hand. It felt small and warm. “New Jersey,” I told her. “Sorry to be late. We had a team meeting.”

  “Mind Cripplers,” she said, reading my shirt. “That’s a charming name.”

  “I didn’t think it up,” I responded, getting fed up with her attitude, “so chill out.”

  There was a momentary awkward silence. “I take it you’re in the tournament, too?” Dad asked her mom. “I didn’t know there was a mother-daughter bracket.”

  “I’ll ignore the sexist implications to that,” her mother said, and I saw where Liu got her prickliness. “As a matter of fact, there are no separate brackets. No one thought to make an official rule that it had to be just fathers and sons, so we’re all in the same tournament. Anything a man can do, a woman can do better. I taught my daughter chess, and I’m playing at board thirty-five,” she said proudly. “What about you?”

  “Three,” Dad told her.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “What?”

  “Let’s go find our boards,” Dad suggested, “and leave these two novices to their combat. Good luck, Daniel, and you too, young lady. No mercy.”

  The two of them walked off toward the front of the ballroom, and I was left alone with this fire-breathing dragon of a girl. The chessboard and the pieces were between us. The clock was on the right side of the board, waiting to be started. Liu stared at me, sizing me up—and then put her chin on her hands and leaned forward. “So, Daniel from New Jersey. Anything on your mind?”

  “That’s a good book,” I said. “I just read it.”

  “It would be good if it wasn’t so incredibly, unbelievably boring,” Liu replied.

  “I didn’t find it boring at all,” I told her. “In fact, I thought it was one of the best books I’ve ever read.”

  A man with a microphone walked out to the front of the dais. “On behalf of the tournament organizers, I’d like to welcome you all to the First Annual Father-Son National Championship. Before we begin, I have a special treat that I’m sure all our chess enthusiasts, young and old, will enjoy. Former World Champion Contender Arkady Shuvalovitch will say a few words. Arkady?” He paused and looked around. “Has anyone seen Arkady?”

  “Can you believe this?” Liu muttered. Then she asked me, “So is your father really at board three or did he make that up?”

  “He’s there.”

  “So then … he’s like a master?”

  “No,” I corrected her, “he’s a grandmaster.”

  Liu took that in. “He taught you to play? Why aren’t you better?”

  I’m usually very shy around girls, but Liu was so rude that it relaxed me and freed me up to respond with some attitude of my own. “Actually, I didn’t even know my dad played chess till a week ago,” I told her. “And he never taught me a damned thing, not even how the pawns move.”

  She looked intrigued. “Really? That’s kind of cool. Why not?”

  She was making me angrier and angrier. “I don’t have a clue,” I told her. “But I don’t think it’s cool at all. And for what it’s worth, you’re wrong about David Copperfield. It’s a great book, even if you can’t appreciate it. And I wasn’t even late—this stupid tournament hasn’t even started because they can’t find Former World Champion Contender Schmuck-a-vich. But other than that, it’s been a real pleasure meeting you, Liu.”

  For a heartbeat she looked like she was about to smile. Then she caught herself, and her face tightened in anger. “Don’t try to soften me up by flirting with me,” she said.

  “What? I’m not trying to flirt with you.”

  “Because I’m going to crush you.”

  “Probably,” I nodded. “Who cares?”

  “Not me,” she said. “I was supposed to go to a concert with some friends, but my mom made me come.”

  “We’re in the same boat,” I told her. “I made my dad come. And now I regret it.” Liu looked intrigued, and I surprised myself by adding: “He may be a grandmaster but he hasn’t played in thirty years.”

  A schlubby-looking man in an ill-fitting black suit stumbled out onto the dais from a side door, blinked in the lights, and took the microphone. “I am Shuvalovitch,” he said in heavily accented English. “Welcome, chess players, young and old, fathers and sons. As we say, chess is like a bridge. In order to get to the other side, you need to cross it. I wish good luck to everyone. Start your clocks.”

  “Utter nonsense, but what do you expect?” Liu muttered, reaching over to start the clock.

  “I understood it clear as a bell,” I told her. “Good luck, Liu. Don’t fall off the bridge.”

  She couldn’t help smiling as she reached out to make her first move, and it was an unexpectedly pretty smile. “I won’t,” she said. “I’m going to thrash you.”

  10

  There is a moment at a chess tournament when the silence takes hold. Background noises continue—cars honk from outside, tournament officials pad up and down the rows, and there’s the steady whap-whap of pieces being slammed down onto new squares. But a few minutes into a tournament, the mass concentration of the participants seems to knit together into a heavy blanket that dampens all peripheral sounds. Four hundred and thirty-two people are thinking deeply and furiously. Minds are going to war with every neuron at their disposal.

  Liu moved her queen pawn, and I responded with a slightly obscure variation of the Grunfeld Defense, as my father had suggested. Soon my king was safely castled behind my bishop in a wall-like pawn formation called a fianchetto, and we were moving into the middle game on fairly even terms.

  This was one of the stronger games I had ever played. Liu had seen my low rating and was clearly surprised—she wrinkled her nose in frustration and dug her fists into her cheeks, and her black eyes never glanced up from the board. She may have been reading a novel when I walked up, but she was concentrating fiercely on chess now.

  You don’t have to stay at your board during a tournament. You can get up and walk around, provided that you don’t give or get advice from anyone. Forty minutes into my game with Liu, I lost a pawn. It didn’t mean that the game was over, but she now had a significant advantage, and she was pressing it mercilessly.

  I made a move, stood up, stretched, and headed out for a bathroom break and to regroup. I was sluicing some cold water on my face when I heard two players talking near me. “Did you see what happened on board three?”

  “No, what?”

  “This grandmaster no one’s ever heard of is self-destructing. He just dropped his rook.”

  “You’re kidding? Talk about choking early.”

  “The rumor is that he’s some kind of a wacko. Who ever heard of a grandmaster dropping a rook in round one?”

  I hurried out and saw that a little crowd had collected on the dais, around my father’s table. I walked up and stood behind him so that I wouldn’t distract him. Dad was sitting with his arms folded tightly, a look of intense ferocity on his face. He wasn’t moving even a muscle, but I could tell how tense he was. He looked like the slightest sound or movement might pulverize him.

  I stepped closer so I could see the pieces. He was indeed a rook down. It was a complex position, but his opponent, Marciano—a rail-thin college-age supernerd wearing a Star Trek T-shirt—looked supremely confident. This was his chance to beat a grandmaster and he was going for it. As I watched, he lifted his queen and slammed it down so hard the table shook. When a supernerd attacks, it can be frightening.

/>   My father didn’t hesitate. He slammed down a knight even more furiously in counterattack. “Check,” he said.

  The supernerd shrugged and took Dad’s knight. Now my father was a rook and a knight down.

  A shocked whisper went up from the small crowd watching the game. I saw George Liszt stand up from board two and walk over to take a look.

  “Check,” my father announced again, this time moving a bishop far across its diagonal.

  The expert took a little longer this time.

  George Liszt smiled and sat back down at his game.

  I felt someone walk up next to me and saw that it was Liu. I was surprised to see her there—her concentration on our own game had been total. But now she was watching my father play, and she threw a quick and curious glance at me, too.

  Dad made two more rapid moves, and suddenly the geeky expert saw the trap he had fallen into. He might be up a rook and a knight, but he was about to get force mated and even I could see that there was no way out. He might get checkmated in two moves, or he could prolong it to five or six, but it was coming. He looked up at the ceiling, back at the chessboard, muttered something that sounded like a Klingon curse, and exhaled a long breath. Then he reached out and flicked over his king. “Awesome game, man.”

  My father shook his hand.

  There was a rustle on the dais. I realized that the small crowd was applauding. “Quiet, quiet,” a tournament official scolded. “You must be silent.”

  The applause quickly faded as the crowd began to break up, but not before George Liszt’s voice called out two words from table number two, in a tone straight from a horror movie: “Heeeee’s baaaaccckkkkk!”

  I returned to my board and sat down, and Liu sat facing me. I fought hard for another thirty minutes, but she was just too strong. Our chess coach didn’t like us to ever resign. “Don’t give up,” he always said. “Your opponent can make a mistake up to the very last move. Sit and get checkmated.” But after more than an hour of tough chess, I knocked over my king. “Good game,” I whispered.