The Game Player

by Rafael Yglesias

  “Would you help me out and tell me what’s going on in their game?”

  He hesitated because he hadn’t planned to hang around, since there weren’t any awards to receive. But he seemed pleased to have been picked as an expert and he agreed to stay for a while. I asked who was ahead in the game. “Oh, Christ! Who knows?” he said.

  Another boy turned around. “White has a slight edge because of the advanced Queen Pawn.”

  “Yeah,” my consultant said. “But if it’s weakened at all and collapses, White will lose the center.”

  “But Stoppard’s got practically everything defending it,” protested the other.

  “Yeah,” agreed my advisor. “White, your friend, has got an edge. But it’s not a winning advantage.”

  They both fell silent and hunched over their little set, moving pieces three or four moves ahead of the actual game, shaking their heads, and going back to the original position. Every minute or so, Brian and Horowitz would make a move and another half-hour went by, our section growing larger from the completion of other games. Now several sets had appeared. The game had become an indecipherable mess: virtually every Pawn had advanced to the middle of the board, sandwiched between others, and it seemed to me that it would be impossible for them to be captured and have the game open up for attack. And then Horowitz made a move that had them all buzzing.

  “Your friend must be trying for a draw, because he won’t open anything up. See?” He showed me a move Brian could have made that would have involved a Pawn exchange on the Queenside. “But he sidestepped. And it looked like a draw. But Horowitz started trying to open up the Kingside and when Stoppard avoided it, he’s offered a Pawn.”

  “Who?”

  “Horowitz. Horowitz is offering a Pawn.”

  “Yeah,” said one of the others. “But Stoppard will get nothing out of taking it.”

  “A Pawn can win the game.”

  “It can?” I asked.

  “Sure, if you’re good it can.”

  “Not in this position,” yet another boy said. “All the Pawn does is give Horowitz a tremendous initiative Kingside.” He handed his set out towards us and began making moves, the other two watching carefully. “See, Horowitz gets a lot of good threats out of this. White’ll have to give the Pawn back at the very least.”

  “He’s right,” said my original advisor. “If Stoppard takes the Pawn he’ll lose. But he won’t. All he’s got to do is advance the Rook Pawn and this game’s a draw.”

  I looked at the two seated figures, dwarfed by the huge relentless record of their decisions above them. The button on Brian’s side of the clock was up, showing that it was his move, and Horowitz obviously no longer expected a quick answer—he leaned back casually in his chair. Was Horowitz full of expectation, praying that Brian would miss the consequences of taking the Pawn? Brian had no board to test experiments. Would he see the danger? I could imagine being Horowitz, trying not to shift in my chair too much, or show the nervous anticipation of a trap setter.

  Then I saw the sophomore enter from the other room, where the younger group played. Over at the tournament director’s desk, when he was in Brian’s field of vision, I saw him gesture with his left hand. Brian’s head went up imperceptibly, and the sophomore pointed his thumb down to the floor and then headed towards me. I looked at the director, at Horowitz, at the spectators, but no one seemed to have noticed. It seemed blatant to me and I wondered if advice was legal since there hadn’t been any reaction. I motioned to the sophomore to put his ear near me. “Are you allowed to tell him what to do?” I whispered.

  “What?” he said in a normal tone.

  “Shh.” I gestured him to lean over again. “I saw you signal Brian.”

  “So what?” Again in a loud voice that made me jump. “I was just telling him I lost. Thumb to the floor is lose, to the side is a draw, and up is a win.”

  I was so relieved (it felt like an emptying of the bowels) that I didn’t laugh at my mistake or tell him of it. I lost my sense of Brian’s problem while thinking of the awful shock it would have been to discover he was a cheat. “How’s the game going?” the sophomore asked.

  “Apparently,” I said, “Brian’s got a choice between not taking this Pawn, which will probably mean he’ll lose, or taking a draw.”

  “Who says he’ll lose?”

  “Well, these fellows—”

  “Now, wait a minute,” my advisor said, laughing. “I think he’ll lose.”

  “Why? How?” asked the sophomore. And the group showed him their analysis of the position. I saw Brian break his stillness and run his hands through his hair before locking them behind his neck and stretching. Attention was drawn to the two players by this movement and then Brian made a move slowly, removing something from the board, and I heard someone say in an intent whisper, “He took it!”

  “No.”

  “Yes he did!” And we all watched the boy move to the demonstration board to remove, as the chess players call it, Black’s poisoned Pawn and move Brian’s to its spot.

  “Oh, God,” the sophomore said. “He did it cause I lost.”

  “He knew a draw wouldn’t be enough,” I said, and looked at him. “Is that it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe he sees something,” my advisor said.

  “It’s not his style,” answered the sophomore gloomily. “He never risks losing unless the odds are in his favor. He doesn’t go into doubtful positions to get the extra half-point. He’d win this tournament with a draw.”

  “On tie-breakers?” asked one of the boys.

  “Yeah, it’s Horowitz who needs a win.” The sophomore got up and said he would see how the others were doing.

  Horowitz had started to make his reply as soon as Brian took the Pawn, but then he hesitated. Had he trapped himself? He must be double-checking. But after a few moments, he made the reply that everyone had expected and Brian answered immediately.

  When the boy at the demonstration board took hold of the Pawn Brian had used to take Horowitz’s, my advisor sat up: “What!”

  Another said, “Stoppard can’t ignore the threat.”

  But the boy continued his movement of the Pawn and they all sat staring at Brian’s move. Horowitz also looked appalled. I chuckled. “He’s fooled you, huh?”

  “I can’t understand it,” said a boy in an angry tone.

  “He’ll lose the Knight,” said my advisor.

  “Wait! Wait!” one of the kids with a set said. “There’s a combination. Look.” He rushed, moving pieces about, but the others would slow him down to check his calculations. Piece after piece came off the board on both sides. “White gets in first, see? It’s beautiful.”

  I hardly paid attention. Horowitz was hunched over the board, almost kissing one of his pieces. Brian sat primly, his hands in his lap. His face, though calm, was concentrated on the board. You son of a bitch, I thought, it was just a big act so that Horowitz’s panic would be worse.

  Horowitz began to make small, nervous gestures, apparently trying to unravel the seemingly endless variations that had at least ten players fiddling with sets on my right. After a burst of testing moves one of them would deliver a judgment: “Black will win.” But that would be followed by its absolute contradiction, “White will win,” when someone else tried another variation.

  Horowitz glanced at his clock, ticking, I knew from the raised button, ticking without mercy.

  Horowitz had used more time than Brian. I knew that because Brian had paused to consider a move only once (the poisoned Pawn problem) while I had noticed Horowitz thinking hard several times. And now he had his biggest decision; I could feel his mind rush, made desperate by the clock, through the skein of permutations that confronted him.

  I saw the shrimp enter with the sophomore and go over to the director’s desk in a repetition of the sequence of motions the sophomore had made, except that the shrimp’s thumb pointed skyward. I saw Brian smile, as he always does, with his lips together.
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  The shrimp immediately joined in the analysis of Stoppard versus Horowitz and I was eager to hear his opinion since Brian had told me that for sheer calculation the kid was unsurpassed. When he seemed to have finished examining the situation, I asked, and he said, “Well, it depends on this move, I think. There are two major variations, unless he blunders immediately. There’s Pawn takes Pawn, Knight to Knight-five; and there’s Pawn takes Knight, Pawn takes Pawn, King takes Pawn. The first is better for Horowitz.”

  “You’re crazy,” began one of the other group, who was chorused by several others, and the shrimp, his tone clipped and diffidently contemptuous, rapidly moved pieces to prove his point, but his proof wasn’t instantly convincing and I realized again that only Brian—silent—knew the real point.

  Twelve minutes went by, while Horowitz, still puzzled, glanced more and more frequently at the wooden box, and our audience swelled. The two players’ isolation was more pronounced with the games nearby having finished and the competitors turning spectators. The players must have felt this intensifying of observation, because they began to take brief looks at the mass facing them: dozens of hands stabbing the air with the motions of speculation, followed by whispered judgments.

  Fifteen minutes after the surprising Stoppard move, Horowitz sat up to look at Brian and then with a kind of shrug he moved a piece and removed one from the board. The audience, silenced, focused on the boy: he got up from his chair, bent over to see the position, and then turned to the demonstration board. He removed Brian’s Knight. “It’s Pawn takes Knight. I knew it. I knew that’s the right move.”

  “It’s Brian’s game,” said the shrimp, not in a contentious voice to the other analyst, just stating a fact.

  Brian answered immediately and so did Horowitz. The boy had barely begun to translate the moves to the board when Brian moved again and Horowitz, by tilting his head and nervously rubbing his chin, showed his confusion. But he must have decided he couldn’t afford to check the position thoroughly and he moved.

  Now Brian went into a long study and allowed our projectionist to catch us up to their situation. A whole new series of arguments were started by the recent moves but I was no longer interested. Indeed, it was irritating to think I had bothered to consult anyone. The atmosphere was Brian’s: he had surprised his opponent again and again, using less time, looking calmer, moving his pieces surely, his body relaxed, his minions reporting their progress. I was sure of his victory.

  But the circumstances, according to the analysts around me, couldn’t be more volatile. Brian’s reply was considered bad, but Horowitz’s answer was equally disapproved of; and now, a whole series of moves were made, both players sure of themselves. The Kingside of the board had been blasted. It reminded me of a wide sandcastle, half of which is dissolved by the tide. The Queenside was still in place, both Kings trying desperately to hobble behind it.

  The game was three hours old, the smashing checkmates never having materialized, but the captures being unequal, when Jeff walked up the aisle to the director’s desk and signaled Brian that he had won. When Jeff joined us the analysts were no longer busy with their sets. They had given up to enjoy the quick changes of fortune on the big board.

  They seemed to consider it fairly even a half-hour later, Brian having perhaps a slight edge because of a Pawn advantage. But, of course, one thing was not even—time. Horowitz had less of it and no skill could increase it. He watched the clocks fearfully during the few seconds Brian allowed him of free time, that is, while Brian contemplated his own move. But never more than a half-minute and then Horowitz’s clock was started again, the raised knob penetrating his concentration, draining his energy. Though the Kings were no longer in danger, Pawns and pieces were in a mad state of disorganization, and threat after threat was set by Brian, some so obvious that it seemed like a beginner’s game. But care was required to wriggle out of them and Horowitz had little time for it. I knew this had been the point all along, that Brian had realized this would occur, and that was why, to the shock of the analysts, he hadn’t checked his moves to try and find better lines of attack. The shrimp had said several times that Brian had missed his chance, but of course he had missed nothing, his objective was this chance, a chance that depended on a certainty: Time’s finality and the pressure of its end.

  All Horowitz had to do was make his forty moves within the two hours allotted him and then he would be awarded another hour, but Brian had set threat and hidden threat for Horowitz’s last ten moves. And Horowitz couldn’t have more than ten minutes to make them while Brian had twice that.

  Brian pinned a Knight against a Rook and Horowitz, with a quick glance at the clock, routinely moved the Rook, and I heard the shrimp’s exclamation a second before Brian jumped in his chair to move a piece. Horowitz had missed the fact that the Pawn defending his Knight was also pinned, and he lost the horseman.

  It hit Horowitz like a fist, his body sagging. He stared at the board while Brian pressed the button to start his tormentor.

  Brian let his arms hang loosely while he watched Horowitz. He seemed sorry and turned away to look at us with his closed smile. Horowitz continued to stare, his head now in his hands, his chest caved in, and the clock running.

  It was a long minute. Brian was on the edge of his chair and he was out of it at the same moment that Horowitz tipped over his King to resign. He and the shrimp had won the tournament with perfect scores and Hills High had finished a half-point ahead of Jefferson.

  My mother had told me to invite Brian to our house for dinner, but I expected him to refuse in order to celebrate with the other players or perhaps spend the evening with his parents. I waited until we had a private moment on the train to Westchester before asking and he accepted immediately. “But I can’t ask the others,” I said.

  “Them?” he laughed. “Why should you?”

  “So,” I said quickly, in order not to hear his teammates insulted. “You’re the best high school player in New York State.”

  He smiled, even showed some teeth, and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Why limit it to high school? Why not the world?”

  “You’re going to play Fischer next?”

  “He’s not champion of the world. Petrosian is. No, as a matter of fact, I think I’ve played in my last tournament.”

  “Oh, sure. How dramatic of you.”

  “No, not drama. There’s a good reason for it.” He looked at me, his eyes quickly searching mine. “I’m not the best player and if I keep pushing my luck, I’ll lose.”

  “Who’ll beat you? The shrimp?”

  “In a year or two, he could. I’ve peaked. But I didn’t mean age would get me. I meant that not only Horowitz but the player before him should have beaten me and they would have if—Horowitz could have nailed me at least three times in that game. He was too uncertain, too fooled by my quickness when I moved. He thought I saw something that I didn’t. They beat themselves, they saw dangers only they were clever enough to spot. And, in both games, when I had clear winning advantages, I couldn’t figure out how to win.” He was quiet for a moment. “That’s the worst feeling,” he said in a puzzled tone. “I kept trying to find the move. I knew it was there, but I would be stuck. And when I thought I had found it and made it, it would turn out to help them.”

  He was genuinely disturbed and I felt it was my job to handle these reactions, reactions that had become a pattern, to his victories. He had won as Student Councilman and then became horrified, dropping it as an activity. He had starred as a basketball and football player, but withdrew from them when his success was greatest. “You get scared of losing, don’t you?” I said.

  “Yeah, of course.” His face, maddeningly clear of the acne that tortured the rest of us, was a mask of amusement. A controlling amusement that suggested both contempt and affection. “Now, Howard, don’t theorize about me. Everybody is scared of losing. I’m not talking about that. I’ve reached the limit of my skill at chess and I’ve been able to master a few bette
r players because I feel less pressure than they do. They’re more frightened of losing than I am. I don’t like winning that way. I like to be better.” He said the last word harshly and looked serious.

  “But, Brian!” Though I spoke loudly, my disagreement was noisy and meek. “How the hell can you know you’re not better? You can’t be sure, don’t tell me you can!”

  “You’re a good friend, Howard,” he said quickly, in a low voice. “But for all your reasonableness about winning, you’re pretty irrational.” He had his eyes wide open to look inoffensive. I didn’t want to react and he waited until realizing that before continuing. “Forget it, but it’s very easy to know in chess, even if you beat someone, that he’s better than you are.”

  “All right.” I was pulling a Stoppard on him, pretending to agree in a tone of hidden knowledge. We rode the rest of the way, through the suburbs’ lights, in silence, while I reflected that he and I had become equals. I could disagree with him now without an uneasy sense that I was not only wrong, but dangerously naïve; and he had stopped his long lectures and harangues when I hesitated to accept his position.

  But his coolness, his paternal dominance of the rest of our class had never diminished, not even during those awkward two years—sophomore and junior—when the girls seemed to have attended, one an evening, the meeting of a cabal designed to baffle and disorganize the male ego. His hair, his dermatology, his clothes, his body, his intellect, his manners, were never giggled about or analyzed by the girls in that detail which makes it hard to look people straight in the face afterwards.

  And the locker room discussions that invariably ended in taunts that one boy was lying about his sexual experience, or another would live a life of miserable celibacy, were aborted in Brian’s presence. Not just because he viewed them with a disenchanted eye, but because his talk was full of the seriousness of an adult’s experience. Once, I was in a group with him, Frankie, and Bill, who had succeeded Brian as quarterback on the Hills High football team, shortly after my stumbling onto Frankie with a girl in the music room. Bill was an intelligent jock, the only one I knew of who smoked grass and hated the War, but he had never recovered from that first move Mary made on him about the locker, and his terror of a constantly impending denouement, made him one of the most vicious teasers about sex. I was friendly with all the girls, but I mean friendly, and that qualified as the tragic element in my life. I forget what was being discussed but out of base motives I said to Frankie, “I hope you didn’t injure that girl.”