A Nice Combination by Macht

 

Source: see below.

This ending, from an undated tournament game between Alexander Macht (White) and Moshe Blass is given by Moshe Czerniak in his Book of Chess, p. 77. The annotations are Czerniak's, illustrating the issue of a critical square:

1.Bxg6+ fxg6 2.Qxg6+ Kh8 3.Nf5 Bd4! 

This move seem to stop White's attack. After 4.Nxh6 Rxe1+ 5.Rxe1 Rf8 6.Nf7+ Rxf7 7.Qxf7 Qxg3+, White will have to work hard to draw. 

4.Re5! 

The winning move. If 4...Bxe5 3.Rd7 and mate in a few moves. If 4...Rxe5?? 5.Qxg7#. The fatal critical square e5 decided the game.

4...Ne6 5.Rxd4! cxd4 6.Rxe6 Black resigned (0-1).

Czerniak's Opinion of Bishops vs. Knights

Source: amazon.com

From Moshe Czerniak's Book of Chess, 1967 edition, p. 186 (my translation):

"It is usual to consider the knight and the bishop as equal in value. But it is known to all that in the opening, the knight is slightly better, while in the ending, the bishop is. The knight is therefore the most active piece in stormy attacks, especially when both knights cooperate." 

Any dissenters? 

Multi-Lingual

 

Source: Czerniak's Book of Chess, pp. 350-351

We have already noted in this blog (see link above) Moshe Czerniak's Book of Chess. One more interesting tidbit is Czerniak's well-know linguistic abilities. The book contains a six-language chess terms dictionary - in Hebrew, English, French, Spanish, German and Russian. Czerniak did, indeed, speak all of these languages. 

The Squares of the City - and Its Predecessors

Source: Wikipedia

An interesting science fiction novel about chess, by John Brunner, is The Squares of the City. This particular book is interesting for three reasons. First, it was nominated for the Hugo award in 1966. Second, it is based on an actual game, to wit, a game between Steinitz and Chigorin in 1892, as Wikipedia (see link above) notes. 

A third point of interest is that the idea of using a particular chess game for a science fiction novel is not quite new. One example that predates Brunner is Beyond the Void by "John E. Muller" (R. Lionel Fanthorpe), a notorious hack write who turned out most of the novels for the notorious "Badger Books" series, as detailed in Down the Badger Hole by Debbie Cross. It is a retelling of The Tempest on an alien planet. Cross notes: 

But lazy old Shakespeare couldn’t provide enough plot for the terrifying needs of a Badger novel, even after eleven pages of small print detailing every single move of the chess game between Darmina and Ferdin[and].

In a 1961 novel, The Forbidden Planet (no relation to the famous movie), the chess metaphor is even more obvious, notes Cross: 

The “sixty-four habitable planets federated to the Intergalactic Convention and explain the spacegoing capabilities of certain alien races, with Garaks able to teleport only along diagonals and Pralos along grid lines”, while “Anything a Pralos or Garak could do a Gishgilk could do”, and Zurgs not only leap askew through hyperspace but have horse-like faces, and... One can only admire, and even more so when in Chapter Ten the human pawns realize that the situation strangely resembles a forgotten Earth game – enabling the author to have them explain the moves to each other all over again... 

It should be added that Edward Winter's "Chess in Fiction" article also gives other examples of awful science fiction use of chess, in particular Barry Malzberg's Tactics of Conquest, in which the chess content might have been, a reader points out, deliberately bad, as a literary experiment. 

The same, to a degree, can be said of Fanthorpe: he never took his Badger novels seriously and used them as a joke, for example having in one novel "Suessydo" and his wife "Epolenep," with the novel ending with "Suessydo" using a heavy blaster, instead of a bow, to get rid of Epolenep's unwanted suitors.  

Science Fiction and Chess, Again

Source: see below

The above is the opening of "the Chessmen," a short story by William G. Shepherd. It was published in The Best of Omni Science Fiction vol. 2 (1981), with the painting by Rene Magritte. 

It is a story of a special set of chessmen where a set of chessmen - Soviet-style, with workers vs. capitalists - take on (in effect) a life of their own so that the capitalists always win, no matter what the skill of the players, with interesting results. 

The Old Tropes Again

Bobby Fischer in 1962 (credit: Wikipedia)

Edward Winter had noted, for example, in his 'once' article, many cases of unsubstantiated chess stories and rumors. A common target for these rumors is Bobby Fischer. His notorious behavior and, later in life, apparent insanity, made him a common target. 

The following web page, for example, has both suggestions that Fischer's antisemitism was due to his discovery that his presumed father, Hans-Gerhart Fischer, who divorced his mother and abandoned the family, was Jewish. (It is now known that Fischer's biological father was probably Paul Nemenyi. Nemenyi was also Jewish but he took interest in Fischer and helped his mother financially.) This is done without any evidence, apparently on general "Freudian" grounds. 

To add to this, the web page also repeats the story about Bernstein facing being rescued at the last minute from execution after playing a game of chess for his life against the officer in charge, a story that is also doubtful.

This would be understandable if the web page in question was that of a private person or a hobbyist, but the web page belongs to no less than the Museum of the Jewish People, perhaps the most important museum for Jewish history in the world.

Chess Book Covers, Redux

Credit: see here.

We discussed art and chess in Science Fiction before, for example here, but here is an interesting example of a futurist non-fiction chess theme. The work is by the well-known computer technology artist Robert Tinney, best known for his cover art for Byte magazine. This cover is from October 1978. 

Chess, the Musical

 

Image credit: CHESS | Official Broadway Site

Chess - the musical - is enjoying a revival on Broadway right now. Reviews seem mixed. The New Criterion's review (February 2026, by Karl Smith) notes that "its story has always been a clunker despite many attempts at reworking it over the past forty years. And yet it continues to thrive because of its many top-notch songs." Certainly the songs, as Edward Winter notes in his review, are the high point.  

Smith considers the lyrics themselves "flat" because the story is a clunker, but "Ulvaeus and Andersson exhibited a thrilling breadth, saluting Italian opera in “Merano” and devising the appropriately soaring and well-titled “Anthem.”" 

Not knowing much about chess history, Smith misses much of the subtlety of the lyrics, with their many ironic references to chess history, fables about its origin, famous players, and so on. But while such knowledge is necessary for fully appreciating the songs, the lyrics are not obscure or insulting - or "flat" - to the general audience. Tim Rice, after all, was not writing the musical for the exclusive enjoyment of chess historians! 

Smith's bottom line? "In an era when most Broadway shows fail to deliver even one memorable number, Chess offers easily half a dozen. Intermingled with the soggy drama is an enthralling concert." Agreed about the memorable songs; as for the "soggy drama," I quote Winter again for the defense: Chess is "no less ‘fun’ than earlier musicals about such rib-tickling subjects as Argentine dictators and crucifixions." 

Perhaps it's significant that it is just these two musicals (Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar) that Smith compares to Chess in his review. He thinks that in all three the plot is a mere excuse for the musical numbers. But even if they are, all three also deserve their success for their memorable songs alone. 

Unexpected Discoveries

 

Aron Nimzowitsch. Credit: Wikipedia.

Sometimes chess discoveries just happen. A close relative (who shall remain nameless for privacy reasons) regularly visits an old woman (ditto) every second weekend. The old woman keeps speaking about how she had a "famous chess player" in her family. 

Since "famous" and "chess player" are very relative terms - especially when, as in this case, the old woman is from Eastern Europe - I paid no particular attention but asked the relative to ask on her next visit, just in case. 

The relative sent me a message the other day. "He was her grandmother's brother. He had a weird name... something like 'Nimzowitsch'?! Does that mean anything to you?" The relative also mentioned the old women showed her a book the player wrote, in case that helps me out.