Chess @ Mullum Central - Novice Mystery Cache

You looked down at the board and chessmen again, although you had seen their stiff pattern times out of mind. While the tournament director was speaking you could wait. And as you waited the old questions rose once more in your mind. Could this be it, the perfect game, the thing of beauty, the work of art? Could there come out of this tension of minds, this conflict of wits, anything more than victory and defeat? This unknowing search for secret beauty! What was the perfect game of chess? Was it a draw, with the board exhausted of pieces? Was it a smashing victory?

The director's voice seeped into his reverie. "Final round. Andreev the Russian champion leading with seven points. Two and then six straight wins." The thought of a perfect game faded. Win? Can you even draw? Can you hold off the faultless Andreev, whose countrymen had for years pooled their incredibly patient testing of every defence. "Your opponent half a point behind. No one else close enough."

"Ten years since you'd won a tournament. Your entry invited frankly as a sentimental gesture to the spirit of your long career, now your amazing comeback against eight of the world's best. World's championship vacated by the death of Alekhine. Assured of second place, you have already done better than the old Lasker at Moscow. Can you, the grand old man of chess, snatch a full point from your ninth and last opponent, the unbeatable Russian? You need a win, Andreev only a draw". "Additional drama. Youth and age. You are the only player in the world with a plus score against Andreev . That famous fifteen-move surprise win at Paris ten years ago. Paris! You look at the board again and wonder how you should open this time. Queen's Gambit?

"Like his countryman, Frank Marshall, he has never played to the score, but has always sought to make each game a work of art".

The voice stopped. The director was at his table, starting his clock. Two hours for thirty moves. The photographers near his table poised themselves as he moved his arm. He lifted his eyes to Andreev 's face and saw etched in it the sharp memory of that defeat at Paris. Suddenly you feel tired, remembering the dilemma in which you have spent yourself so many times in fifty years. Play for a win or play for perfection? There rose against you the ghosts of a hundred games and a dozen tournaments lost because you could never decide which you wanted. Could this be it, the work of art?

Andreev twisted a little, and somewhere out of the thousands of games and hundreds of players in your memory there stirred a spark. You smile at Andreev , and moved your pawn to king four. Photographers' flashes sprang at him. The audience riffled forward as Andreev duplicated the move. With no hesitation, you move your queen pawn beside your king pawn and listened for the buzz from the spectators.

"Center Game! Is he playing the Center Game? Hasn't been played in a tournament since Tartakower tried it at Stockholm against Reshevsky. Is he crazy? Andreev will smash it to bits".

There was no way to decline the capture even if Andreev had wanted to, but the younger man seemed a little slow as he took the pawn. You catch his eye again, smile again, pushed your queen's bishop's pawn forward a square, then lean back and waited for the avalanche. It came with a rush, as of collapse at a distance. Andreev half rose from his chair.

"Danish Gambit? Danish Gambit! Two pawns. Who can give Andreev two pawns, development or no development? What does he think this is, a skittles game?

Andreev stared across the board, tight-lipped in contempt. Then he took the second pawn.

For a moment your mind drifted back to other ballrooms and hotels, the Crystal Palace, chop houses and concessions, the thousand places where you have paused before a board and moved a pawn or knight. Slowly you force the memories from your mind and, as you look out over the spectators, moved your bishop to Queen's bishop four.

The crowd stirred uneasily, waiting for Andreev to take the third pawn and then hang on through the attack. You wonder a little too. In the Danish you had to take the first and could take the second, according to the books. But how lately had Andreev played against a Danish? He was taking too long, that young wizard. Now it came: Kinight to King Bishop three. Development. Playing safe. You advance your knight to king bishop three and tapped the clock, as after every move.

Andreev studied the board a long time. Again the spectators shifted about. A few moves more, and you would know whether to hope for a draw or a win. With an edge of sudden fear you remembered that Tchigorin had once lost a game in eight moves. Andreev was plainly hesitating now, as if trying to recall the best line. Surely the pawn was not poisoned. Yet, one piece out to White's two. Even before Andreev 's fingers touched the bishop. You move it mentally to bishop four. Andeev made the move. There it rested and a surge of power flowed into your mind. His reply was obvious, but he lingered over it a while, probing with his imagination the mind of his antagonist, that mind crammed with encyclopedic knowledge of standard openings. Was it shaken a little now, that fine machine? The crowd seemed to think so. A half-caught whisper: "Why didn't he take the pawn? Why not"?

Why not? Was Andreev thinking of Paris and the thrust of rage with which he had swept the pieces to the floor at the fifteenth move? Now you lift your knight and removed the Black pawn at bishop three. Andreev moved pawn to queen three; and as you castled, it was obvious that White had compensation for the pawn sacrificed. Again the muttering. "Seven moves and Andreev on the defensive. Unheard of. A Danish Gambit"?

After long thought the Russian castled, and now you felt yourself moving into that strange trance of chess intuition. The pieces on the board swirled into patterns, blended, and stiffened into place eight or ten moves on. Tempt a weakness. But would Andreev move his pawn? His whole queen side undeveloped? You put your hand to the king's knight and a small sigh went up from the spectators. "One move. A single tempo. and Andreev 's even. Why didn't he pin the knight"? A moment's hesitation, and then you placed your knight at King's knight five. There. Now would Andreev move the pawn? The precisionist wouldn't. The arrogant refuter of gambits would. Did there linger still a trace of something from the third move? Would this Russian weaken? Rook and pawn, did he think, for bishop and knight?

Andreev studied the position almost interminably. Then he pushed his pawn to king rook three, then dropped his hand as if burnt, as if too late he had seen beneath the surface of the board a steady fire. And now the crowd was quiet, waiting, and there began to break into your brain a long shaft of light. A combination, the moves tumbling over one another with sweet promise. A game of equilibrium, a perfect tension of pieces, everything held in suspense by a perpetual check from Black, a fantasy of eternal motion caught in the flowing lines of a knight's pendulum move. The perfect game of chess! He could force Andreev to play for a draw. Eagerly you took the bishop's pawn with your knight and wait for Andreev to retake with the rook. The combination was irresistible. But would Andreev see the knight check he himself would have to give, five moves later, to hold the draw? Would he take the draw that would give him the championship of the world?

Andreev retook with the rook, and you moved the king pawn down to king five. The crowd, sensing something in the quick replies after so long a series of waits, rippled with comment. "Why didn't he retake with the bishop? If pawn takes pawn, the queen is lost. What's the old man after? No, the rook is pinned. It won't run away". At last Andreev switched the threatened knight to knight five. You move the pawn to king six and pray that Andreev will not take it with the bishop. You search Andreev 's face as the clock ticked off minutes. Two hours for thirty moves. Only a third of them made, and Andreev still looking at the board. Too long.

But now Andreev was moving his queen, and you see it glide to rook five. The dreaded and then hoped for continuation vanished from your mind and in its place came a sense of lightness and power. The pattern was forming. The tensions, threat and counter threat, were moving toward that poetry of perpetual motion you had anticipated. You take the rook with your pawn. The Black king moved under it to bishop one. You played your bishop to King's bishop four, covering the mate at rook two. The clock ticked as you listen for the beating of Andreev 's heart and in a minute or two they seemed to focus, rising in tempo until at thunder pitch the Russian pulled away your bishop's pawn and dropped his knight on the square. You move your queen to king two. The perfect game!

Andreev was sweating now, and the crowd was quiet. Twice the Russian's hand strayed to the board and twice he withdrew it. You went through the moves again. Then you looked up again from your dream to see in Andreev 's eyes something that wrenched him. Paris! The eagerness for revenge across the board shook him. Andreev was bending over the board, demanding a win of his pieces. He didn't want a draw. The crowd jabbered, unmindful of frowns from the director, piecing out the perpetual check.

"Sure it's a perpetual. Knight just moves back and forth. Old man must be crazy. Giving the championship away. Why doesn't Andreev move"?

At last Andreev did, knight to knight five, discovering check. You push your king aside to rook one, and with it the illusion of fifty years. Andreev could check once more, demonstrate the perpetual to the referee, and then sweep the pieces into confusion as he rose. You wait. But Andreev did not check. Slowly your eyes moved from Andreev 's face to the silent chessmen. They blurred; then the Russian moved: Bishop to queen two.

As he stared at the move, you recognize a new defeat. There was no perpetual check. There never had been. Blindness! As if seeing the position for the first time, you painfully pick over the moves, resisting each pull into the combination that deluded you. Had Andreev checked with the knight, Black would have lost. Knight checks, rook takes knight, and if Black retakes, White mates at king eight. The Black bishop had to move to queen two to protect the mating square. You looked up again; and as you stretch your hand to the board, you sense rather than see something else at the edge of Andreev 's eyes. You stop your hand, and the gesture released the breath of the crowd in a quiet sigh.

Once more you searched the position, wondering why you continue, deaf to the reawakened swell of flurry beyond the ropes. Suddenly you see it, and everything else fades except the patterns of force formed by the pieces as they moved into their predestined places. Again the testing of each move, racked by the error of the first delusion, soothed by what you see unfolding on the board. Finally you pull your queen rook to king one square.

Andreev hurried his knight to queen bishop three. And now it was as if some inevitable force suddenly set in motion were lifting the game away from both players.

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