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Journalism of Courage
There is much to distinguish the noble game of chess from heavyweight boxing. Which is why the news that former world champion Garry Kasparov was biffed on the head with a chessboard last month may have come as a surprise to those who follow sporting action. The attack was, from all accounts, rooted in what the assailant saw as a bad move by Kasparov — the latter’s decision to give up competitive chess for a political career. But whereas the rest of us may have been content to write a bilious letters to the editor, the unidentified assailant resorted to direct action. Like a passed pawn sneaking up on the opponent king, he gained admittance to Kasparov’s inner circle at a Moscow youth rally and then beaned the champion champion with a wooden chessboard.
Distressful as this is, it wasn’t exactly the first time that the chessboard was being used, edgeways, as a weapon of war. For all the appearance that chess gives of being a passive game, battles over the board are disturbingly common. And the emotions that the game gives rise to can, on occasion, get vicious in the extreme. “Chess,” Grandmaster Nigel Short once said, “is ruthless: you’ve got to be prepared to kill people.” (Short wasn’t, however, amused when Grandmaster Gata Kamsky’s father took him at his word, and threatened to kill him over some typical chess dispute!) And a French maxim records that those who are faint of heart are perhaps ill-equipped for the 64-square game.
Historians have recorded several instances of onboard battles rapidly spilling over into real life, with fatal consequences. Caliph al-Walid is one of the earliest chess players to have turned the game into a form of bloodsport. In AD 690, he is reported to have cracked open a courtier’s head for some characteristic on-board failing. Barely four centuries later, William the Conqueror broke a chessboard over a French prince’s head; he, evidently, was riled by the latter’s resorting to some sharp practices to win. The sins of the father did, in this case, visit his son. A generation later, Louis VI lost a game to William’s son Henry and, being a bad loser, threw the entire army of chess pieces at the latter.
In more modern times, competitive chess has become rather more tame, perhaps because hawk-eyed talent scouts have swooped down on pawn-pushers with a right hook and spirited them away to the more compelling world of heavyweight boxing. Yet, the Queen of Games is not without its fair share of bad sports. Former world champion Alexander Alekhine was a notoriously temperamental loser. In 1922, Alekhine resigned somewhat spectacularly against Ernst Gruenfeld — by hurling his king across the room.
Likewise, in an Amsterdam tournament in 1950, Grandmasters Samuel Reshevsky and Miguel Najdorf settled their dispute across the board by engaging in an engaging round of fisticuffs. Sadly, there is no record of who won that bout. But by far the most irascible match of modern times was the Candidates match in 1977 between Viktor Korchnoi and Tigran Petrosian. It descended into a Match of Hate, and it culminated in the organisers having to put up a board under the table to stop the two grandmasters from kicking each other!
