Michael Moynihan: Chess the game that lives forever

The success of The Queen’s Gambit, which focuses on a chess prodigy, has brought the great old board game back into the limelight

The success of The Queen’s Gambit, which focuses on a chess prodigy, has brought the great old board game back into the limelight

I haven’t seen The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix yet myself, so please don’t spoil it for me. There could be a couple of long, cold evenings over the Christmas to fill: if there’s a twist, keep it to yourself a while longer.

The success of the show, which focuses on a chess prodigy, has brought the great old board game back into the limelight. Apparently recent months had seen a rise in participation anyway — online chess is perfectly suited to lockdown, when you think of it — but the Netflix show has driven a spike even in those numbers.

I saw one report which claimed a 200% rise in the sale of chess sets since The Queen’s Gambit aired. That’s a lot of pawns.

The buzz coincides nicely with an early Christmas present I treated myself to, Harold Schoenberg’s book Grandmasters of Chess.

We had this at home when I was a child, and when I stumbled across a reference to it online and managed to track down a copy, its arrival was like being strapped into a time machine.

It was also a little baffling. Schoenberg was a music critic for the New York Times with a keen interest in chess, and his book is speckled with allusions to classical composers that soared far over my head as a child and remain some distance above the hairline even now. 

I had forgotten some of the personalities sketched out by Schoenberg — Morphy, the first great American master who suffered from mental illness later in life; Capablanca, the suave Cuban who dominated the early part of the 20th century; and lesser-known masters such as Tartakower, with his Tartakowerisms, which became known all over the chess world (“The blunders are all there, waiting to be made”, “An isolated pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard”).

Schoenberg’s book — published in 1973 — concludes with the ascent of Bobby Fischer, and his famous Match of the Century with Boris Spassky in Reykjavik. The book reveals some of Fischer’s escalating demands for the match (“children in the hall be forbidden candy with noisy wrappers . . . children be confined to the balcony . . . children be barred from the hall entirely” ).

What we don’t have is Schoenberg’s view of Fischer’s descent into conspiracy theories and extremist politics as he got older, his chess career abandoned long before he passed away in 2008 (if you can find it, the documentary ‘Bobby Fischer Against The World’ is a good introduction).

Schoenberg’s book is irresistible for many reasons, but one is the complete lack of accommodation offered to readers. He describes games as immortal and dazzling, like the Evergreen game of 1852, and he reprints the moves in the book. This is a huge advantage to chess when it comes to other games and pursuits, of course.

Whatever sport you adore, finding a couple of hours to take in an entire contest from soup to nuts is not a luxury many of us can afford. However, you can replay the greatest chess games of all time in your own home, and it’ll only take the time needed to read 30 or so moves in front of you.

For mere mortals such as myself the brilliance of the chess games has to be taken on trust. Schoenberg sometimes points out that if White takes a certain option in a game, then Black is bound to retaliate with another option, which leaves White with no choice but to resign.

I can’t say the ‘no choice’ element of these descriptions often makes sense to me, but then these players are operating at a level far above my understanding.

Perhaps that’s one of Schoenberg’s great achievements: to show that a gift for chess isn’t the same as a deep understanding of mathematics or languages or any other indication of ‘intelligence’ you care to name. His championing of music as a comparison is a canny one, because that intuition when it comes to patterns and arrangements, allied to hard work, is a striking similarity between composers and chess masters.

All art aspires to the state of music, they say. Does all sport aspire to the state of chess?

Tough questions, delicate phrasings

There seems to be some uncertainty about the shape of next year’s GAA season, unsurprisingly. That uncertainty stems in part from the ongoing issues of lockdown, and in part from the potential for opening up which is offered by the prospect of vaccination on the far horizon.

This is a serious enough topic in terms of organisation — at every level, with club and county teams and managers alike pondering the best approach as the possibilities whirl around us.

I think it may also be having another unintended consequence: giving players pause when it comes to calling it a day, particularly at inter-county level.

Why would a player retire when it’s possible there’ll be national league games in a few weeks, as opposed to in six months’ time? A player would feel a bit of a daw if he hung it up this week only to find out there were games in a month’s time. This robs many a hack of the chance to anticipate the situation by posing the most exquisitely delicate question — whether a player “has any plans” for next year.

It would take a particularly leather-necked inquisitor to pose those questions during Christmas week, when the calendar is finally clear of senior inter county action. But don’t worry, I will if I have to.

A glimpse of normality. Or a reasonable copy

Normality, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, was available in Dungarvan last Wednesday night.

The Waterford hurlers held a press call ahead of the All-Ireland senior hurling final, and it was a refreshing experience. True, there were masks, handwashing stations and social distancing measures, but it was a tiny glimpse of life as it usually is.

More than one of the contributors on the night pointed out the benefits of a socially distanced All-Ireland final build-up. With no tickets to distribute the players aren’t being tormented for Upper Hogans or Lower Cusacks; working and studying from home means those players aren’t dealing with members of the public asking the same questions over and over again as the week wears on.

Mind you, those making the above points also acknowledged that supporters were also entitled to the full carnival of festivities that attends the week of an All-Ireland final. Did everyone sound wistful for the tornado of excitement as the days count down to the big show?

For all the advantages of a low-key build-up, the answer was yes.

An item for a (Cork) Christmas stocking

I know I mentioned a book somewhere else on the page. I make the rules, okay? I don’t have to abide by your pettifogging adjudications.

Because I wrote a book which touched on some of these issues a couple of years ago, I have to say I’m really looking forward to Working in Cork: Everyday life in Irish Steel, Sunbeam Wolsey and the Ford Marina Plant, 1917-2001 by Liam Cullinane. 

As noted in this newspaper last week, “this book will be of interest to the many Cork people with links to the manufacturing triumvirate of Irish Steel, Sunbeam-Wolsey and Ford”.

Sight unseen, I can’t wait to see this one, particularly as I’m told it tells the stories of those who were employed there with both oral testimony and new archival research.

• Happy retirement to Anthony Nash, who tweeted yesterday that he is to "step behind the line", to use an old expression. The Kanturk man had a long career with many highlights, but this reporter can't help but recall the poor treatment he received from the GAA authorities when his free-taking technique came under scrutiny around 2013-4. Still, onwards and all that.

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