Luke McShane

Is chess a sport? Naively, I once considered that to be a philosophical question. Physical strength or dexterity – nope. Feeling of exertion and elevated heart rate – yes, at least if you’re doing it with soul. Global competition and recognition – yes, emphatically. It was no accident that Louis Vuitton’s ad campaign last year pictured Messi and Ronaldo playing chess. A better question would be ‘Does chess deserve government funding?’ For a game with obvious cognitive, educational and cultural benefits, the answer ought to be an unequivocal yes, and in a great many countries, including within western Europe, the game does indeed receive meaningful government support. Alas, in the UK chess is left to fend for itself.

The forthcoming world championship match, which begins in Astana on 9 April, was described by Garry Kasparov as an ‘amputated event’. The abdication of Magnus Carlsen, who remains the world’s strongest player, is of course a disappointment. But the 14 game match between the world number 2 and 3, respectively Ian Nepomniachtchi from Russian and Ding Liren from China, remains a gripping prospect. Nepomniachtchi is the more aggressive and ambitious player, but his results are more volatile. In an interview in January, Carlsen stated that he considers Ding Liren to be ‘a little bit better’. In my view, Ding stands out for his capacity to endure tension for longer than his opponents, a quality which manifests in subtle ways.

An uncharacteristic blunder from Wesley So handed tournament victory to Hikaru Nakamura at the American Cup, which finished at the St Louis Chess Club last weekend. The event was held with an unusual ‘double elimination knockout’ format, in which players who lost a match would continue playing in the ‘elimination bracket’, and only a second loss would see them exit the tournament. Nakamura won their first encounter, which shunted So into the elimination bracket. But since So triumphed in the elimination bracket, he was resurrected to face Nakamura in the final, where he took his revenge. Each player having lost one match, they were left to fight it out one more time.

In the world of chess politics, the map has been redrawn. Russia is now officially in Asia, and no longer in Europe. The move was formalised at the end of February, when the Asian Chess Federation voted to admit the Russian Chess Federation by an overwhelming margin. Russia’s pivot to Asia was in the pipeline for some time, since the European Chess Union (ECU) suspended the federations of Russia and Belarus just a couple of weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. The international federation Fide followed suit soon after, so those teams were absent from the Fide Olympiad in Chennai last year. In Europe, the impact was lessened by the fact that the ECU’s biennial European Team Championship, is not due until November 2023 in Montenegro.

The great tradition of the Varsity match rolls on, ringing in the 141st edition earlier this month at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London. Oxford were slight favourites, but the match finished on a knife edge. The game on board 2 was particularly hard-fought, with both sides having winning chances at different stages. This diagram shows the position after the advance 56 f4-f5, with Jan Petr (Cambridge) playing White. Striving to win the game, he has advanced his pawn to f5 instead of capturing the pawn on d3 (which led to a straightforward draw). Jan Petr (Cambridge)-Emil Powierski (Oxford) Varsity Chess Match, March 2023(See left diagram) White’s move would be justified by 56…a3 57 fxe6 a2 58 e7 a1=Q 59 e8=Q, with an easy win with the extra knight.

‘The greatest pleasure? When you break his ego.’ So said Bobby Fischer on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971. He was right, of course – experienced players can sense that moment of mental despair in the opponent, which may arrive well before the outstretched hand of resignation. In fact, getting an accurate read on the opponent’s mood can be valuable at any stage of the game. Body language clues are the most obvious, but there’s plenty to be gleaned from the moves alone. Perhaps the game reaches an obvious junction, where the opponent can choose between a safe, solid option, and something more adventurous. The choice itself speaks volumes, and the time spent on the decision can be no less significant.

Can ChatGPT play chess? A few weeks ago, when the AI chatbot was making headlines, someone had the cute idea of getting it to play a game against the popular chess engine Stockfish. At the start, it followed a standard line of the Ruy Lopez opening. But soon the illegal moves began – ChatGPT tried to castle before its bishop was out of the way. Later, it added pieces to the board from nowhere, queens jumped over knights, and rooks teleported magically around the board. I repeated this experiment myself, with similar phantasmagorical results, all while the bot supplied nonsensical explanations for its moves. Indeed, ChatGPT cannot play chess, and it was fun to watch its collapsing facade of cogency. Teehee, silly computer!

The Cambridge International Open, held last week in fine surroundings at the University Arms Hotel in the city centre, is a valuable addition to the UK tournament scene. Organised by the English Chess Federation, demand for this debut event was strong and registrations had to close early at around 120 participants, when the capacity of the playing hall was reached. Nine grandmasters took part in the open tournament, including England’s top player Michael Adams. Despite being a huge favourite in his first round game, he drifted into serious trouble in the early middlegame. Seeing the storm clouds gathering, he wisely ventured a draw offer, which was accepted – that being a tremendous achievement for his teenage opponent and namesake Henry Adams.

If a series of chess games is drawn, how do you split the tie? One answer is to play two more games (one of each colour) at a faster time limit, to boost the odds of a decisive result. But that might take a while. When the games get too brisk, the tiebreak feels divorced from the original contest. The drawbacks of playing just one game are obvious – the white player get an unfair edge, and the game might end up drawn anyway. So the Armageddon game was invented – the chess equivalent of a penalty shoot-out. In this, a drawn game results in a win for the black player. On its own, that’s a chunky advantage, so a time handicap is used to even out the chances. What time handicap yields a fair contest?

I picture a medieval priest, hunched over a desk with bells clanging in his ears. He is on a deadline – tomorrow is Sunday and his congregation have heard enough sermons about the spiritual value of threshing. The leatherbound book in front of him, Summa collationum, sive communiloquium, is his source of inspiration. It’s a recent edition of a book written some 200 years earlier by a Franciscan monk, John of Wales (Johannes Gallensis), who died c. 1285. One section, known as ‘The Innocent Morality’, presents chess as an extended allegory for life. The priest pores over the Latin: ‘The world resembles a chessboard, which is chequered white and black on account of the twofold state of life and death, of grace and sin.’ A stirring thought.