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1994-01-05
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EVANS ON CHESS. August 20, 1993. Copyright by GM Larry Evans.
SECRET LIVES
Chess has more than a share of international intrigue and lends itself very
nicely to spy thrillers. THE CHESS PLAYERS by Francis Keyes weaves the life
of Paul Morphy into compelling Civil War fiction; and in STALAG 17 an
informer at a prisoner-of-war camp transmits messages inside chess pieces.
The game of espionage in John le Carre's novels is compared to the game of
chess in Nabokov's THE DEFENSE by the critic David Remnick in The New York
Review of Books. The protagonists of these books are obsessive students of
their peculiar art who become more and more isolated from the world.
"Pym ends his miserable life in suicide. Nabokov's Luzhin,
the idiot savant of chess, cannot see past the equations and
imagery of chess that crowd his mind and finally pitches
himself out a window, only to see below him one more
phantasmagorical sight, the abyss of 'dark and pale
squares,' the final chessboard. Just as Luzhin is driven mad
trying to ward off the inevitable catastrophe bearing down
on him, le Carre's spies spend their nights holed up in
cheap hotel rooms or flats listening for a signal on the
radio, a ring-and-disconnect on the phone. And it leads to
almost nothing."
SPYCATCHER, a best-selling memoir in 1987 by Peter Wright, was actually
banned in England. In passing, he revealed that a small band of chessmasters
worked on codes for the British Secret Service.
Until this book appeared only a few insiders knew that the head of counter-
intelligence at M15 was Graham Mitchell, an active postal player. "Much as I
loved the game, I had no marked talent for it," he said. "But correspondence
chess in 1942 introduced me to a form of the game in which lack of talent can
be compensated in part by patience, industry and enthusiasm."
Alan Turing, another chess lover, worked with some of England's top players
during WWII deciphering the Nazi code "Enigma." A brilliant mathematician,
his story was told in the play BREAKING THE CODE.
British masters assigned to these top secret projects included Harry
Golombek, Hugh Alexander, and Sir Milner-Barry, who said cryptanalysis "was
like playing a tournament game every day for 5-1/2 years." This swashbuckler
illustrates their intense prewar chess rivalry in the halcyon days at
Cambridge.
White launched a strong attack but failed to land a haymaker. Wrong would be
15 Nd6? Qxd6! 17 Bxd6 Bxd4 18 Kh1 Bg2 mate. Black prevailed -- but only after
walking the razor's edge.
White: MILNER-BARRY Black: HUGH ALEXANDER King's Gambit 1932 1 e4 e5 2 Nc3
Nc6 3 f4 exf4 4 Nf3 g5 5 d4 g4 6 Bc4 gxf3 7 0-0 d5 8 exd5 Bg4 9 Re1 Nge7 10
gxf3 Bh3 11 Bxf4 Rg8 12 Bg3 Na5 13 Bb5 c6 14 Ne4 Bg7 15 Kh1 Qxd5 16 c4 Qd7 17
d5 Kf8 18 d6 Nf5 19 Nc5 Nxg3 20 hxg3 Qf5 21 d7 Bd4! 22 Nxb7 Qh5 23 Re8 Rxe8
24 dxe8/Q Kxe8 25 Qe2 Kf8 26 Nxa5 Bg4 White Resigns
(A revised past column)