The Chess Master Paradox Dr Michael Lobo dr.michael.l...@gmail.com
We've just been through the 14th of July -- the National Day of France. Also known as Bastille Day, it marks the anniversary of the date of the Storming of the Bastille in 1789 that sparked off the French Revolution and eventually led France to adopt a new form of constitutional government. In an article I wrote on this date three years ago -- entitled 'Focus on France' -- I invited responses in French from those members of this forum who were acquainted with the language. I added that there was a time when almost all members of a forum such as this would probably have possessed a working knowledge of French. From the reign of Louis XIV in the 17th century, French was the world's premier language for the next two centuries -- the language of international diplomacy. However, over the course of the 20th century, English gradually acquired predominance -- initially because of the spread of the British Empire and, in the post World War II era, because of the worldwide influence of the United States. As English is now the premier language of computers and the Internet, almost all young people around the world have some basic knowledge of it -- but even if English is now the world's 'Numero Uno', the French language still carries great prestige. During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Paris was in many ways the cultural capital of the world. It was also the centre of the world of chess. Chess in 18th and 19th century Paris was centred around the Café de la Regence. This café was a major meeting point for European chess enthusiasts in the 18th and 19th centuries, so much so that the leading player at this café was to all intents and purposes the European champion -- and, as chess outside Europe was virtually non-existent, the champion of the world. From about 1750 to about 1850, the world's strongest players -- including Sire de Legal, Francois Philidor, Alexandre Deschapelles, Charles Mahe de LaBourdonnais, and Pierre de Saint-Amant -- were all Parisians. After 1850 Paris gradually lost its position of pre-eminence in the world of chess, but in the course of the 19th century at least three strong international tournaments were held there -- in 1867, 1878, and 1900. All three were held in conjunction with world fairs that were taking place in the city at about the same time. Paris also has the distinction of hosting the first chess Olympiad -- in 1924, in conjunction with the Summer Olympics, which were being held in Paris that year. The chess Olympiad was won by Czechoslovakia, with Hungary in second place. At the end of the event, 15 delegates from different countries signed an act creating the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) with Dr Alexander Rueb of Holland as president. This year -- 2022 -- almost a century after the first chess Olympiad was held, the privilege of hosting the World Chess Olympiad has been accorded to India. The event is due to be held in the temple town of Mahabalipuram from July 28 to August 10. I have entitled this article 'The Chess Master Paradox' for a reason that will become clear as we proceed. The term 'master' in reference to world-class chess players probably dates back to the 19th century (though it was not in formal use). The term 'grandmaster' historically referred to the head of one of the military orders of knighthood such as the Hospitallers and Templars, or to the heads of fraternal organizations such as Freemasons. It was in the year 1914 that Tsar Nicholas II of Russia conferred the term 'grandmaster' to five chess masters who qualified for the final round of a very strong international tournament that was held at St Petersburg that year. Emmanuel Lasker (then world champion), Jose Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Siegbert Tarrasch, and Frank Marshall were the first officially proclaimed grandmasters of chess. This is indeed in keeping with the aura of the word 'grandmaster'. It really ought to be an honour almost commensurate to that of a Nobel Prize in a scientific discipline. Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family were executed in the Russian Revolution of 1918. The term 'grandmaster' then went into disuse and it was revived only in 1950 by the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE), which had now taken over the organization of the world championship. When introduced by FIDE in 1950, the title of 'grandmaster' was awarded to World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik and 14 others, all of whom were deemed as potential candidates for the world title. It was also bestowed on 12 other living players who, though past their prime, were recognized as having been world class at their peak. This policy of awarding the 'grandmaster' title only to world-class players was maintained for about two decades. But in the 1970s, the world chess federation adopted a rating system that had been designed by an American professor and it was officially decided to use a player's rating as the basis for the award of titles. In theory, this decision may have seemed more unbiased as titles could now be earned solely by mathematical evaluation of performance. A rating of 2500 would elevate a player into the grandmaster class -- and the official title would be conferred after a consistent performance at this level. But this modus operandi was in fact seriously flawed. It would have been far better to have restricted the 'grandmaster' title to players who were rated among the top 50 in the world at any point of time. After the famous Fischer-Spassky match of 1972, world chess took off in a big way, the number of players in almost every country increasing by leaps and bounds. And the increase in the size of the base of the 'rating pyramid' naturally also had the effect of increasing the height of this pyramid. The ratings of the world champions, which averaged about 2650 in the 1960s, had increased to 2800 and more by the turn of the millennium. The 'grandmaster rating' of 2500 was now very far from being of world championship calibre. But it was too late to make amends. As of today the title of 'grandmaster' has deteriorated in value to such an extent that it is difficult to maintain a precise count of the number of grandmasters in the world. It is probably close to 2000 -- and increasing by the day. In fact the title of 'grandmaster' today carries far less prestige than the simpler designation of 'master' a hundred years ago -- just as the Ph.D. degree today has less value than a simple graduate degree of a hundred years ago. One might argue that the prodigious increase in the number of grandmasters is simply a reflection of the increase in playing strength of the younger generation. I am not sure if this is true as there is no reliable means whereby young grandmasters of today can be compared with chess players of former times. But even assuming that there is some validity in this argument, this is chiefly because professional chess coaches spot talent in little children aged as young as 5 -- and with intensive training and a wealth of chess literature, to say nothing of computer-aid, it is no wonder that these children develop their skills rapidly, so that by the age of 12 they have already acquired a degree of strength that, left to themselves, they may have been unable to acquire even at the age of 20. Expert coaching and other forms of aid have made the road to the rank of 'grandmaster' a lot easier -- in much the same way as it is now unquestionably easier to climb Mount Everest than in the era of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. In the 1960s and earlier, chess players, especially in India, had to rise the hard way -- essentially by their own natural talent. Computer-aid was unheard off and even chess literature in the form of books and magazines were not easily available. Manuel Aaron has the distinction of being India's first International Master. This was a title introduced by the world chess federation in 1950 as being one level below that of a Grandmaster. Manuel Aaron earned this title in the year 1960 when he qualified to participate in a tournament that was known as the 'Interzonal', a major step on the road to the world championship. I have had occasion to say a few words about Manuel Aaron when I initiated an online forum in 2018, but I would like to take this opportunity to reproduce my write-up about him in a book that I have authored, entitled "Checkmate around the 64 Squares -- a Panorama of Chess" (as yet unpublished):. It is now about 7 years since I wrote the first draft of this 500-page book but I delayed publication for many reasons. I had given copies to my erstwhile chess colleagues to go through, but they needed time, and I too became preoccupied with other books, including a work on the heritage tombstones of Mangalore and of course my magnum opus -- the 10,000 page Genealogical Encyclopaedia. And so the launching of my chess book was indefinitely postponed. And then along came the pandemic and the lockdowns -- and the opportunity was lost. As an appendix to the book, I wrote a 100-page supplement entitled "Masters of Chess" -- with entries in alphabetical order of surname. The very first entry is that of Manuel Aaron. I will just summarise it here. Manuel Aaron is India's first international master and nine-times national chess champion, but in fact this description does not really do him sufficient justice. We live in an era when children from the age of 5 have the advantage of intensive personal coaching and a wealth of chess literature as well as computer-aid. It was an entirely different world back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when Manuel Aaron, on his own innate ability, won not only the championship of India but also the championship of the Asia-Australia-Pacific zone, enabling him to participate in the World Chess Interzonal to select the candidates who would compete to challenge the reigning world champion. Manuel Aaron’s achievement in qualifying for the Interzonal, given the meagre facilities then available in India, is certainly comparable to Vishwanathan Anand's achievements a generation later -- and from a correct historical perspective, he must be regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of Indian chess. I may add that after Manuel Aaron won the International Master title in 1960, it took 20 years for another Indian player to win this title -- and only after the requirements were slightly relaxed. By contrast, Vishwanathan Anand's achievement in winning the Grandmaster title in 1988 was just the start of a cascade of young Indian players attaining this rank. I think it is now clear why I have entitled this article 'The Chess Master Paradox'. India has today, I believe, 74 grandmasters -- the number seems to increase every month -- but Manuel Aaron, who is really one of the greatest players in the history of Indian chess, still carries only the title of 'International Master'. But it is not too late to rectify this anomaly. From July 28 to August 10, for the first time in history, India will be hosting the World Chess Olympiad. As India's first International Master, Manuel Aaron will doubtless be invited as a special guest for the event -- and may perhaps be requested to make the ceremonial inaugural move. But I would like to propose that he should also be formally recognized as an honorary grandmaster. We have on our forum a very distinguished gentleman, who is currently settled in Uthandi, a southern suburb of Chennai, which is not far from Mahabalipuram. I refer to Professor Timothy Gonsalves, who has recently retired as Director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, a position he held for over a decade. He has the distinction of being the only Christian to attain the position of Director of an IIT. I would like to request Professor Timothy to take the initiative in this matter -- perhaps along with other senior faculty members of the IIT, Madras, where Timothy was himself Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science before assuming charge as Director, IIT, Mandi, in 2010. Academics and chess are closely interlinked -- and Professors of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology would undoubtedly be qualified to propose honours even in areas that are not directly in the purview of their fields of specialization. In the Masters of Chess, below Manuel Aaron's name is a reference to his games against grandmasters Lajos Portisch of Hungary and Wolfgang Uhlmann of Germany, both of which he won. The text (moves) of the games feature in the main section of my book. In the early 1960s there was no accurate rating system, but Grandmasters Lajos Portisch and Wolfgang Uhlmann were probably both among the top 20 players in the world. I may add that Manuel Aaron also defeated the former world champion Max Euwe at the Leipzig Olympiad in 1960. --- Join the WhatsApp Chess Goa group by clicking on this link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/EVAB7zCJOm44EqJZrfBogm *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- Join a discussion on Goa-related issues by posting your comments on this or other issues via email to goa...@goanet.org See archives at http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-