Opinion Chess and the city

In all probability,chess herself was born in a city,all those thousands of years ago. Only the invention of leisure could have led to chess. Agricultural surpluses and large walls to keep enemies at bay — all that was left was a way to while away the hours before the next harvest season.

The French intellectual Guy Debord coined the theory of “psychogeography”. According to Debord,psychogeography was the “study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment,consciously organised or not,on the emotions and behaviour of individuals”. Are there such psychogeographical tendencies in chess?

Hyderabad,for instance,in cricket has produced a series of “stylish” batsmen. Similarly,in chess there was the Hyderabad trio of Mohammed Hassan,Hussain Ali and Turab Ali,all known for their positional play,imbued with the leisurely languor of chess players who came from an ancient tradition of princely patronage.

From the ’40s to the ’90s,the Soviet Union bestrode the world of chess like a colossus. To outsiders,the Soviet machine looked a vast faceless monolith. Yet,to insiders,there were plenty of local variations. Gelfand,in an interview,talked about Minsk,his hometown,which was known for challenging theoretical duels; Riga,the capital of Latvia,where they played dashing,sacrificial chess; and the Caucasus where there was less emphasis on theory and more on subtleties and intuition.

Leafing through the index of The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games is a trawl through the strata of chess history. Modern chess really begins in the 1850s with the first international tournament held in London in 1851. Working your way through the index,it is possible to observe the ebbs and flows of history. For example,in the beginning,the names of St Petersburg,Berlin,London predominate. The tsar was an influential patron of chess and in fact the first “Grandmaster” title was awarded by Tsar Nicolas II.

After the turn of the century,the rise of America is clearly seen with frequent entries of New York. The city was a chess mecca in the 1920s,the kinetic nature of the metropolis also having a distinct stamp on the game. Bobby Fischer is probably the most famous product of the New York style.

The Soviets,starting in the ’20s,had taken to chess with Communist thoroughness and soon the results began to show. The 1945 radio match between the US and the USSR was a clear sign of the torch being passed,with the Soviets wiping out the Americans. From now on,game entries increasingly refer,first to Moscow and Leningrad and then to more far-flung outposts,Kirovabad,Tbilisi,Chelyabinsk.

From the late ’90s,a new entry starts turning up — Elista. Elista happens to be a wind-swept city on the Kalmyk steppes,hardly a chess metropolis one would think. The explanation is that Kirsan Illyumanzhinov,the current head of FIDE,was the president of Kalmykia and this led to many tournaments being held there,culminating in the world championship match between Vaselin Topalov and Vladimir Kramnik in 2006. In one of the games,Kramnik defended a long ending. This would have been merely a footnote in chess history,but in 2010 when Anand was defending his crown against Topalov in Sofia,the Bulgarian repeatedly played into that ending,which acquired notoriety as the “Elista ending”.

Much more common is naming chess openings after cities. The Slav Defence,for instance,has a variation called Meran,named after the Italian town where a tournament was held in the ’20s. Unfortunately,most of the major advances in chess theory have already been made,and it is unlikely that there will be a Chennai gambit or defence being introduced in next year’s match.

Then there are cities or places that derive their identity from chess. The tiny seaside village of Wijk aan Zee in Holland is famous for hosting an international tournament since the ’20s. It is the chess equivalent of Wimbledon. Naturally,the chess is held during the off-season,in January,with biting gales sweeping in from the North Sea. The economic life revolves around the giant Hoogoven steel mills,now acquired by Tata. There are a series of tournaments catering to players of all strengths,from the world’s best to enthusiastic amateurs. It is the kind of town where you walk into a bar,and the bartender asks,“Did you win or lose today?”

No doubt,centuries from now chessplayers will stumble across “Anand-Gelfand,Chennai,2012” in some database. Playing a game of chess,therefore,is a certain kind of immortality.

Unudurti is a Hyderabad-based writer
express@expressindia.com