Word: chess
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...chess masters have, roughly, an equal knowledge of technique, openings and variations of play. Therefore games between them usually develop into a war of nerves and a search for small advantages that are not always on the chessboard. Spain's Bishop Ruy Lopez recognized this as early as the 16th century when he recommended that an opponent always be seated so that the light shone in his eyes. Reshevsky's icy calm has a similar unsettling effect on his opponents. But the calm is only skin-deep. After match play, Samuel often breaks into a heavy sweat. When...
RESHEVSKY was born into a rabbinical family in Poland and learned chess as a kibitzer at his father's knee. At six, he was giving his father the odds of a rook and winning easily. Sammy came to the U.S. when he was nine, and promptly defeated a platoon of Army officers in simultaneous play at West Point. Then, when he was eleven, someone discovered that the boy wonder had never attended school. Merchant Julius Rosenwald, a Patzer and philanthropist, soon remedied this defect. Six months of tutoring brought Reshevsky up to high-school level and he went...
Reshevsky got a job as an accountant and went on playing chess. He won five U.S. championships, and defeated the famed Jose Capablanca in tournament play. He has had only one chance at the world's championship. In 1948 Reshevsky, three Soviet grand masters and the Dutch champion Max Euwe played for the title left vacant by the death of Alexander Alekhine. Russia's Mikhail Botvinnik won the title; Reshevsky tied for third with another Soviet player, Paul Keres. Though he didn't win first prize, Reshevsky is convinced he can defeat Botvinnik in match play...
RESHEVSKY has given up his job and devotes all his time to chess. In his three-room Brooklyn apartment, where his wife and two children are more interested in keeping up his scrapbook than in playing chess, Reshevsky analyzes the significant games played in major tournaments, dating back to the London championship of 1851. He must have at his mental fingertips all of the important positions that have cropped up in hundreds of trail-blazing games of the past and present. An idea of the combinations he must keep in his head can be gained from the fact that...
Because there are few players even in New York who can give him a tough game, Reshevsky gets most of his over-the-board practice from Rapid Transit chess (one move every ten seconds) and sometimes plays strong opponents blindfolded...