1) A very special kind of tournament preparation
The tournament in Graz was over. The summer was also gradually coming to an end, for September was beginning. The German Chess Federation had temporarily taken a cuddly course with me and appointed me to the German National Team (for Graz) as well as providing me with an invitation tournament in Krosno/Poland afterwards.
My book is by no means intended to cover my political views. Nevertheless, one must inevitably discuss a few things before going to Poland, even in 1981, especially in September. The times of the Cold War were particularly hard on Berliners. We had this famous “island status”. Berlin was not exactly small, but nevertheless, even on bicycle tours, you always had to be prepared to see signs suddenly appear that more or less insistently warned you that you were about to leave the Western sector or something similar.
That didn’t necessarily cause fear right away, but it certainly instilled respect. It was not enough. Through the media, one had enough opportunity to see and hear what happened on the other side if someone got too close to the Wall or the barbed wire. He was summarily “liquidated”. One also has warm memories of the events where, even before the transit agreement of 1971, one had to put up with waiting times of several hours every time one left or entered Berlin, and then had to make the highly unpleasant contact with the equally famous and notorious “Grepos”. Motto: “Set with goose meat?” “Do you want to open the luggage compartment?” Yes, we could, we even had to. Then the mirrors came and checked the car from underneath to see if we, as felons, might have a stowaway strapped under the car and wanted to kidnap him from his well-deserved freedom under socialism into the ghastly constraints of capitalism.
We wanted to be safe, but we also wanted to be allowed to continue living. And that in our apparent, illusory, western freedom. I don’t know how close we came to “redemption” back then when we once actually transported a hitchhiker, who moreover readily admitted to being a GDR citizen, from one rest stop to the next. I believe that even for such behaviour, the brilliantly elaborated Eastern jurisprudence had only one verdict ready: “Beet off.” At least, that’s how I had it in my childish mind.
One also remembers very well a few other detailed stories that instilled in one the necessary and appropriate respect for the GDR officials at random points. After all, if you were stopped once, you were sure to be punished. It was impossible for the order-loving (who said or thought over-critical?) law enforcers not to find anything. Be it a brake light, a child safety lock, an incorrectly fastened seat belt, a speeding offence (which could not be checked) or a nose that did not seem to grow properly for the officer at that particular spot, i.e. it simply “did not fit him”. And when you get right down to it, that was virtually everyone, as long as they somehow looked or smelled like the “West”. And the olfactory organs really were brilliantly trained and educated at that time, it must be emphasised. However, it was probably more their own nose that didn’t suit these people. But they got their hands on a means of power and used it to good effect.
One got one’s “punishment”. And practically every halfway clever transit traveller had always calculated his travel budget 100 DM wider. On the outward and return journey, the chance of being “caught” at least once was a whopping 35%, but the figure is only an estimate. Opposition, as much as it arose in me against any form of authority, was also replaced in me by obsequiousness for the duration of the GDR journeys. I dutifully contributed my share to the GDR’s weakening gross national product.
I don’t want to deny that, as a 59-year-old, I also got a fair share of the ideas of the ’68 generation. I also became an ardent admirer of Rudi Dutschke, even though I admittedly could not understand his political statements at the tender age of 9. Nevertheless, I also wore the non-conformist uniform (jeans and long hair) with some pride for many years and also went diligently to demos: “Solidarise – march along.” Of course, that was in the early to mid-70s. The time simply brought with it the fact that for a while one also “glorified” the GDR in a certain way, and at least had to deal with the practical implementation of socialism. The idea was, of course: Implementation can only succeed through the dissemination and internalisation of the ideas. Imposing a form of government cannot be the right way. Socialism or communism can only be born in the mind. But I certainly wasn’t thinking of “brainwashing”. Only convincing people would be an option. But if people do not understand…
So my thoughts of emigration were only very temporary. And as an idealist, I wasn’t necessarily suited either. But what do you know as an adolescent? You look for a world view and for yourself.
All right, so in September 1981, something had come up in Poland. The whole thing was called “Solidarnosz” and had at least one author known by name, the man was called Lech Walesa (through my stay in Poland, I have familiarised myself with the language at least to the extent that I know that Walesa is written both with a dotted l, spoken as a mixture of “hu” and “wu”, and with an e with a consonant, which is then spoken like the French nasal sound. My keyboard doesn’t give me the two special characters, but it sounds something like this: Wahuernsa.
Solidarnosz, however, carried something resolute about resistance that immediately called on its big brother, i.e. the Russian brother. My knowledge of this overpowering brother had come almost exclusively from James Bond films; in any case, normal contact with GDR Grepos or Vopos (border police and people’s police) seemed more like a child’s birthday party in comparison.
In any case, in September 1981 the Russians got serious. Solidarnosz could not be quietened down with simple means. So first of all tanks were stationed at the borders. The invasion was threatened. In addition, another sword of Damocles was drawn: the embargo. This embargo could apply to many expendable commodities. But it also applied to food. In other words, there was hardly anything to eat.
So, under these dubious circumstances, I had received an invitation to a master tournament in Poland. A short, inner battle in which rabbit’s heart and chess passion wrestled with each other resulted in a clear winner: chess passion.
My mother packed me a huge supply of food, the 100 DM that the Chess Federation had given me as a daily allowance was already a small fortune by Polish standards, plus a few hundreds of my own. I was a rich man in Poland. Only there was nothing to buy.
My mother and friend Angie took me to the bus station. And as much as I loved my mother, of course: I said a tearful goodbye to Angie. I set off for a new world, unknown to me. Would I ever return home again (our thoughts must have been like this or something similar). In any case, it was an adventure.
At that time, you had to get completely different papers than just a transit visa. I even had to apply for a passport to get the (should I call it “coveted”?) entry visa. And to Poland, of all places. That autumn.
The bus took me to Schönefeld airport, which I had only heard existed. A ridiculous small plane was supposed to transport me from East Berlin to Warsaw. But it was too late to turn back. I boarded the plane with the courage of my life. However, I suddenly felt a little bit similar to how one supposedly feels in Abraham’s bosom. Nothing could scare me any more. Besides, as hard as it might be for the captain to bring the plane back down in one piece, he was in it too. Abraham had apparently foreseen that we would fall into a few air holes on the way and feel more like we were in a cardboard box on the ocean, but in a storm. We landed in Warsaw safe and sound.
What happened next was still a mystery to me, of course. Not a word of Polish and I was simply in the Eastern Bloc. That this was not yet my favourite travel destination, I mentioned above, even if only in passing. But then the first time all alone and in “threatened” Poland? Well, the organiser had made provisions for me. Unless there were always people waiting for stranded Western passengers and simply loaded them into their cars. In any case, there was a car and driver for me at the airport.
Well, the whole journey I had to puzzle over whether it was a (less) spectacular kidnapping or whether I was actually being transported to a chess tournament in Krosno. The driver at least was monolingual, at least from my point of view and as we know from the James Bond films. He didn’t want to communicate or he couldn’t. But I never left Abraham’s bosom.
Here’s a little digression about my dreams: I love to dream, question of course: who doesn’t? But there is one worry that most people have that I cannot share: The worry about nightmares. My strategy regarding nightmares looks like this: I dream, most intensely. But the event develops into a nightmare. It would be high time to get scared. My subconscious, however, then begins its own inner battle: continue dreaming because dreaming is so beautiful, or rather wake up because the scenery becomes too scary. Usually, the side that finds dreaming just too beautiful wins. The contingency plan, however, is to wake up: Wake up. So a nightmare can be seriously accompanied by the thought: “Should I wake up now, just when it’s so exciting? So I still had this wake-up option ready in case of emergency…
The journey itself was something like this: A luxury car, as I had to assume, which would have been refused registration in Germany under guarantee, had really transported me to Krosno over mostly absolutely impassable terrain in about 2 hours driving time at nightfall.
I was put up at the first address in Krosno. With a bit of goodwill, you could classify it qualitatively between a campground and a youth hostel. And there was also something to eat every day, although you should be in the breakfast room before 6:30 in the morning if possible. In the evening it was a bit worse. But at least we were guaranteed to be the envy of the rest of the population. Besides, I was now “armed”, so to speak. However, I had to be careful about spreading the word about the “pantry” I had personally set up in the hotel room. There were such exclusive things as wholemeal bread and long-life sausage.
The shower was also an experience: as soon as you got in, you noticed the filled water bucket, which you almost tripped over. However, it did not take long to explain its function: During the shower, not only did the hot water supply run dry, which one might have been able to cope with. No, the entire water supply was suddenly and abruptly cut off. With a just-soaped head and body, a single bucket filled with cold water at that was not exactly perfect, but at least there was something there at all. So showering also became a daily “special experience.” Does the water run at all? Does it get warm? And if at least one of the two answers was yes, the next question was: how long would it last?
Apart from that, we were in the south of Poland and September is not exactly a winter month. There were several very sunny and warm days. The fact that I was so wealthy was only felt by the fact that I received the occasional indecent proposal from a young lady here and there, all of which I rejected, of course. After all, Angie had taken me to the bus station.
But I can at least assure you that money was not (yet) discussed during the “applications”. It may be that I really only had the purely Western aura to thank for it.
2) The course of the tournament
Well then, time to work through a childhood trauma. I’ll make myself comfortable on the couch, please get the obligatory cup of tea, a little biscuit won’t hurt either. If you were back then, perhaps you could slip into the role of a psychiatrist for half an hour? No special skills are actually required for this (perhaps you can tell from how often I have actually been to one). All that is really required is to sit quietly and pretend to listen. The “patients” then heal themselves.
Listening is not really forbidden. On the one hand, there is the danger that you understand something and get depressed yourself, on the other hand, it is absolutely not necessary. After all, if the “patient” should ever get the stupid idea of asking you, as a psychiatrist, what he should have done or should do in future in such a situation, then simply reply: “What would you have liked to have done?” The alternative answer is: “What would you like to do?” (Have I just put an entire profession in the frying pan with this sweeping blow? Kurt Tucholsky once wrote a story called: What is satire allowed to do? I apologise to former Chancellor Kohl and the current Chancellor Angela Merkel for the many bad jokes that are written about them every day {Mr. Kohl, say “Brunsbüttel” or “Baddelboot”; Mrs. Merkel, Mrs. Merkel, has the image consultant already given you an image?}; of course, psychology is a highly respectable science that digs deep and is more than {lowly} appreciated by me; at the same time I admit: I can’t help it).
By the way, one more point is important: radiating calm. And there I am surprised how high your aptitude for psychiatry already is. I am more than satisfied (Otto, after all, had an ingenious plan for catching a rabbit: You sit down in the grass and imitate the sound of a growing carrot. Convincing, isn’t it? I didn’t hear his success figures though…). So, how was that crash course in psychoanalysis?
The reappraisal of my personal past begins in 1959. My mother already said I had been a “difficult” birth. The midwife would have confirmed that: I weighed a whopping 5 kg. Unfortunately, I was not able to keep my relatively excess weight. A pure rumour, by the way, that this was caused by brain mass and sperm strands. Much later, I read in the Book of Records that the person with the heaviest brain ever was a moron.
But since it is recognised that the time in the womb is partly responsible for the later development of the human being, I don’t want to go any further, especially since the predisposition of the parents also plays a role and I would still have to create a psychogram of them, I want to skip at least 14 years, also for your benefit.
My whole chess career was accompanied by these absurd, inconceivable blunders that made me constantly and repeatedly spoil games I had won. There are two obvious comments to make about this:
- almost every (chess) player is convinced of having this form of “bad luck”, and
- who cares?
But now I have to elaborate a little further, to understand the significance of this tournament. As a youth and aspiring chess player, you have a few opportunities to prove your exceptional status, if any. There are, of course, championships in the youth sector, for individual players and teams. The German Chess Federation has its subsidies, which are, however, firstly only limited in scope, but secondly are also used very specifically to promote the youth. At that time, youth squads were already set up for this purpose. And of course you could move up, from the C to the A squad. My successes weren’t that bad, but they weren’t quite enough to waste the funding on me either. I got an invitation to the International German Youth Championships 1977/78 (turn of the year) in Donaueschingen and in 1978 a free place to the German Youth Championships. The 10th place, however, was rather a meagre yield.
After that, the youth period was over. But there was still the junior section, up to the age of 26. However, it was the youngsters who had already established themselves in their youth who were accepted into this illustrious society. I was not one of them in that sense. But when I played so successfully in the 1st Bundesliga, the Chess Federation could no longer overlook me. This made me stand out as being suitable for promotion. But now I had to be successful. And my result of 3.5/7 from Graz was not outstanding in that sense. It was just average.
But I had already received the invitation to Krosno before Graz. Now IM norms were required (IM = International Master; the preliminary stage to the Grandmaster). At that time, the rules were quite simple and understandable: one had to confirm the IM qualification in 24 games. Normal invitation tournaments consisted of 12 participants. So one norm in such a tournament, another norm in such a tournament, then you still needed a third one so that the 24 games were full (2*11 = 22). But the third norm could also come from an open tournament. One could then take care of such a standard on one’s own responsibility. In Krosno, a standard was now “expected” of me, so to speak.
But I always put myself under enough pressure anyway. I wanted to win every game. That is of course a completely nonsensical approach, but there was no one to (successfully) lecture me. As a result, I was always looking for a way to win, even in balanced positions. If I didn’t find it, I often enough took the losing path (in the chess scene there is a well-known expression for this: I “overplayed”). But that was only one of the reasons why I spoiled my games.
So in Krosno it escalated in this respect: I needed 7 points from the 11 games for the IM norm. For that, it would have been enough to win three games and draw the rest (80.5 + 31 = 7). But, as usual, I wanted to win every party from the beginning. As a result, I started losing at first. If the position was balanced, I simply “overdrawn” it. I didn’t even remotely consider a draw, let alone offer one, which some others, committed to their goal, simply do. So it happened that I gradually spoiled a hanging game against Begovac, in which I had a clear advantage with rook against knight in the endgame, because he had actually managed to find a way to draw.
Since it was a hanging game and we had to go to the tournament hall in the morning (otherwise the games were in the afternoon), it happened that on the way home together (Begovac and I) we met a cluster of other tournament participants. Since neither Begovac nor I spoke Polish, we communicated with hand signals. So the other participants “asked” me, by giving the thumbs up or to the side, whether I had won the game or whether it was only a draw after all. Other results, it was taken for granted, could not be in question. I answered with a thumbs down. Shaking my head in disbelief, it was thereby declared a joke, which unfortunately wasn’t one.
The worst game of my life, however, came in an even later round against Kostyra. I played a great game and was on my way to a clean start-finish victory. To make matters worse, my opponent got into an irresistible mate attack, including a huge material deficit, and also into severe time trouble. This time trouble essentially prevented him from giving up the absolutely hopeless position (“Give up? I didn’t have time for that.”). He simply made a few more moves. I was in my own way again and instead of making any moves, all of them winning, I got nervous for the time being. If he had had enough time on the clock, it certainly wouldn’t have happened to me. But as it was, it had something of a “time trouble battle”, although the time trouble was absolutely one-sided.
From the abundance of winning moves, I chose just about the only one that could still cause me difficulties: The move into a (won) endgame. After all, I had to give up the mate attack and give back a whole piece from my abundant material surplus. So much stupidity probably elicited another, inconceivable, false move from me, after which I was able/allowed/had to give up the game immediately.
Now, in the history of chess, some forms of curious tasks have already become known. I personally introduced the piece shower in Badalona. In Krosno I made a new variation acceptable: I ran directly with my head against the wall. The fact that other tournament participants were brooding over their positions at the same time in the otherwise absolutely quiet tournament hall could not stop me. Punishment must be, now and here and on the spot. And on the body part responsible for the mishap.
But this defeat did have one good thing for me: it relieved me of an obviously unbearable pressure. The pressure to achieve an IM norm. After this game, even if I had won the last five games, I could only have achieved 6.5/11 points. The IM norm was out of reach. So what did I do, freed from this pressure? I simply won the last five games. 6.5/11. A 4th place, a cash prize in zloty, which I invested in the only usable thing in the centre of Krosno: I received a gold ring for it. But I never tried to determine the equivalent value or to convert it back into money. By the way, I received a huge trophy for it.
Thank you for lending me your ear for the moment. But even these images, also called metaphors, can make me philosophise. You have lent me your ear, but you have given me your ear. Both are temporary in this sense. Lending something is temporary anyway. But this is a concrete object, namely an ear. The ear is virtual, not tangible. So she couldn’t lend it to me. You gave it to me as a gift.
In the search for the positive sides, for meaning, one naturally goes in search of this too. And I found my answers. Not only how one can explain these blackouts oneself, but also about the deeper meaning, what the influence of such events on the whole life mean. At least this one I can explain here: chess is and remains a breadless art. Further successes would only have brought me even closer to the seduction of chasing the illusion of being able to make a (good) living from it. So I made sure that I had failures so that this illusion would not be nourished. Consequence: I gave up chess in good time and looked for more fruitful income opportunities, and not entirely unsuccessfully.
3) The return journey
Well, the return journey would actually be briefly told: Transport back to Warsaw by “luxury car”, into the plane, off to Berlin, into Angie’s arms, golden ring shown, 4th place, ok, life goes on. It would have, if there hadn’t been a tiny detail on the way…
So I spent the 10 days basically in the tournament hall or in the hotel room. Going out for a beer or something was not really an option. I also got to know the other tournament participants only bit by bit. A few words of Polish, spelling and pronunciation, were explained to me by (the later grandmaster) Stanislaw Tomaszewski, my room neighbour was the Dane Ulrik Rath, who also won the tournament with one point more than me (if only I had drawn against him in the first round). Apart from that, I had the book “Das Boot” (The Boat) by Lothar-Günter Buchheim with me to read, which I was totally enthusiastic about and simply devoured.
Unfortunately, by the time I had really “arrived” in Poland, the tournament was already over. It was remarkable that when we returned home late in the evening, we often saw endless queues of people lined up in front of shops. When I asked what they were doing, the answer was: they were waiting for the foodstuffs that would arrive the next morning, such as bread, butter, milk or flour. It was not so rare to stumble across real “liquor corpses”, and one got used to that. Once we went on an excursion to the Carpathians, where of course Count Dracula was mentioned. Vladimir Schinzel volunteered as interpreter, but according to my memory he spoke more English than German.
But now, on the way home, “Das Boot” was finished. And it was quite a tome. I had to wait a while for my flight home, so I strolled, rather apathetically, through the airport building for a bit. Well, I admit that the “not believing my own eyes” image is a rather weak one. But for a moment I forget that weakness. I really did not trust my eyesight for a moment. Or I thought it was a certain form of perceptual weakness. You could also say: This couldn’t be true. I saw a phantom. I saw Gary Kasparov.
I approached this phantom. It was only thanks to Bobby Fischer that he wasn’t my only idol ever in life (all right, I’m doing Günter Netzer an injustice). So I walked up to him and asked straight out, “Hey, Mister Kasparov, do you remember me?” And the phantom replies, “Yes, sure I do.” Yes, so neither my eyes nor any other senses had deceived me. It was Gary Kasparov.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have my autograph booklet, camera or film camera with me, and I’m sure Gary wouldn’t have liked that much. I chatted as one does among one’s peers, almost as a matter of course. Gary also had a travel chess set up next to him almost as a matter of course. I asked him if I could show him a game I had just played in an international tournament in Krosno. Surprisingly, Gary agreed. But only on one condition: I show him the game blind. We don’t move the pieces, the action takes place in the head and only there.
Well, with a certain pride I can at least say that playing blindfold chess has always suited me particularly well. I didn’t need any pieces to play chess. Certainly, the nightly dancing pieces also helped me at least at that moment. I was able to tell him the game off the top of my head without a score sheet.
But this game was really cleverly chosen by me in a way. Because it was a highly complicated game. Gary certainly thought it was a standard game at first. But such “standard games” were rather rare for me. So he didn’t necessarily manage to see through the game in all its sub-variants immediately (that’s just my imagination, of course; Gary, you’re guaranteed to be the greatest. Bobby Fischer was in his time. You from then until today. Amazing, by the way, that I also met the current {caution with current; on 16.12.2008) number 1 of the world, Viswanathan Anand, under similarly remarkable circumstances, i.e. purely by chance, twice; but a bit more about that later).
When two more gentlemen joined us, I really couldn’t close my mouth: I first recognised a former top ten player, Alexander Belyavsky, but then, rubbing my eyes, there stood the, God rest his soul, Tiger himself. Tigran Petrosian. World chess champion from 1963-1969, but a legend, without a doubt. Gary was still working on becoming a legend. He was just 18, but Petrosian?
Well, with my worldly and eloquent manner, I easily managed to cover up my excitement. I continued to parrot happily, among my own kind (this is also called blasphemy). Petrosian asked how he, Gary, knew me and I, a charlatan, had now betrayed myself: Of course he also asked in Russian. But I recognised what he must have asked by the scraps of words, hehe, not a charlatan after all. Gary answered, among other things: “Studentik Olympiad” or something like that. And that was obviously where we had seen each other before.
So, I got to ask “my friend” at the end if he was planning to become world champion already in the next cycle, and he answered, of course with “Sure, I try.” Then his plane left for Amsterdam, the three of them played the famous grandmaster tournament in Tiburg/Holland.
The cycle always went over three years back then. And who was the next world champion?
