Sitzfleisch (which roughly means endurance--"sitting flesh" or "buttock
meat") is the quality needed above all others by tournament chess
players--and their audiences.
After Sandra had watched the games (the players' faces, rather--she had
a really good pair of zoomer glasses) for a half hour or so, she had
gone to her hotel room, written her first article (interview with the
famous Dr. Krakatower), sent it in and then come back to the hall to
see how the games had turned out.
They were still going on, all five of them.
The press section was full, but two boys and a girl of high-school age
obligingly made room for Sandra on the top tier of seats and she tuned
in on their whispered conversation. The jargon was recognizably related
to that which she'd gotten a dose of on the floor, but gamier. Players
did not sacrifice pawns, they sacked them. No one was ever defeated,
only busted. Pieces weren't lost but blown. The Ruy Lopez was the Dirty
Old _Roo_ay--and incidentally a certain set of opening moves named
after a long-departed Spanish churchman, she now discovered from Dave,
Bill and Judy, whose sympathetic help she won by frequent loans of her
zoomer glasses.
The four-hour time control point--two hours and 30 moves for each
player--had been passed while she was sending in her article, she
learned, and they were well on their way toward the next control
point--an hour more and 15 moves for each player--after which
unfinished games would be adjourned and continued at a special morning
session. Sherevsky had had to make 15 moves in two minutes after taking
an hour earlier on just one move. But that was nothing out of the
ordinary, Dave had assured her in the same breath, Sherevsky was always
letting himself get into "fantastic time-pressure" and then wriggling
out of it brilliantly. He was apparently headed for a win over Serek.
_Score one for the USA over the USSR_, Sandra thought proudly.
Votbinnik had Jandorf practically in _Zugzwang_ (his pieces all tied
up, Bill explained) and the Argentinian would be busted shortly.
Through the glasses Sandra could see Jandorf's thick chest rise and
fall as he glared murderously at the board in front of him. By contrast
Votbinnik looked like a man lost in reverie.
Dr. Krakatower had lost a pawn to Lysmov but was hanging on grimly.
However, Dave would not give a plugged nickle for his chances against
the former world's champion, because "those old ones always weaken in
the sixth hour."
"You for-get the bio-logical mir-acle of Doc-tor Las-ker," Bill and
Judy chanted as one.
"Shut up," Dave warned them. An official glared angrily from the floor
and shook a finger. Much later Sandra discovered that Dr. Emanuel
Lasker was a philosopher-mathematician who, after holding the world's
championship for 26 years, had won a very strong tournament (New York
1924) at the age of 56 and later almost won another (Moscow 1935) at
the age of 67.
* * * * *
Sandra studied Doc's face carefully through her glasses. He looked
terribly tired now, almost a death's head. Something tightened in her
chest and she looked away quickly.
The Angler-Jal and Grabo-Machine games were still ding-dong contests,
Dave told her. If anything, Grabo had a slight advantage. The Machine
was "on the move," meaning that Grabo had just made a move and was
waiting the automaton's reply.
The Hungarian was about the most restless "waiter" Sandra could
imagine. He twisted his long legs constantly and writhed his shoulders
and about every five seconds he ran his hands back through his unkempt
tassle of hair.
Once he yawned selfconsciously, straightened himself and sat very
compactly. But almost immediately he was writhing again.
The Machine had its own mannerisms, if you could call them that. Its
dim, unobtrusive telltale lights were winking on and off in a fairly
rapid, random pattern. Sandra got the impression that from time to time
Grabo's eyes were trying to follow their blinking, like a man watching
fireflies.
Simon Great sat impassively behind a bare table next to the Machine,
his five gray-smocked technicians grouped around him.
A flushed-faced, tall, distinguished-looking elderly gentleman was
standing by the Machine's console. Dave told Sandra it was Dr.
Vanderhoef, the Tournament Director, one-time champion of the world.
"Another old potzer like Krakatower, but with sense enough to know when
he's licked," Bill characterized harshly.
"Youth, ah, un-van-quish-able youth," Judy chanted happily by herself.
"Flashing like a meteor across the chess fir-ma-ment. Morphy, Angler,
Judy Kaplan...."
"Shut up! They really will throw us out," Dave warned her and then
explained in whispers to Sandra that Vanderhoef and his assistants had
the nervous-making job of feeding into the Machine the moves made by
its opponent, "so everyone will know it's on the level, I guess." He
added, "It means the Machine loses a few seconds every move, between
the time Grabo punches the clock and the time Vanderhoef gets the move
fed into the Machine."
Sandra nodded. The players were making it as hard on the Machine as
possible, she decided with a small rush of sympathy.
* * * * *
Suddenly there was a tiny movement of the gadget attached from the
Machine to the clocks on Grabo's table and a faint _click_. But Grabo
almost leapt out of his skin.
Simultaneously a red castle-topped piece (one of the Machine's rooks,
Sandra was informed) moved four squares sideways on the big electric
board above the Machine. An official beside Dr. Vanderhoef went over to
Grabo's board and carefully moved the corresponding piece. Grabo seemed
about to make some complaint, then apparently thought better of it and
plunged into brooding cogitation over the board, elbows on the table,
both hands holding his head and fiercely massaging his scalp.
The Machine let loose with an unusually rapid flurry of blinking. Grabo
straightened up, seemed again about to make a complaint, then once
more to repress the impulse. Finally he moved a piece and punched his
clock. Dr. Vanderhoef immediately flipped four levers on the Machine's
console and Grabo's move appeared on the electric board.
Grabo sprang up, went over to the red velvet cord and motioned
agitatedly to Vanderhoef.
There was a short conference, inaudible at the distance, during which
Grabo waved his arms and Vanderhoef grew more flushed. Finally the
latter went over to Simon Great and said something, apparently with
some hesitancy. But Great smiled obligingly, sprang to his feet, and
in turn spoke to his technicians, who immediately fetched and unfolded
several large screens and set them in front of the Machine, masking the
blinking lights. _Blindfolding it_, Sandra found herself thinking.
Dave chuckled. "That's already happened once while you were out," he
told Sandra. "I guess seeing the lights blinking makes Grabo nervous.
But then _not_ seeing them makes him nervous. Just watch."
"The Machine has its own mysterious pow-wow-wers," Judy chanted.
"That's what you think," Bill told her. "Did you know that Willie
Angler has hired Evil Eye Bixel out of Brooklyn to put the whammy on
the Machine? S'fact."
"... pow-wow-wers unknown to mere mortals of flesh and blood--"
"Shut up!" Dave hissed. "Now you've done it. Here comes old Eagle Eye.
Look, I don't know you two. I'm with this lady here."
* * * * *
Bela Grabo was suffering acute tortures. He had a winning attack,
he knew it. The Machine was counter-attacking, but unstrategically,
desperately, in the style of a Frank Marshall complicating the issue
and hoping for a swindle. All Grabo had to do, he knew, was keep his
head and _not blunder_--not throw away a queen, say, as he had to old
Vanderhoef at Brussels, or overlook a mate in two, as he had against
Sherevsky at Tel Aviv. The memory of those unutterably black moments
and a dozen more like them returned to haunt him. Never if he lived a
thousand years would he be free of them.
For the tenth time in the last two minutes he glanced at his clock.
He had fifteen minutes in which to make five moves. He wasn't in
time-pressure, he must remember that. He mustn't make a move on
impulse, he mustn't let his treacherous hand leap out without waiting
for instructions from its guiding brain.
First prize in this tournament meant incredible wealth--transportation
money and hotel bills for more than a score of future tournaments. But
more than that, it was one more chance to blazon before the world his
true superiority rather than the fading reputation of it. "... Bela
Grabo, brilliant but erratic...." Perhaps his last chance.
When, in the name of Heaven, was the Machine going to make its next
move? Surely it had already taken more than four minutes! But a glance
at its clock showed him that hardly half that time had gone by. He
decided he had made a mistake in asking again for the screens. It was
easier to watch those damned lights blink than have them blink in his
imagination.
Oh, if chess could only be played in intergalactic space, in the
black privacy of one's thoughts. But there had to be the physical
presence of the opponent with his (possibly deliberate) unnerving
mannerisms--Lasker and his cigar, Capablanca and his red neck-tie,
Nimzowitsch and his nervous contortions (very like Bela Grabo's, though
the latter did not see it that way). And now this ghastly flashing,
humming, stinking, button-banging metal monster!
Actually, he told himself, he was being asked to play two opponents,
the Machine and Simon Great, a sort of consultation team. It wasn't
fair!
* * * * *
The Machine hammered its button and rammed its queen across the
electric board. In Grabo's imagination it was like an explosion.
Grabo held onto his nerves with an effort and plunged into a maze of
calculations.
Once he came to, like a man who has been asleep, to realize that he was
wondering whether the lights were still blinking behind the screens
while he was making his move. Did the Machine really analyze at such
times or were the lights just an empty trick? He forced his mind back
to the problems of the game, decided on his move, checked the board
twice for any violent move he might have missed, noted on his clock
that he'd taken five minutes, checked the board again very rapidly and
then put out his hand and made his move--with the fiercely suspicious
air of a boss compelled to send an extremely unreliable underling on an
all-important errand.
Then he punched his clock, sprang to his feet, and once more waved for
Vanderhoef.
Thirty seconds later the Tournament Director, very red-faced now, was
saying in a low voice, almost pleadingly, "But Bela, I cannot keep
asking them to change the screens. Already they have been up twice and
down once to please you. Moving them disturbs the other players and
surely isn't good for your own peace of mind. Oh, Bela, my dear Bela--"
Vanderhoef broke off. Grabo knew he had been going to say something
improper but from the heart, such as, "For God's sake don't blow this
game out of nervousness now that you have a win in sight"--and this
sympathy somehow made the Hungarian furious.
"I have other complaints which I will make formally after the game,"
he said harshly, quivering with rage. "It is a disgrace the way that
mechanism punches the time-clock button. It will crack the case! The
Machine never stops humming! And it stinks of ozone and hot metal, as
if it were about to explode!"
"It _cannot_ explode, Bela. Please!"
"No, but it threatens to! And you know a threat is always more
effective than an actual attack! As for the screens, they must be taken
down at once, I demand it!"
"Very well, Bela, very well, it will be done. Compose yourself."
Grabo did not at once return to his table--he could not have endured to
sit still for the moment--but paced along the line of tables, snatching
looks at the other games in progress. When he looked back at the big
electric board, he saw that the Machine had made a move although he
hadn't heard it punch the clock. He rushed back and studied the board
without sitting down. Why, the Machine had made a _stupid_ move, he saw
with a rush of exaltation. At that moment the last screen being folded
started to fall over, but one of the gray-smocked men caught it deftly.
Grabo flinched and his hand darted out and moved a piece.
He heard someone gasp. Vanderhoef.
* * * * *
It got very quiet. The four soft clicks of the move being fed into the
Machine were like the beat of a muffled drum.
There was a buzzing in Grabo's ears. He looked down at the board in
horror.
The Machine blinked, blinked once more and then, although barely twenty
seconds had elapsed, moved a rook.
On the glassy gray margin above the Machine's electric board, large red
words flamed on: