McCreadyandChess

Most of us can remember objectionable matches from yesteryear where playing conditions were, shall we say, less than perfect? For me it was a drafty church hall in a geriatric village named Warboys near Peterborough one winter morning long, long ago. But no matter how terrible the worst of the very worst playing venues may have been for you, I doubt whether they can compete with the conditions on offer for those playing in Russia just after the revolution.

Courtesy of Tony’s Bookstore http://www.chessbooks.co.uk/  I’m reading Ilyin-Genevsky’s ‘Notes of a Soviet Master’. For those who don’t know who he is, Ilyin-Genevsky is generally accepted by historians as an instrumental figure in the promotion of chess after the revolution and is described by some as an unsung hero of his generation. As was common for his time, his life was tragic but untypically long for a soldier; he joined the army on May 15th, 1915 and soon after was gassed by the ‘Germano-Austrian’ forces near Warsaw, then within two months he was severely shell-shocked on the front-line by a mortar near the village of Peski, in the Kholmaskaya Guberinya region. He was paralyzed in the legs and arms, had lost his sense of feeling, hearing and memory: even though he was already a strong chess player at the time, during his lengthy treatment, he had to be taught how to play chess once more. Upon his relocation to Moscow after his recovery he went in search of chess players. His long city-walks were often in vain but in uncovering the clandestine Moscow chess circle, he then wrote an account of the conditions he had to play in on July 10th 1919.

15. The Match with N. D Grigoriyev and Moscow Competitions

…it is interesting to dwell on the mundane circumstances of our match. The games were usually played in the evening, and once it began to go dark, we had serious difficulties. Due to the general destruction of that time, the electricity came on and faded quite arbitrarily. Sometimes the owner of the flat, Berman, happened to have some poor quality candles. In that case, the trouble was mitigated. When there were no candles at all, Grigoriyev and I moved over to the window ledge and then on to the stairs where there was a large window. When the light through this window failed, we were in a real mess. In such cases we had almost to play blindfold since the board and pieces could hardly be made out due to the darkness. I can remember, for example, one such case. During one game, it became so dark that we could distinguish nothing at all. Fortunately Berman happened to have a box of matches (a very valuable thing in those days) and he magnanimously sacrificed them for our benefit. We arranged matters in this fashion: when it was one player’s turn to think, the other player would light a match and hold it between his fingers until one of his fingers was almost burned (after all, every small speck of light was so valuable to us). When the match had burned out, darkness prevailed until the next match could be struck. It was under such circumstances that we had this curious mishap. ‘Check to the king,’ announced Grigoriyev to me. ‘Excuse me, Nikolai Dmitriyevich,’ was my answer, ‘but your king is already in check.’ In fact I had given check with my last move, which he had missed due to his excitement and the darkness. Hence the winning combination which he had been relying on proved impractical and the game ended in a draw a few moves later.

…my best success of this period was the share of first place with Grigoriyev and Grekov in a Moscow tournament for first category players. It is interesting to point out under what difficult conditions we had to play in at that time. Berman’s flat was not heated due to the lack of firewood, and in the winter the temperature inside the flat was several degrees below freezing. We had to play in our outdoor coats and galoshes (rubber boots) but even this did not keep out the cold. The players’ noses, hands, and particularly, feet started freezing, so they had to dance the polka-mazurka with their feet under the table in order not to get stiff with cold while thinking about their next move. Yet our love of chess was so great that nobody complained, and we just sat there quietly night after night enjoying the tournament games.

Ilyin-Genevsky (of Geneva where he studied -so his name implies). Taken in 1927 apparently.

Warboys. A cold, lifeless village where, after refusing a second draw offer, I once misplayed a rook ending whilst playing for Bedfordshire.

And these gentlemen certainly thought they had it tough!