José Luis Picón I Málaga, (EFE).- It seems like just a game, but chess is much more and, proof of this, is that it has been close to events and historical figures such as the Camp David peace agreements for the Middle East, the Cold War or the Kennedys, as revealed in the book “More stories, checks and legends. Stories on and off the board.
Its author, Manuel Azuaga, has gathered some thirty stories in as many articles, with a prologue by the writer Miguel Ángel Oeste, in what is the continuation of his previous book, “Tales, checks and legends” (2021), both published by Renaissance.
“I have selected the stories that have a more literary, epic, adventurous or romantic point and that can be interesting for any reader who is approaching chess or for any non-amateur. It is not only for fans, although they also enjoy it”, affirms Azuaga in an interview with EFE.
In its pages one discovers, for example, the figure of Herman Steiner, “a Hungarian Jew who left Europe seeking refuge in the US and created a chess club on Sunset Boulevard to earn a living teaching, which became a magnet for film artists such as Charles Boyer, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall or Humphrey Bogart”.
Artists, politicians, writers…
“There was a great teacher, Koltanowski, with a special gift for playing blindfolded (without seeing the board), who was in that club, played blindfolded with Bogart and, of course, beat him,” Azuaga relates.
Also related to cinema is the figure of one of its great musicians, the Italian Ennio Morricone, who confessed immodestly: “If I hadn’t become a composer, I would have liked to be a chess player, but a high-level one, someone who competed for the world title.
“He subscribed to specialized magazines, of which he was an inveterate reader, he continually researched chess and did not get to stand out at a professional level, but he had a considerable playing force and even made a draw with the former world champion Spassky”, highlights the author. from the book.
Another notable chess player was Zbigniew Brzezinski -Security adviser to US President Jimmy Carter, architect of the Camp David peace accords-, who assured that, “as in chess, US global planners must think several moves in advance” .
Brzezinski wrote a prophetic book, “The Great Board of the World”, with terribly topical phrases like this: “If Moscow regains control of the Ukraine, Russia regains the means to become a powerful imperial state spanning Europe and Asia”.
Carter asked him to favor a relaxed atmosphere at Camp David during the stay there of the Israeli president, Menahem Begin, and Egyptian, Annual el-Sadat, for which Brzezinski took his chess board, and photos of their games with Begin.
Chess in the middle of the Cold War
The book also tells of the macabre coincidence that the assassins of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) and his brother Robert shared their passion for chess.
“Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of JFK, had a chess set with red and white pieces, and he always played with the red ones because of his communist tendencies. The young Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, who murdered Robert, played chess in prison with Charles Manson”, explains Azuaga.
In the midst of the Cold War, “the most political duel in the history of chess” took place, between the Soviet Spassky and the American Fischer, who was “the candidate to overthrow Russian hegemony.”
“This was seen as a struggle between the two poles and as a matter of State, to the point that Secretary of State Kissinger personally called Fischer in 1972 to tell him that he had to travel to Reykjavik to defeat the Russians. Spassky’s defeat meant almost winning the Cold War, because chess was dominated by the Russians.
Writing this book has given Azuaga the experience of interviewing figures such as the Indian Vishy Anand, five-time world champion, “known for his quick decision-making”, and “reaching a human side that had rarely been told ”, in addition to chatting with others like Topálov or Pomonariov.
As the author affirms, the book makes it clear that “chess is not just a game”, because no game “is so similar to life”. EFE