A Perspective on Chess

One of the best known chess paintings reveals some of its technical secrets. I had to brighten both images, but the results were worth it.

Top: The Chess Players | Thomas Eakins
Bottom: Perspective Drawing for the 'Chess Players'
Both: © Flickr user museado under Creative Commons.

The links for the corresponding museum pages were
Top: The Chess Players, 1876 (metmuseum.org)
Bottom: Perspective Drawing for the 'Chess Players' (ditto)

The description for the top portion said,

Thomas Eakins, American, 1844–1916, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • 11 3/4 x 16 3/4 in. (29.8 x 42.6 cm) • Medium: Oil on wood • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY • Gift of the artist, 1881

The description for the bottom said,

[Ditto] • 24 x 19 in. (61 x 48.3 cm) • Medium: Graphite and ink on cardboard • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY • Fletcher Fund, 1942

The metmuseum.org page for the painting said,

In this painting, the artist’s father watches a chess game between two friends in a Renaissance Revival parlor of a Philadelphia home. Eakins honored his father with a Latin inscription on the drawer of the chess table, which translates as “Benjamin Eakins’s son painted this in ’76.” A reproduction of a painting by Eakins’s principal French teacher, Jean-Léon Gérôme, hangs over the mantel.

Eakins adhered to Gérôme’s academic lessons in his careful spatial construction and meticulous detail. In 1881 The Chess Players became the first work to be accepted by the Metropolitan Museum as a gift from a living artist.

I cropped out the top half of the 'Perspective Drawing'. It showed sketches of the table with the wine decanter & glasses and of the two players' chairs.

Vishy Sweats It Out

Remember Everyone's Favorite World Champion (October 2023; 'We recently caught up with the man, myth and legend Viswanathan Anand to give us a house tour...')? Here he is again, sweating it out more than he does in most chess games.

Vishy Answers Intense Rapid Fire Questions! (4:19) • '[Published on] Jul 19, 2024'

The description of the video says,

The GOAT of Indian chess, Viswanathan Anand is back to serve some HOT TAKES with our Rapid Fire Questions!

Q: The best game you have ever played? • A: Lautier, Biel 96. • He got the year wrong, but what a game: Viswanathan Anand vs Joel Lautier; Biel Credit Suisse 1997 (chessgames.com). At the end of the clip he says, 'I'm a chess player', in six different languages.

August 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

For the last couple of months, 'On the Cover' has been alternating between the World Championships of 50 and 25 years ago. Last month's post, July 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (July 2024), had the 1999 event on the right. Now we have both events behind the respective covers.

Left: '?'
Right: 'Hummel Wins 1999 National High School Championship'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

Dapper Grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric happily receiving his 1st-place trophy from TD Isaac Kashdan at the Los Angeles International. Story [inside].

The 'story [inside]' was titled 'Los Angeles International Tournament 1974' by Edmar Mednis. It started,

The United States Chess Federation has organized and sponsored three international invitational toumaments within the space of less than a year. The latest of these was held April 6-19, 1974 in Los Angeles.

These tournaments are intended to provide American masters the opportunity to obtain international titles and FIDE (Elo) ratings. [...] It is important that our top masters receive these rating for two reasons: (1) foreign organizers do not invite Americans rated at 2200 in absence of a FIDE rating, but whose real strength is 2400-2500, because to do so would artificially lower the rating category of the tournament: (2) even in our own tournaments, a 2200-rated American is a handicap, as this lowers the category of the tournament and thus increases the point total required for achieving IM and GM norms.

So far the USCF has been most successful in achieving the goals set for these tournaments. At the first one, held in June 1973 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Ken Rogoff achieved an IM result, while Kim Commons and Craig Chellstorp obtained FIDE. ratings. At the second, Chicago, November-December 1973, Norman Weinstein was a smashing first with an IM result, Jim Tarjan also had to IM result, and Andrew Karklins obtained a FIDE rating. And at Los Angeles, this writer obtained an IM result, his third this year, and will be awarded the IM title at the FIDE Congress in Nice.

A crosstable for the event appeared in the July issue of CL. The big news of recent months was recorded on the 'The Editor's Page - News & Views' by Burt Hochberg, a column which was running monthly in 1974 and which I've already referenced in previous 'On the Cover' posts. The August column started,

Chess players of every strength, their wives and team captains, FIDE delegates and committee members, armies of tournament directors and arbiters, journalists from everywhere -- and assorted problems -- descended like a plague on the world's most famous jet-set resort, the French Riviera. The 21st Olympiad and the concurrent FIDE Congress, hosted by the bustling tourist city of Nice, took place June 6-30 with a record participation of 73 FIDE-affiliated federations.

[Chess 'descended like a plague'?] The big news followed. It would affect world chess for the next decade and even beyond.

The FIDE Congress was shaken by several controversial decisions. Following Dr. Euwe's reelection as President, the Congress decided to approve only part of World Champion Fischer's set of "non-negotiable" proposed conditions for the 1975 title fight. He had asked that 10 wins determine the match winner, that there be no limit on the number of games played, that draws not be counted in the scoring, and that if the score was 9-9 the Champion would retain his title.

FIDE approved the 10-win regulation and the elimination of draws from the scoring, but imposed a 36-game limit and rejected the 9-9 proposal. On learning this, Fischer (in daily contact by phone with Fred Cramer at Nice) cabled the Congress: "FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 World Chess Championship. I therefore resign my FIDE World Championship title." FIDE'S response was to ask Bobby to "reconsider possibility of defending title under regulations adopted here."

Also important for the future of chess was a political decision from the Congress.

Another painful episode was the "temporary exclusion" from FIDE of South Africa and Rhodesia because of their racial policies. The motion had been made by Bulgaria at Helsinki last year.

The idealistic FIDE motto 'Gens Una Sumus' was no longer a reality.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Congratulations to Patrick Hummel, our 1999 National High School Champion and not just for winning a national title, but for his stellar performances at the Memorial Day Classic (beat Ehlvest, drew with Ziatdinov) and the Chesswise University - CCA International (defeated WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia in the last round to earn his first IM norm). The cover photos were taken by Carla Hummel and the design is by Jami L. Anson.

For more about Hummel's chess career, see The chess games of Patrick Hummel (chessgames.com). For more about his current whereabouts, see Patrick Hummel (patrickhummelecon.github.io). I imagine that two years after Kasparov lost a match to a computer -- see Kasparov vs. IBM's Deep Blue (m-w.com) -- a chess careeer was not an attractive option for a brilliant teenage student with so many tantalyzing choices in front of him.

The 'On the Cover' introduction continued with the 1999 version of the World Championship.

FIDE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE • We now have NINE USCF representatives in the FIDE Knockout World Championship, which will begin on July 30, 1999 (opening ceremony) at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. There is no charge for watching the games, which begin July 31.

With a number of invitations having been turned down, a spot opened up for Alex Yermolinsky. Thus, the first round of two-game matches will begin on July 31 and we will see: [...]

The intro continued with a list of the initial pairings of the nine U.S. players. According to my page on the event, 1999 FIDE Knockout Matches, Las Vegas (m-w.com), eight of the players started the event in the first round, where three won their matches to join GM Kamsky in the second round. All four were eliminated in the second round, Kamsky losing to GM Khalifman, the eventual winner of the tournament.

***

Later: I neglected to mention the article 'Hummel Wins 1999 National High School Championship' by IM John Donaldson in the August 1999 CL. It started,

The 1999 National High School Championship, held April 8-11 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, will be long remembered for the emergence of a new talent and for the excellence of its organization. Patrick Hummel, representing Meadows High School of Las Vegas, won the event with a score of 6 1/2 - 1/2.

The 14-year-old Hummel, who recently became a Senior Master after learning how to play five years ago, won his first six games before drawing in the last round with Steven Winer of Vermont. Hummel is in distinguished company as he joins GMs Larry Christiansen (1971) and Michael Rohde (1974) as the youngest-ever winners of the event.

None of the games from the event are listed on the Chessgames.com page that is linked in the main post. For a long article on Hummel, see Las Vegas teen on his way to becoming a chess grandmaster (lasvegassun.com).

Can Monkeys Play Chess?

By some curious coincidence, this month's post in the series Top eBay Chess Items by Price (March 2010), echoes last month's Flickr post, 'Interspecies Friendships' and Chess (July 2024). The July post started,

A good subtitle to that title would be 'Don't play chess with a monkey'.

The title of the eBay item shown below was 'Small Antique Early 20th C. Franz Bergman Vienna Bronze Monkeys Playing Chess'. It sold for 'US $695.00 Best offer accepted or Best Offer', where the number must have been close to the final selling price.

The description said,

Franz Xavier Bergman (Austrian, 1861-1936). • Size approx: 3-1/2 x 3 x 1-7/8 in. • Weight approx: 284 grams

You are bidding on a small antique early-20th century cold-painted bronze figure group of monkeys playing chess by renowned Vienna artist 'Franz Bergman'. Each figure is signed/marked/numbered as seen in photos.

Condition Report: Some surface wear, paint loss and one table leg with slight bend as shown, dirty/dusty from years of storage, needs cleaning.

The last time we saw Bergman on this blog was Cold Painted Cats (December 2022). That post included some biographical material.

Missing Yahoos

In last month's Yahoos post, Money Makes the Yahoos Go Round (June 2024), I noted,

This month there was no single story that Google News flagged as dominant.

Copy that for the month of July. Of the 99 stories returned by Google News, four were about chess960, but I've already covered that story on my chess960 blog in the post The Magnus Merry-Go-Round (July 2024), e.g.

• 2024-07-25: $12 Million Raised For 'Revolutionary' Freestyle Series Of Tournaments (chess.com; PeterDoggers)

Instead of going there again, let's look instead at a couple of Chess.com stories on a much darker theme by another top chess writer. I doubt that the Google News AI bots would make the connection, but both stories go a long way to explain why there aren't more women in chess.

• 2024-07-18: Top International Arbiter Banned For Sexual Harassment During Major Tournaments (chess.com; TarjeiJS) • 'International chess arbiter Arild Rimestad from Denmark has been given a two-year ban by the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) following multiple reports of sexual harassment against a female FIDE employee. In its decision dated July 13, the EDC has ruled that Rimestad cannot act as an arbiter or participate in any FIDE events for two years, with one year suspended for three years, contingent on no further violations. It's a significant ruling by the EDC, as it seems to be the first time the panel has decided on a sexual harassment-related case.'
  
  
• 2024-07-20: Jennifer Shahade Files Lawsuit Against US Chess For Misconduct And Retaliation (ditto) • 'Two-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion WGM Jennifer Shahade has filed a major lawsuit against US Chess, its president Randy Bauer, and chess writer Peter Tamburro, alleging defamation, retaliation, and discrimination after her public allegations of sexual misconduct.'

That second story takes us back to a previous post on this blog, The Dark Side of Women's Chess (March 2023; 'GM Nakamura reads the Wall Street Journal article, How Sexual Assault Allegations Against a U.S. Chess Grandmaster Went Unaddressed for Years (wsj.com)', i.e. GM Alejandro Ramirez). For more about WGM Shahade's complaint, see Jennifer Shahade Files Complaint Against US Chess (jenshahade.substack.com). It starts,

As a victim and whistleblower, I am fighting back against campaigns to silence me and retaliate against me for speaking up about sexual violence in chess.

Tamburro's contribution to the dark side was his article Due Process, Part II (uschess.org; PDF) in the American Chess Magazine, February 2024. Shortly thereafter, US Chess promoted the article with US Chess Executive Board Statement about American Chess Magazine Article "Due Process, Part II" (uschess.org). Its statement started,

The previously undisclosed details that Pete Tamburro’s new American Chess Magazine piece presents are accurate; we affirm that the facts relative to US Chess are supported by the record of written evidence.

The last time we saw Tamburro on this blog, we didn't actually see him. The follow-up to 2023 CJA Awards - Part 2 (August 2023), should have been 'Part 3', where I would have listed the winners in my favorite categories. When Tamburro won the 'Chess Journalist of the Year' for the second time, it brought back unpleasant memories of the first time, some 20 years earlier. Rather than relive those memories, I decided to drop coverage of the CJA.

The CJA's pay-to-play business model guarantees that first-string journalists who decline to pay invariably lose out to second-stringers. Both Chess.com journalists mentioned above, PeterDoggers and TarjeiJS, neither of whom has ever won a journalist of the year award, are far more deserving than Tamburro.

[Yahoos (mainstream news stories about chess) are derived from Google News top-100 (or so) stories from the past month.]

July 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover'

Last month's 'On the Cover' post, June 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (June 2024) had news about the World Championship (50 years ago) on the left and the National Open (25 years ago) on the right. This month the roles are switched.

Left: '?'
Right: 'FIDE World Championship Begins July 30th in Las Vegas • NxP?! (c) Jose Angel Pardo'

Chess Life & Review (50 Years Ago)

On the left is GM Arthur Bisguier, winner of the 8th National Open in Las Vegas. Story [inside]. Photo by Galati. On the right is GM Walter Browne, winner of the 4th Statham Tournament in Lone Pine, Cal. Story [inside]. Photo by Nigel Eddis.

GM Bisguier was last seen in June 1973 & 1998 'On the Cover' (June 2023). GM Browne was last seen in April 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (April 2024). Both of those stories '[inside]' began with complications arising from contemporary global affairs. U.S. chess was grappling with troubled times.

Let's start with 'National Open: No Shortages' by Ed Edmondson. First, some bad news:-

No Gas Shortage • Three months before the 8th National Open, the nation was caught up in the Arab Oil Embargo and experiencing very serious gas and oil shortages. We in the North were faced with the possibility of an inadequate supply of fuel oil for heating purposes, and it looked as though -- even if we could pull up roots -- we might not be able to find enough gasoline to drive south and avoid freezing to death.

From a planning standpoint, we were much afraid that drastic cutbacks in driving and curtailed airline schedules would mean not many people could make the trip to Las Vegas for our tournament. As it turned out, the problem had eased considerably in mid-March; by then, however, we had already changed playing rooms at the Stardust Hotel in anticipation of a turnout no greater than 1973's (246 players).

Then some good news, tempered by a bit more bad news:-

No Player Shortage • We changed our reservation from a playing room which could have held more than 400 players in great comfort to one which would hold 250 quite adequately. With fuel restrictions eased, the 1974 National Open set a new attendance record with 296 players. As a result. we did have a Playing Room Shortage. To those who (like me) played and felt a bit crowded at times. I apologize. For 1975. we have already reserved a much larger, better lighted and air-conditioned room which will accommodate 500 players in luxury.

As for the tournament itself, it was covered in two more sections, No Thrill Shortage (the results) and No Fun Shortage (after all, we're talking Las Vegas). The other cover story was 'Louis D. Statham Masters-Plus Tournament' by Isaac Kashdan, Tournament Director. It started,

The fourth annual Louis D. Statham Tournament was again held in Lone Pine, California. We expected it to be the strongest, but not the best attended of the series. As it happened, it excelled on both counts.

First the results. Walter Browne of Berkeley was the highest rated player, and justified that status by winning with the fine score of 6-1. He won his first two games, lost to Ruben Rodriguez of the Philippines, then took his last four games in a row. The streak included former U.S. champion Larry Evans of Reno, and present co-holder of the title, John Grefe of Berkeley.

Grefe finished with 5 1/2, points, tied with Pal Benko of New York, who beat Florin Gheorghiu of Rumania [sic] in the final round to make it. Evans, Julio Kaplan of Puerto Rico, Kim Commons of Los Angeles and Andrew Karklins of Chicago all tied at 5 points For the other prize winners and details of the play read the round by round summary which follows.

Skipping ahead 25 years, we're approaching the end of the millennium.

Chess Life (25 Years Ago)

Maybe this artistic cover is what things looked like up close in the Nunn - Nataf game from the French Team Championship (Letter from Europe, [inside], Move 14). Jose Angel Pardo put together the artwork for Chess Life in Adobe Photoshop. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from Jersey State College.

At that time in its evolution, CL had been featuring regularly artwork on its cover for several years. The previous such cover was March 1974 & 1999 'On the Cover' (March 2024).

The 'On the Cover' write-up continued,

World Championship • FIDE is holding the second World Championship Knockout tournament in Las Vegas July 30-August 29 at Caesar's Palace. Invited are 100 of the top players in the world. Accepting invitations are all eight invited Americans -- including Gata Kamsky! The other U.S. players are U.S. Champion Nick de Firmian, Joel Benjamin, Dmitry Gurevich, Tal Shaked, Boris Gulko, Sergey Kudrin, and Alexander Ivanov.

Kasparov and Anand (who recently won the Chess Oscar for the second time) aren't playing in the FIDE Knockout World Championship because they are piay1ng each other for the Ultimate World Championship and a $3,000,000 prize fund some time during the last quarter of the year. We don't know as we go to press where they are going to play, but it will be a 16-game match, with Kasparov maintaining his title in case of a drawn match.

Alexei Shirov, who qualified as Kasparov's challenger by defeating Vladimir Kramnik in a match late last year, is not involved in this Ultimate World Championship, despite being ranked number two just ahead of Anand and Kramnik, on the World Chess Ranking that Kasparov has set up in competition with FIDE.

Other forthcoming events mentioned in the long preview of the issue were the 1999 U.S. Open, the Interplay U.S. Championship, and Kasparov vs. the World, plus a call to help cover the costs of IM John Watson's medical urgency.

'Interspecies Friendships' and Chess

A good subtitle to that title would be 'Don't play chess with a monkey'. This month's Flickr favorite doesn't really have much to do with chess, but the board in the left photo looks indeed to be that of our favorite board game.

Left: The wounded monkey bites the hand of the prince... © Flickr user museado under Creative Commons.

The full title of the left photo said,

The wounded monkey bites the hand of the prince, his chessmate, in the presence of guests, from a Tuti-nama (Tales of a Parrot): Fifth Night c. 1560

The description continued,

This painting depicts a scene from the cautionary tale the mother parrot tells her young to warn them that interspecies friendships, like theirs with the fox cubs, are a bad idea. She tells them that there once was a monkey who could play chess, and he enjoyed many games with a prince. When the prince invited dignitaries for a party, the monkey made a bad joke, the prince slapped him, and the monkey bit him in return.

At the left, food is prepared as the guests look on in astonishment. An inscription at the bottom of the page names the artist, who went on to become one of the most celebrated Indian masters at the Mughal court. • Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)

The title of the middle photo said,

The monkey slain, his blood to be used as medicine for the ailing prince he has bitten, from a Tuti-nama [etc. etc.]

The description said,

Wounded by the chess-playing monkey’s bite, the prince’s hand became increasingly infected. The only cure, his doctors said, was to apply the blood of the monkey to the wound and let it dry. Reluctantly, the prince allowed the monkey to be killed. Two men accomplish this serious work at the left.

In the right margin is written the name of the artist, the celebrated Basavana. The Tuti-nama contains the earliest known paintings by the prolific master who was instrumental in shaping the Mughal painting style over subsequent decades.

The title of the photo on the right said,

The hunter throws away the baby parrots, who pretend to be dead, and captures the mother, from a Tuti-nama [etc. etc.]

The description said,

Despite the chess-playing monkey’s grim end, the baby parrots continued to cavort with the fox cubs. One day the mother fox discovered that her cubs had been eaten by a panther. Blaming the parrots, she lured a hunter to their tree. The hunter climbed the tree and ensnared the mother parrot and her babies. The mother instructed her young to play dead, then pleaded with the hunter to take her alone, saying that since she knew the art of healing she would fetch a high price.

Lush vegetation and a stream of water painted with a soft brush indicate a fresh new stylistic vision that represents a departure from Indian and Persian styles that came before.

All three Flickr pages mention, 'This photo is in 1 album: Cleveland Museum of Art'.