Beer, chess and the theory of everything

The earliest record of beer brewing in the Holy Roman Empire dates from 974 AD, when the Emperor Otto II granted a licence to the Abbey of Liège in Belgium. Their co-national religious institution, the Abbey of Leffe, launched its own brews in 1240; they remain on sale even in the 21st century. Then, in 1487, the Duchy of Bavaria introduced the celebrated Reinheitsgebot, the “purity law”, which decreed that only water, barley, hops and yeast could be used to brew the foaming beverage. There were excellent health-related reasons for this ancient legislation of fermentation. For one thing, the publicly available water of the time was largely infested with unpleasant microbes, which the process of distillation was successful in exterminating. For another, the practice of adulterating beer with various additives, some of them poisonous, was widespread. In Germany the Reinheitsgebot, though occasionally challenged, remains in force to this day.

On the chessboard I can, indeed, testify to the efficacy of beer as nourishment for the brain. In 1980 I won first prize at the Grandmaster tournament in Dortmund, a German epicentre of beery excellence, downing Steins of German Dunkel Bier (primarily from the Krone Brauerei) after each day’s hard fought game. Then,  the following year I also won the Lloyds Bank Masters Trophy, ahead of such luminaries as former world champion Vassily Smyslov, and Grandmasters Yasser Seirawan, Tony Miles and Murray Chandler. Each evening, after the chessboard battle, I fortified my little grey cells with a goblet or two (never three) of Carlsberg Special Brew, an extra strong concoction, said originally to have been created by grateful Danes for the wartime exertions of Sir Winston Churchill.

In chess we have our own Reinfeldsgebot, a series of maxims derived from the numerous works of the polymathic chess master and writer, Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964). Reinfeld is often dismissed as a writer of simplistic potboilers, but this would be to overlook his contributions to the literature of military history and numismatics, as well as chess, where he was known as the man of 100 books.

Reinfeld produced serious studies of Tarrasch, Capablanca and Nimzowitsch, but the vast majority of his oeuvre focused on elementary instruction. His vast output in that sector is what has primarily led to his denigration by purists, but I believe I have detected a consistent thread in even the most beginner-oriented books of his mountainous legacy.

Reinfeld’s core message was that chess can be easy, provided that certain simple rules are followed: strength in the centre; quick development; avoidance of structural weakness. It’s my opinion that Reinfeld, through his pellucid dogmatism, somehow influenced the young Bobby Fischer. A single example will suffice: after 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 Reinfeld insisted that 2… d4 was best (a not uncontroversial proposition). In a key game in his triumphant 1971 world championship campaign, Fischer, against Petrosian, selected 1. Nf3 d5 2. b3 c5 3. Bb2 f6! meeting c4 with …d4. Fischer’s move order, overlooked for decades, essentially put paid to Petrosian’s third move choice, which is now normally prefaced with 3. e3.

In general, Fischer strove for simplicity and clarity, backed up by enormous power, accuracy and determination. As for numbers, Fischer was only interested in one lonely number: 1, and 1-0 on the scoresheet with his opponent getting the zero!

Indeed, chess has been employed both as a mathematical metaphor and adapted as a method of penetrating the secrets of the universe. An early and celebrated instance appears in an episode from Dante’s Paradiso, where he interrogates his guide about the number of angels in the heavens. More recently, as we shall see, Professor Michio Kaku, the eminent string theorist, has enlisted chess in his quest for a unified theory of everything.

We already saw, in my column of March 23 2024, how chess possibly developed from a concatenation of Classical Greek games of skill with Indian games of chance. This happy conjunction developed into Chaturanga (based on the ancient Indian army) and then Shatranj. There are alternative explanations, but they are apocryphal, one such appearing in The Divine Comedy of Dante, himself said to be an avid chessplayer:

“Lo incendio lor seguiva ogni scintilla;

              Ed eran tante , che il numero loro

              Più che il doppiar degli scacchi s’immilla.

“Every spark followed its kindler;

And so many were they, that their whole

Number far more thousands counts,

Than ever did the doubling of the chess.”

Paradiso, Canto XXVIII, lines 91-93.

Dante (referring to the number of angels in heaven) alludes to the legend (first mentioned by the Persian poet Abu Al-Qasim Firdausi in The Shahnama, or The Book of Kings, of around 1000 AD) that chess was invented for a King by a magician who demanded as reward, one grain of rice on the first square of the chessboard, doubling thereafter and amounting to 2 to the power of 64 minus 1 grains. This cumulative total equates to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615, a number so cosmic in itself that I hesitate to pronounce it by name: I calculate that it is eighteen quintillion, four hundred and forty-six quadrillion, seven hundred and forty-four trillion, seventy-three billion, seven hundred and nine million, five hundred and fifty-one thousand and six hundred and fifteen. This would have been quite sufficient to bankrupt several kingdoms. The king’s reaction is not recorded, but my guess is that it would have been something resembling: off with his head!

An example of the astounding nature of exponential growth by doubling the number on the next square. 

By the year 1000 AD, at the time of the composition of Firdausi’s Shahnama, chess was widely known and popular throughout Europe. Nevertheless, the great technical expertise and the lust for knowledge of the Arabs was gradually being extinguished. With the decline of Baghdad, the writings, games and accumulated chess wisdom of As-Suli and his colleagues dispersed and vanished. For the following centuries, chess became, through the medium of tricky composed problems, part of the repertoire of itinerant entertainers. Many of these, though, were ignorant of the strategy, tactics and even the rules, of the game itself. Still, the popularity of chess, at the common level, can be gauged, for example, from the Isle of Lewis Chessmen. This was a cache of carved walrus ivory Scandinavian pieces dating from the 12th century. The vast horde of disparate pieces, now chiefly in the British Museum, suggests that this was the stock of a merchant supplying chessmen to numerous clients.

During the mediaeval period, chess was mentioned in courtly tales and both Carolingian and Arthurian romances. A notable Arthurian reference can be found in the Welsh compilation, the Mabinogion. After a lengthy oral tradition, the stories which go to make up this national epic were finally written down in the 13th century. In the story of “The Dream of Rhonabwy”, King Arthur himself contests the battle board game “Gwyddbwyll” against the Welsh hero Owein. In the background, fierce warfare rages between Arthur‘s pages and the black ravens of Owein. The symbolism argues that Arthur and Owein are playing chess.

In the Middle Ages chess, as symbolism, flourished; but as a science, as a serious game of reason and strategy, it was now running out of energy. The intellectual fire, the mental acquisitiveness of the great Arab practitioners, had been exhausted. As it was the Greeks who gave the initial impetus to chess, so it is to the Renaissance that we must look for the regeneration of the game.

One of the early versions of chess which has survived and flourishes, as noted above, is the Japanese variant Shogi, the game of the generals. A key piece is a diagonal moving unit, more or less equivalent to our bishop. The Japanese piece is called the “kaku”. Coincidentally, Professor Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics at City College, New York, has, like Dante, used chess to help explain the workings of Heaven and the mathematics of the cosmos.

Professor Kaku is a leading proponent of string theory and also a celebrated populariser of science, with multiple TV appearances and several bestselling books behind him. Michio Kaku’s latest book, The God Equation, aims to combine Einstein’s General Relativity with Quantum Theory, to create an all-encompassing “theory of everything” about the nature of the universe. Professor Kaku said that we actually have the theory but not in its final form. It involves String Theory, theoretical physics, fiendishly difficult mathematics and mind-bending abstraction, which the general public might find difficult to grasp.

I now quote Professor Kaku directly:

“I think the public is curious as to what the consequences of this theory could be. The    universe in some sense is like a chess game and for 2,000 years we’ve been trying to figure out how the pawns move. And now we’re beginning to understand how the queen moves and how you get a checkmate. The destiny of science is to become like grandmasters, to solve this puzzle that we call the universe. There are outstanding               questions that the public wants to have answers for. For example, time travel, other dimensions, wormholes. What happened before the big bang? What’s on the other side of a black hole? None of these questions can be answered within the framework of Einstein’s theory. You have to go beyond Einstein into quantum theory.”

It is also worth observing that oriental board games, such as Go, Shogi and Xiangqi are played on boards of odd numbered co-ordinates, unlike international chess and draughts, which are played on boards of 64 or 100 squares. It is said that Buddha himself disliked board games, especially those of eight or ten rows. What could be the reason for this, and perhaps the explanation for oriental predilection for odd numbers? I speculate that Buddha may have interpreted even numbered boards as a violation of nature’s irregularity and general absence of symmetry. My late friend Tony Buzan, inventor of Mind Maps, insisted that there are “no straight lines in nature” which, with crystalline exceptions, does hold true.

So… one has to ask, are we in 2024 really any further forward in our understanding of the mysteries of the cosmos, creation and the heavens, than when Dante, in 1320, asked how many angels there are in the firmament of Heaven and used the chessboard formula to come up with his answer?

Robert James Fischer vs. Mikhail Tal

Blitz tournament, Herceg Novi, R1, 1970

Notes by Fischer (updated with Stockfish 16)

1.g3 g6 2. Bg2 Bg7 3. Nf3 c5 4. c3 Nf6 5. O-O O-O 6. d4

I played this opening in Benko’s style.

6… d6?

 The ensuing endgame is clearly better for White because his Bishop on g2 is more active than Black’s on g7 and Black has weaker squares. Neither is particularly recommendable: 6… Qb6!? 7. d5! as in Benko-Fischer, Curacao 1962, when Black’s Queen on b6 was misplaced. Correct for Black was 6… cxd4 7. cxd4 d5! with an equal game as in Smyslov-Fischer in the same Blitz tournament.

A modern treatment is 6… Qc7 [Boruchovsky(2549)-Indjic(2605), 0-1, chess.com INT, 2023]. However, the engine prefers the variation with 6… cxd4 7. cxd4 d5 8. Nc3 Ne4 9. Ne5 Bf5.

7.dxc5 dxc5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Be3 Na6 10. Na3 Nd5 TN

Then a novelty, more recently, 10… Be6 [Czebe(2500)-Saric(2402), ½-½, TCh-HUN, 2016/17]. 

11.Rfd1 Bg4 12. Bd2 h6

To keep White out of g5; if 12… Nac7 but after 13. Nc4 b6? (otherwise 14. Na5 with pressure) 14. Nce5 Be6 (14… Bxe5 Nxe5 15. Bxe2 16. Re1 Ba6 17. c4 Nf6 18. Bc3 threatening 19. Nc6 and 19. Ba8 should win) 15. e4 Nf6 16. Nc6! Re8 17. Bf4 Na6 18. Bf1 c4 19. Ng5, Black is lost.

13.h3

Nb5, or Re1 were probably more exact.

The engine suggests, 13. Nc4 Nb6 14. Nxb6 axb6 15. Be3 Rxd1+ 16. Rxd1, best by an iota.

13… Be6 14. Nb5 Ndc7

14…Nb6 gave more counter play.

15.a4 Bb3 16. Rdc1 Nxb5 17. axb5 Nc7 18. Be3! Nxb5 19. Bxc5 b6??

It was not necessary to give away a Pawn. Correct was 19… e6 still after 20. e3 threatening Nd4, White keeps an edge.

The machine suggests that 19… Rd7 is an equally acceptable manner with which to preserve the Pawn. It also didn’t mind (temporarily) relinquishing it, as follows: 19… a6!? 20. Bxe7 (20. e4 Rd7 21. e5 Nc7 22. c4 Ne6 23. Be3 Rad8) 20… Re8 21. Bb4 Rxe2 22. Bf1 Ree8, when White’s advantage is such gossamer as to be absent.

20.Bxe7 Re8

The engine opines 20… Re8?? Correct was, 20… Rd7 21. Bh4 Rc8 22. g4 a5 23. e3 a4 24. Nd4 Nxd4 25. cxd4 Rdc7 26. Rxc7 Rxc7. White’s advantage is considerably less than after the text.  

21.Ba3

  This is not the optimal riposte, which the engine gives as, 21. Nd2 Rac8 22. Nxb3 Rxe7 23. e3 a5 24. Rd1 Bf8 25. Bf1 Nc7 26. Be2, when Black’s incoherently situated pieces and whole Pawn deficit, render White a position with a pleasant and harmonious advantage.  

21… Rad8

21…Rxe2 22 Bf1! wins the exchange.

22.e3

A Pawn up and a powerful square on d4, the position is easily winning for White.

22… a5 23. Nd4 Nxa3

  Distinctly preferable was: 23… Bc4 24. Bf1 Nxa3 25. Rxa3 Bd5 26. Raa1 Bf8, when although better, White must proceed with caution due to Black’s bishop pair and centralised rooks.

 24. Rxa3

Significantly stronger was 24. Nxb3, when, for example, 24… Nc4 25. Nd4 Rc8 26. Bf1 h5 27. Ra2 Nd6 28. Rd1 Red8 29. Bd3, White is better coordinated as well as material ahead.

24… Bc4 25. Bf1 Bd5 26. Bg2 Bc4 27. Ra4 Bd3 28. b4! axb4 29. Rxb4 Rd6 30. Rd1 Bc2

Necessary was, 30… Bf5 31. Ra1 Bd7, when the bishop has deployed to a useful square.

31.Rd2 Bf5 32. Rdb2 Rc8

32… Rb8 of course was slightly more tenacious, but after 33. Nxf5 gxf5, Black’s pawn structure on the King side is hopeless.

33.Rxb6 Rxb6 34. Rxb6 Rxc3 35. Nxf5 gxf5 36. Bd5

Rb5 was more precise.

36… Rc7 37. Rb5 Re7 38. Bc4 Re5

Better to give up the Pawn on f5 with 38… f4 or …Bf8 it is just a matter of time in any case.

39. Rb7 Kh7 40. Rxf7 Kg6 41. Rc7 Bf8 42. Rc6+ Kg7 43. Bd3 Be7 44. Bc2 Ra5 45. Kg2 Black resigns 1-0

Ray’s 206th book, “  Chess in the Year of the King  ”, written in collaboration with Adam Black, and his 207th, “  Napoleon and Goethe: The Touchstone of Genius  ” (which discusses their relationship with chess) are available from Amazon and Blackwells.

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