Movebound: the art of Zugzwang
Marcel Duchamp and Aron Nimzowitsch
Alert readers will have observed my perennial interest in the revolutionary artist Marcel Duchamp, and his love affair with chess. This interest has been piqued by the forthcoming book by my friend and colleague Adam Black, which will significantly advance the cause of Duchamp scholarship. In this context a recent piece by art critic Michael Maizels on his blog site, caught my attention.
To summarise: “The trebuchet in chess is a kind of strategy centered around a compulsion to move. At the end of a game, when a player is on the ropes, he or she might prefer to ‘circle the wagons’ and unite his or her remaining pieces in an impenetrable circle. However, because of the rules, each player must actually take his or her turn in the form of a move, and thus forming a kind of immobile hedgehog is rendered substantially harder. In essence, the trap is sprung because one cannot stand still.”
All of which is admirable, ingenious, and perhaps even true; the only inconvenience being that Maizels has described with great eloquence not the Trébuchet at all, but that older and more merciless tyranny of the chessboard: Zugzwang. There is something peculiarly modern in making a mistake with confidence and then surrounding it with sufficient learning that others hesitate to notice. Yet chess, like theology and burglary, is exacting in its terminology.
Zugzwang means precisely the compulsion to move, and belongs to that curious parliament of German words which have colonised the game with the quiet authority of empire: Zwischenzug, that unexpected interpolation by which a man discovers his neat sequence of ideas interrupted by reality; Luft, the tiny breathing space cut into a cramped position against future suffocation; and Kiebitz, or Kibbitzer, from the peewit—Vanellus vanellus, the Northern Lapwing—to describe the species of spectator who hovers nearby dispensing unsolicited wisdom. The bird and the man share a talent for noise at inopportune moments.
The error is worth dwelling upon because it is itself almost Duchampian. One approaches seeking a trap and discovers instead an obligation. The distinction matters. A trap is laid by another; Zugzwang is laid by the conditions of existence. The first resembles murder, the second mortality. There are situations in chess, as in politics, marriage, and metaphysics, where every available action weakens one’s position, yet abstention is forbidden. One must move. The universe, having granted free will, refuses neutrality.
The games this week are therefore remarkable creatures, rarities in the zoological garden of chess literature. There is Aron Nimzowitsch’s Immortal Zugzwang game, and the curious revenge by Alexander Alekhine, who later inflicted the same exquisite torture upon Nimzowitsch himself, together with a lesser-known precursor to Alekhine’s strangulation of the formidable Nimzo. Zugzwang is usually the melancholy privilege of endgames, when the board has been stripped bare and kings shuffle about amidst a few exhausted survivors. These examples astonish because the chains appear while the board is still populous, while pieces remain in force and possibilities seem abundant. It is unsettling chiefly because it resembles ordinary life: to discover oneself constrained not in poverty of options but in their abundance.
For there are moments when a man appears surrounded by resources, allies, ambitions and institutions, and yet every step available to him worsens his affairs. The tragedy is not impotence but compulsory agency. The pieces stand ready; that is exactly the problem. And perhaps this is why such games retain their fascination. They reveal, with the cruel courtesy peculiar to chess, that freedom and compulsion are not always opposites. Sometimes they are merely different names for the same turn of the board.
The referenced games illustrating Zugzwang are:
Alekhine-Nimzowitsch, San Remo, 1930
Reti-Spielmann, Vienna, 1928
But earlier still… this is The Immortal Zugzwang game!
Friedrich Saemisch vs Aron Nimzowitsch
Copenhagen, 1923, round 6
Notes from Nimzowitsch’s “My System”
- d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3 Bb7 5. Bg2 Be7 6. Nc3 O-O 7. O-O d5 8. Ne5 c6
Safeguards the position
- cxd5 cxd5 10. Bf4 a6
Protects the oupost station c4, i.e., by …a6 and …b5.
- Rc1 b5 12. Qb3 Nc6
The ghost! With noiseless steps he presses on towards c4.
- Nxc6
Samisch sacrifices two tempi (exchange of the tempo-eating Knight on e5 for the Knight which is almost undeveloped) merely to be rid o the ghost.
13… Bxc6 14. h3 Qd7 15. Kh2 Nh5
I could have supplied him with as yet a second ghost by …Qb7 and …Knight-d7-b6-c4, but I wished to turn my attention to the King’s side.
- Bd2 f5! 17. Qd1 b4! 18. Nb1 Bb5 19. Rg1 Bd6 20. e4 fxe4!
This sacrifice, which has a quite surprising affect, is based upon the following sober calculation: two Pawns and the 7th rank and an enemy Queen’s wing which cannot be disentangled – all this for only one piece!
- Qxh5 Rxf2 22. Qg5 Raf8 23. Kh1 R8f5 24. Qe3 Bd3 25. Rce1 h6!!
A brilliant move which announces the Zugzwang. White has not a move left. If, e.g., Kh2 or g4, then R5f3. Black can now make waiting moves with his King, and White must, willy-nilly, eventually throw himself upon the sword. White resigns 0-1
And finally, if I can associate myself with the above, might I offer up one of my own:
Raymond Keene vs George Botterill
National Club Championship, Oxford, 1970
- Nf3 d5 2. c4 d4 3. g3 Nc6 4. Bg2 e5 5. d3 Bd6 6. O-O Qe7?
An inaccurate provocation, with both, 6… Nge7 or …Nf6, being preferable.
- Na3 Nf6 8. Nc2 O-O 9. Rb1 a5 10. b3 Nb4 TN
In modern times, 10… h6 was played in Jessel-Lampert, PRO league chess.com, 2017. The engine, however, prefers either 10… Rd8 or …Bg4.
- a3 Nxc2 12. Qxc2 Bxa3 13. Bxa3 Qxa3 14. Nxe5 Qc5?!
An inaccuracy. 14… Qd6 or 14…Re8 both justify Black’s decision to trade one of his centre pawns for a white wing pawn.
- Nf3 Ra6 16. Qb2 Rd6?!
This cedes further ground to White. After, 16… Rd8 17. b4 axb4 18. Qxb4 Qxb4 19. Rxb4 Ra2 20. Re1 b6 21. Kf1 Bb7 22. Rbb1 Ng4 23. h3 Bxf3 24. Bxf3 Nh2, Black can still erect a robust defence.
- b4 axb4 18. Qxb4 Qxb4 19. Rxb4 b6 20. Ra1 Re8 21. Kf1 Bd7?!
Another misstep increases White’s advantage. Better was, 21… Kf8 22. Rb2 Bg4 23. Ra7 Re7.
- Ra7 c5 23. Rb2 Rb8?!
And yet more slippage, to White’s advantage. Black does best with, 23… h6 24. Rb7 Ra8 25. Rb1 Bf5 26. Nh4 Bg4 27. h3 Be6 28. Nf3 Ra6 29. Ne5 g5, but White now develops a firm initiative.
- Ne5 Be8 25. Rc7 Rbd8
A rational choice although 25… Rdd8 is assessed as a superior try by the engine. But all of these inaccuracies have accumulated into an advantage of significance for White.
- f4 Kf8 27. Rb7
Although White remains considerably better after the text, even more annihilatory would have been the crushing, 27. Ra2 Kg8 28. Raa7 g6 29. Bf3 h5 30. h3 Bd7 31. Kg2 Be6 32. Nxf7 Bxf7 33. Rxf7 Nd7 34. Re7, after which Black’s existing deficit plus his weak b6-pawn, will prove terminal.
27… Ra8 28. Rxf7+ Bxf7 29. Bxa8 Be8 30. Bf3 Ke7?!
This slight error (Black should prefer, 30… Nd7 or …h6) provides the tipping point in this contest and White demonstrates strangulation technique to grind down any further resistance.
- Ra2 Nd7 32. Nc6+ Kf6 33. Ra8 Bf7 34. Rd8 Be6 35. g4 g6 36. Kf2 h5 37. g5+ Kf5 38. Ne7+ Kxf4 39. Nc8 Ke5 40. Re8Black lost on time 1-0
Black is paralysed and hamstrung by weak pawns. His bishop is pinned, and he is bound to lose rook for knight, in any case. Nevertheless, on closer examination, he is constrained by the Promethean chains of Zugzwang and must, in fact, suffer far more serious material loss, in view of his compulsion to make a move.
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) can be ordered from both Amazon and Blackwell’s. His 208th, the world record for chess books, written jointly with the late chess playing artist, Barry Martin, Chess through the Looking Glass , is now also available from Amazon.
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