Stefan Zweig’s ‘The Royal Game’

The opening ceremony of the Budapest Chess Olympiad earlier this month was dominated by a glorious combination of the world’s strongest ever female chess player, Grandmaster Judit Polgar, resplendent in striking red, and Jason Kouchak: composer, pianist and chess player.  

Jason was born in Lyon, France, educated at Westminster School and studied piano at the Royal College of Music and the University of Edinburgh. He has recorded five albums, two of which were laid down at Abbey Road, and toured globally as a classical pianist, with hosts including Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. His performances include such venues as the Royal Festival Hall (London), Salle Pleyel (Paris), and the Mariinsky Theatre (St Petersburg).

His ballet  Arctic Inspiration  will be premiered as soon as there is peace in Ukraine. Postponement, at least until next year, now seems inevitable. With the motto “ Love is more important than victory”,  the ballet is a story of love, betrayal and sacrifice in the cold winds of war. Set in the era of the Great War, it will feature red and white “Chess Queens” and Ice Queens exploring the Arctic.

Here are the words of Jason’s paean to the peace-promoting virtues of chess from the Olympiad opening ceremony, a work which brings to mind Beethoven’s  Ode to Joy  from his repertoire’s sole chorale symphony, the Ninth.

As noted above, Jason performed this song at the Olympiad opening, inspired by the special centenary of the event, patron saint of Hungary, St Stephen’s 1,000 year anniversary and Stefan Zweig’s novella  The Royal Game.  The basic idea is that of shadows of the past haunting our present actions and movements.

The Royal Game

(lyrics inspired by Stefan Zweig)

I seem to stand still on a chess board

Other heroes cast shadows on me

Life’s battle holds hundreds of threats every day

A powerful King in a land far away….

You are waiting beside me in silence 

Saving the light from the dark

My pieces are lost in a new time and space

The joy of the journey a challenge I face 

Some step aside, some stay alone, some give checkmate 

We’re reaching the endgame, taking a chance

No time to wait! 

Beyond the distance 

Begin the Fight! 

I would sacrifice everything-

Just For One Night!

The Royal Game 

The Royal Game 

The Royal Game 

Our lives will never be the same ! 

A clock strikes no more than a heartbeat 

64 squares in my mind

Making new castles wherever I go

The past holding secrets only we know 

Looking ahead from the outside, 

I will return back to you……

My Queen moving forward with power and grace. 

Choosing the moment , the time and the place.

Some say it’s Fate, it’s never too late 

This Is our  choice

Facing the truth with nothing to lose, I hear your voice

Beyond the distance

Begin the Fight! 

I would sacrifice everything

Just For One Night!

The Royal Game 

The Royal Game 

The Royal Game 

Our Lives will never be the same !

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was the Austrian-Jewish émigré author of  Schachnovelle  (usually translated as The Royal Game) and  Sternstunden der Menschheit  (Stellar Moments in Human History), which I had first read at the age of 17. It felt particularly poignant that a Zweig masterpiece was chosen as the inspiration, conveying connotations about the suppression of thought, an evil which chess so effectively confronts. Zweig  was one of many whose opinions and style have unexpectedly fallen foul of those controlling the levers of publication, and, potentially fatally, those of government and power.

As the Nazis rose to power, dissident or Jewish European intellectuals often chose a route across the Pyrenees to escape the growing darkness. The German-Jewish philosopher and essayist Walter Benjamin, for example, made it to the haven of Port Bou, only to be turned back by the border equivalent of the Guardia Civil. Overnight, unable to face the prospect of deliverance into the hands of the Nazis, who would undoubtedly have sent him to a concentration camp, Benjamin committed suicide by taking a large dose of morphine. A few tablets were left over and another celebrated (Hungarian) Jewish writer, Arthur Koestler, also attempted to kill himself by ingesting the remainder. These turned out to be insufficient and Koestler escaped. He settled in England, became a famous writer (and keen amateur chess player), but had to wait another four decades before successfully self-terminating. 

Not long after Benjamin’s self immolation, Stefan Zweig himself, though in Brazil and in little danger from the Nazis, would also take the suicide route. He wrote: “My own power has been expended after years of wandering homeless. There’s this monstrous idiot — this monstrous elected idiot — who keeps telling his fellow-idiots to throw my books on a bonfire and beat me up In the street…”

Zweig had been one of the world’s most successful authors: widely read, universally admired, and translated into every language. He had enjoyed only the finest things in life — from luxurious world travel to the company of his most dazzling contemporaries in Europe’s most fashionable restaurants. He collected rare manuscripts, including the Mozart score (below), which he bequeathed to the British Library.

Only one obstacle clouded his prospects: the rise of the Nazi Party, which ultimately drove Zweig to abandon his beloved Vienna for the successive havens of the UK, the USA and finally Brazil. There, in 1942, in a fit of despondency at Hitler’s seemingly irresistible rise to success, Zweig committed suicide. He wrote:  “Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life…”.

 And earlier: “Chess is a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, – for someone to play against himself is absurd …It is as paradoxical, as attempting to jump over his own shadow.” But playing against many different opponents simultaneously was certainly on the cards, as it were ….above all, for the person to whom the prohibition of individual thought is anathema, chess provides a refuge, an area of freedom where authority can only intrude with difficulty. 

Interested readers can explore Zweig’s life in Professor Rüdiger Görner’s new biography: In the Future of Yesterday (Haus Publishing, £23.50). 

As I have argued many times in my columns for  TheArticle , the possibility of intellectual freedom explains the attraction of chess for the Intelligentsia in the USSR. 

Jason Kouchak suggested to me that a game from a simultaneous display would be appropriate as this week’s annotated game, so here is my win from such a display as a schoolboy against a great former world champion, then in his prime:

Mikhail Tal vs. Raymond Keene

London, Simultaneous display, 1964

1.e4

 I sit down to face Tal. General expectation: a gory loss embellished with Tal-like sacrifices.

1… c6

He plays 1.e4, I played the Caro-Kann. It was my main defence at the time. I had just won the London under-18 championship and I had played it several times during that event–notably against Kenny Harman. I also played the Taimanov and Lowenthal Sicilians at the time. I used the Lowenthal against Kotov and drew, but thought this might be too provocative against Tal.

2.d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Bf5 5. Ng3 Bg6 6. N1e2 e6 7. h4 h6 8. Nf4 Bh7 9. Bc4 Nf6 10. O-O

A position well known to the former world champion. 

10…Nd5

Instead, 10…Bd6 allows the famous Nxe6 sacrifice from Tal’s first match against Botvinnik which Tal was still prepared to repeat in games as late as 1978. I wanted to avoid Tal’s vastly superior knowledge of this line so chose something to try and dampen down White’s attacking prospects.

11.Qg4

This is the error, although it looks absolutely plausible. It was later discovered that 11. Bxd5 cxd5 and now either Qg4 or Qh5 gives White a huge attack.

11… Nxf4 12. Bxf4 Nd7 13. Be5 Nxe5 14. dxe5 Qc7 15. Rad1

All this looks like vintage Tal, to keep Black’s king stuck in the centre, and my next move looks like I am cooperating in my own demise by grabbing a hot pawn against Tal, of all people!

15…Bxc2 

This almost seems like desperation but in fact I was no longer very worried. White’s c-pawn was a very useful unit and its loss now causes White problems. My main worry was that Tal would still find some way to sac on e6 and explode my position before I could get castled.

16.Rd2 h5

A decoy to gain time after 17. Nxh5 Bg6 18. Nf4 Bf5. Tal hardly even thought about taking the pawn and slowing down–he kept his queen fixed on e6 where he clearly still wanted to sacrifice.

17.Qh3 Bh7 18. Rfd1 Bb4 19. Rd7

The only way forwards now, but Black’s position is secure.

19… Qxd7 20. Rxd7 Kxd7

So it has come to pass, and Black never got castled. White now also starts to rip up the Black kingside, but I was happy with two rooks for a queen and the bishop pair, and soon some open lines too.

21.Nxh5 Kc7 22. Nxg7 Rag8 23. Nh5 Bf5 24. Qf3 Rg4 25. Nf4 Bd2

Now I knew I had him on the run. Tal thought for a second and gave up his knight.

26.Qa3 Bxf4 27. Qd6+ Kc8 28. Ba6 Be4

Defending and attacking. White’s threats are now illusory.

29.Qc5 Bxg2 30. Qxa7 Bh2+

A sac finishes White off. Checkmate swiftly follows. I was very pleased, of course, to beat Tal in a war of movement (not just simul-induced blunders) and I felt the choice of opening had been psychologically a good one. I was fortunate, though, that Tal did not discover the probable refutation of Black’s innovation with 11. Bxd5.  White resigns 0-1

31.Kxh2 Rhxh4+ 32. Kg1 Rh1 checkmate will be the dénouement.

In a few days time a stellar chess line up comes to London in the form of the  Tech Mahindra Global Chess League , to be held at Friends House, Euston Road, from Thursday October 03…. Stars include Magnus Carlsen, Vishwanathan Anand, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri and many others  …

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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