Josh Waitzkin
chess and martial arts
The Immortal Game
Final position, last 4 files
After a sacrificing its queen, White checkmates Black with a bishop and 2 knights.
Final position of Edward Lasker vs Sir George Alan Thomas, London, 1912
Lasker sacrifices his Queen to force-mate his opponent in the following 7 moves. A few notes:
- Black’s King is checkmated deep in White’s “home.”
- Half of the moves made by Black throughout the game involve the King.
- The forced mate starts at move #12 of a 18 moves game.
- White could have achieved checkmate by castling his King queen side.
- Lasker uses all of his pieces to checkmate his opponent except the left-most 3 pawns.
- Thomas later became British Chess Champion in 1923 and 1934, and International Master in 1950.
- Lasker was an engineer who in 1921-23 invented a mechanical breast pump, which saved many premature infants’ lives and made Lasker a lot of money, although it caused his friends to refer to him facetiously as “the chest player”. He also became an International Master.
- Thomas was 31 at the time.
- Lasker was 27.
- You can follow the game here.
Tolstoy playing chess.
“Extending life into art”: it seems inapt and clearly pataphysical. Playing chess is already an act of art. So this is simply crossover multimedia art.
Mixtuur: One way to study music: study Duchamp
Uncertain Times: John Cage playing chess
Actually, Cage hadn’t lost every single match with Duchamp. There was one that he definitely won, after a fashion. It happened in Toronto, in 1968. Cage had invited Duchamp and Teeny to be with him on the stage. All they had to do was play chess as usual, but the chessboard was wired and each move activated or cut off the sound coming live from several musicians (David Tudor was one of them). They played until the room emptied. Without a word said, Cage had managed to turn the chess game (Duchamp’s ostensive refusal to work) into a working performance. And the performance was a musical piece. In pataphysical terms, Cage had provided an imaginary solution to a nonexistent problem: whether life was superior to art. Playing chess that night extended life into art – or vice versa. All it took was plugging in their brains to a set of instruments, converting nerve signals into sounds. Eyes became ears, moves music. Reunion was the name of the piece. It happened to be their endgame.
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