The Chess Book

“Okay, honey, go look at the books, but stay where I can see you,” Sam's mother said before kissing him on the forehead and ruffling up his dark and wavy hair, something he didn’t like but didn’t hate, either. It was summertime, there was no school, and they were yard-sale hopping with grandma; for a skinny kid in the sixth grade, there weren’t too many better days than that.

As kids his age went, Sam was reasonably normal with a propensity toward the geeky, if that makes sense. While he enjoyed bikes and bugs and girls and super heroes as much as the next twelve-year-old, Sam also enjoyed classical music and fine foods and luxury cars, and had recently gotten into the game of chess. He was the captain of the team at his school and was always on the hunt for a new chess book. His mom warned him that his shelves were running out of space, but he couldn’t help himself whenever he found a new gem about tactics or positions or checkmates.

As luck would have it, there were two chess books at this yard sale. One, about surviving the opening, he’d already owned for a year, had found it at the local library. He’d checked it out so many times the librarian eventually just told him to keep it. The other one, though, he’d never seen before. It was called Solving the Most Interesting Chess Positions: Games from History and Beyond. Well, with a name like that and a price tag of a fifty cents, Sam began eagerly flipping through the pages. About two-thirds of the way through, however, the ink stopped entirely and all the pages were simply blank. He held them up to the light, he breathed on them, he even rubbed them with his palm, but they remained fresh and blank. He shrugged it off, figuring maybe it was a section for progress notes. A little voice in the back of his mind said but there are no lines, man, so how can it be for writing? He disregarded the thought, noting that the print date was in the fifties and what the hell did he know about the fifties? Maybe they used rulers and chalk for all he knew. He flipped back through the printed sections, smiled, and ran to his mother, exclaiming that he’d found one.

For the remainder of the summer, Sam worked on the positions in the book. One by one, diagram by diagram and paragraph by paragraph, he’d reconstruct the games on a real chess board and read the notations, following along and retaining as much information as he could. By the time school started up again that September, he was untouchable by anyone at his school or the others in the area, right up to the twelfth-graders at the high school, one of whom was a bonafide master and a well-known streamer online. Sam dismantled him three times in a row like he was playing a beginner.

He kept working through the book, and he kept vastly improving. It was as if the games on its pages were magical themselves, and chosen by the author for that specific reason. The complex ones, the simple ones, the positional and the tactical ones all contained keys that seemed to unlock hidden portions of Sam's thinking, ways to perceive the game he’d never considered before. It took him a while, but once he began to mesh them all into one force, into one way of viewing any position before him that included all the ways, he became a monster on the board.

He won the city tournament, then took the state championship title with ease, winning all his games except two, which were hard-fought draws against very powerful and seasoned masters. He was a member of several chess clubs, and he was the strongest player in all of them. Now and again someone would sneak past his attack and deliver an unexpected checkmate blow, but it didn’t happen often and it wasn't done by many.

People began to talk. Whispers, at first, hushed voices carried in on a breeze. How strong is he, you think? Is he gonna be super famous? I bet his parents are rich and he has eight coaches. But as he won tournament after tournament and rose to the height of master himself, the whispers turned to shouts. He became a local celebrity, interviewed on radio shows and invited for classroom speeches about dedication and hard work in neighboring schools.

But then, one day, it happened. As he was preparing for a big tournament, the winner of which would be crowned the national chess champion, he reached the last printed page in the book before the blanks began. The last four game diagrams were staring Sam in the face. He sighed, did his best to wipe emotion from his body, and set up the chess board. He decided that since these were to be the final lessons from his beloved book, he’d give each an hour of his time. When he’d finished the last sentence and moved the final piece of the final game on his wooden board, he said, “Checkmate,” closed the book, ate a sandwich and went to bed.

But he didn’t sleep.

He tossed and he turned and he moaned and he groaned, instead. How could he have reached the book's final teachings? What did his chess future look like now? How would he continue to improve without new games in the book to study? He reasoned that maybe he could continue going over the old games, find something new in them. But deep inside, he knew that wasn't possible. Those games were placed in front of him at the time he needed them and there was no more information to glean. He had no choice but to hope the teachings of the final four games were enough to get him where he wanted to be, because the probability of any other chess book in existence offering him more than his beloved Solving the Most Interesting Chess Positions: Games from History and Beyond had offered him was laughable.

Two weeks later, when the tournament arrived, Sam felt ready and eager, but there was a hesitation he hadn't felt before, something that was almost fear but not quite. He was a fine player, yes, formidable in any situation, but these were the nation’s best, some of them famous grandmasters already. He just hoped he wasn't out of his league.

There were to be six rounds, and all six games would be fought against formidable opposition. Sam had never been this nervous before a tournament. He did breathing exercises, he tried to picture himself winning the tournament, he did all the things one is supposed to do and still, anxiety had taken hold and wasn't going away quietly. And then, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. An alarm. Fifteen minutes to game time.

He rushed to the table and set up his board. He greatly disliked playing on other people’s equipment, so he was always early. His “board” was a vinyl roll-up mat like anyone else used, but he’d had it custom made and it featured wood grain colored squares which pleased Sam to no end. He had a mid-level wooden set—nice, but not too nice he’d cry if a pawn went missing or the king lost his crown—that complemented the colors of the board well. It was a handsome setup, Sam thought.

Round one went smoothly, and he drew with a well-known grandmaster from California. This was good. Before the next round, nerves got the best of Sam and he went around the corner to peek at his wonderful book, just in case. He quickly thumb-fanned the pages until the blanks, and then backed up one. Instead of the final four games he’d expected, the last page now featured a brand new game, accompanied with a great deal of text. It didn’t take Sam long to figure out it was the game he’d just played against the Californian grandmaster, and chills ran up his arms and down his back. What was going on?

He quickly closed the book and went back to his room, which was above the playing hall in a big hotel, so he could have a closer look. There were only thirty minutes until the next round started, so he unzipped his pack and grabbed the book, eyes wide. The game was still there, along with the annotation.

He devoured the text, barely breathing while he read. There was no need to set the game up; he’d just played it, and he remembered the moves exactly. The text told him he had missed a win on move nineteen, a crazy pawn shove that opened up a deadly outpost for a knight. Sam smiled, and his smile widened until he appeared nearly crazy with joy. The book had not let him down, after all. Whoever or whatever was behind it was still on his side, writing away in real time!

The information he read in the book about the previous game indeed applied to the second game, as well, and he achieved a position that was simply too much for his opponent, who waved the white flag after Sam hit the clock on move thirty-three. They recorded their scores and shook hands, Sam beginning to place his set back in its bag before his opponent had even turned around to leave.

He rushed once again back to his room and opened the book to find the newest game on its pages, as well! This time, the book only praised the game as being as near to perfect as one could be, and only criticizing the choice of the opening entirely, which is one known to produce draws.

Sam was starting to get it, he thought. The book was telling him nicely done, but you're playing with too much reserve, still, too much fear. Get in there and fight! He repacked the board and ran back downstairs to the tournament hall to see if the pairings were up yet; they were. He traced his finger down the row, searching for his name. When he found it, he traced right to his opponent: Igor Kaleshnikov, known as The Dominator.

Igor was a top-level grandmaster with an absolute ton of tournament experience. In pictures found online he wore a stoic, almost grumpy-looking expression and his black, laser eyes bore holes through the chess board.

Sam swallowed hard and ran to the table to set up his board, but Igor was already there, smiling in front of his own chess board and wearing an electric blue suit, head bald and smooth as if it’d been shaved ten minutes earlier. “Have a seat,” he told Sam and waved his hand toward the empty chair.

“Thank you,” Sam said, and sat down. He put his bag and board down beside him, trying not to think about playing on Igor’s stuff and only about playing. “Good luck.” He moved a pawn and pressed the clock to start the game.

“And to you, sir,” Igor said, responding immediately by moving a knight out and pressing the clock.

Alekhine’s Defense? Sam thought. At such a high level? He’s clowning me, teasing. Oh, we’ll see about that. He made his move and Igor his and soon, the game was afoot. Sam quickly realized he did not understand all the idiosyncrasies of the opening and found himself in trouble early on, losing an important pawn and playing in a cramped position.

The attack from Igor grew and grew, but somehow, Sam always found a defense, barely hanging on in a battle that was revealing itself to be quite one-sided. There was no doubt in Sam’s mind that Igor was the stronger player, but as long as he could make it to the next move, he’d stay in, he decided. And that’s exactly what he did, and he held Igor to a nail-biting draw.

The pair shook hands and Sam reached down to grab his board and bag to find his bag was missing. The board was there, but his backpack was gone. Panicked and trying not to show it, he scanned the floor around him, then down the other rows of tables and chairs, but he didn’t see it anywhere. His bag. The bag with the book in it. Sam thought back; had he even left the board? Yes! Once, to refill his water cup and use the restroom. Damn! Had it been then, in that few minutes? But who? And how had Igor not seen a thing?

Sam flagged him down to ask, but Igor said that when Sam had gone to the water dispenser, he’d made his move and hurried to the restroom, himself. He hadn't seen a thing, he said, and apologized, wishing his backpack a safe return. Sam nodded, thanked him, and closely scanned the entire tournament hall for his bag: nothing.

He let the front desk know, but he understood the situation. The hotel was huge, and by now his backpack was long gone, maybe even in another city. His beloved chess book was gone, along with a few snacks, his earphones, a change of underwear and several new blue ink pens, just in case. He hoped whoever stole the backpack had a very bad day and slunk off to his room, where he begrudgingly sat down and went over the previous game, anyway. He found his error, and vowed to never make it again.

He showed early to the table and set his board up for round four. He did his best to not let the book bother him, but it did, and badly. He’d had it for so long, and they’d been through so much together, that book and he. But even still, he was about to do battle with an exceedingly powerful player, and he had to do what he could to enter a calmer state of mind. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to go; plenty of time for a quick walk to clear his head.

He scuffled out of the tournament hall and outside, onto the sidewalk. It was near three o'clock and the day was gorgeous, with cool temps and overcast skies but no wind. He turned left and walked about half a block up, hands in his pockets. He waited to cross a street and thought he saw a girl in front of a flower boutique wearing his backpack. When traffic was clear, he ran over and unzipped it without a care in the world as to who saw him do it or what the girl would think. To his dismay, it contained only the girl’s laptop and a bag of potato chips. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, hands in front of him. He ran off the wrong way and circled back to the hotel in case he was followed. He wasn't.

He looked at his watch. Two minutes to start, and he had three minutes of ground to cover. He skipped the elevator and ran up the stairs, which saved him a lot of time but caused him to be sweaty and out of breath when he entered the hall and found his spot. Sam smiled at his opponent, a young talent out of Missouri, instead of shaking his hand, and the game started.

To make up for the lack of owning a magical chess book and while still doing his best to obey the principles it taught him, especially the quieter warnings to play more aggressively, Sam decided to play a little-known gambit that initially sacrifices a pawn but gains a big attacking initiative. It was clear early in the game his opponent was not familiar with the line, and he resigned before move twenty-five, qualifying the game as a miniature, something that is difficult to do at such high levels.

This result caused him to be tied for first along with Igor, who wore sunglasses with light-auburn lenses and a brown pleather jacket as they stood in the main room, waiting for the round five pairings to be posted. Sam’s stomach was in knots. All he could think about was his book. And even worse, his book in the hands of whatever type scumbag would steal a backpack in the first place. When the parings came, they reported he’d be playing Igor once more. Shit, he thought. Come on. Really?

He shrugged and frumped over to the table. He was momentarily thrilled to see that Igor had stopped to talk to another competitor, giving him a shot at using his own board instead. He quickly sat down and arranged his gear on the table. Then he sat back and remembered the book while he watched Igor approach the table, pull out his chair, and sit down. “We meet again,” he said with an unapologetic smile. “Good luck, young sir.”

“Good luck,” Sam said, and shook his hand.

Igor made his move and they were at war. On move fifteen in an even position, the arbiter shuffled over and whispered to Sam that his backpack had been found, all items intact. A jolt of joy and excitement surged through Sam, and he went on to destroy Igor in a complicated endgame that would be celebrated for years to come by fans of chess.

The next game went the same way, and Sam was crowned the national champion. He had entered the chess elite. He won nearly every tournament after that one, as well. Three years later, he became world champion, a title he held until he retired after nearly twenty years. He never told anyone about the book, and he never let it out of his sight again.

When he retired, he passed the book along to his own son, himself a rising young talent, who only had one question: Dad? Why does the entire back third of the book consist of pages that are totally blank?