CHESS, THE DESTROYER OF NERVES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 36, 12 February 1938, Page 27

CHESS, THE DESTROYER OF NERVES

The Hastings chess congress has added to the reputations of the Polish and Estonian masters, Reshevsky and Kefes, writes Patrick Murphy in tlie "Daily Mail." But, what is more important to us, it has revealed the magnificent talent of a young . English public school mathematics master, Mr. C. H. Alexander, of Winchester, who has been close on the heels of these two throughout the tournament. These congresses, which have grown up in this country in the last few years, have done wonders for British chess. Since their advent the number of chess pla/ers in England has increased rapidly and is now well over 1,500,000. j The accumulated learning of years is brought to bear on these tournament games. Some famous players succeed by the aid of phenomenal.memories, in which great combinations and their variations are crammed and stored over a.period, of twenty or thirty years.. Others, with brilliantly original chess minds, adjust themselves to the position at hand and play out each game with fresh thought. On one occasion the English hope throughout this tournament, Mr. Alexander, deliberated for half an hour before making his eighth move. His opponent, Reshevsky, took more than three-quarters of an hour to decide his eleventh move, with the result that later in the game both were so short of time that Reshevsky had to make ten moves in six minutes. Reshevsky is ,one of those young men who prove chess to be anything but a game. It seems that a man is born with a chess mind just as he is born a musician. Reshevsky used to give exhibitions in public in Vienna

when he was six and seven years old! He defeated Capablanca when he whs 20, two years ago. .

I know no player who is more delightful to watch than Sir George Thomas, the tall, white-haired ex-Bri-tish champion, who for so long has borne the brunt of chess assaults from the great foreign masters. He is. an all-round sportsman, and 1 am sure the gamt is much more a game to him than to most other great players. Chess is a game which you study and play at your leisure and do not treat too seriously, or it is a nerve-destroying monster which masters very moment of your life. If ambition drives you to attempt to follow in the steps of Capablanca and Alekhine, then sell your home, settle your wife and family so that they call on you once a year, get yourself a dumb man-servant, and give up 3 rour entire life to the endless study of the game. Sir George Thomas has, through ex-, traordinary talent, been able.to remain an enchanting person and still bs counted one of the really fine chess players of his time. But in my experience the two dominating' personalities which the game has produced have been Capablanca and Alekhine. Alckhine has given a vast amount of time and fine talent to making himself the great player he is.

Capablanca treated, chess more as a hobby. He was a diplomat, and actually could not, at times, get all the chess he would have liked. He is quick and decisive and does not like long ponderings over moves. Immediately he has made his move he will, as a rule, leave his table and go to watch someone else play or wander about the room. He will return and make nis next move in the minimum of timq.