Perspectives

By Burt Hochberg

The Need for Speed

 Take a look at this position and imagine that you are playing
White. You have an overwhelming material advantage and mate is
so close you can taste it. What do you do? (See Diagram)

White: Kd6, Qg3, Be6; pawn - a6 
Black: Kd4; pawn - a7
White to move

What you would probably *not* do is allow your opponent to
escape with a draw by playing, say, Qf3 stalemate.

Yet that is precisely what White played in this game. Believe it or
not, the White forces were under the generalship of one of the
current, concurrent, world champions, Anatoly Karpov.

This was the fifth of an eight-game match played this June in
Budapest between Judith Polgar and Karpov, which Polgar won 5-
3. How could such a powerful and experienced player make such
an elementary error? And why would Polgar, another one of the
world's top players, continue struggling on with such a material
deficit?

Blame the time control, which was 30 minutes per player for the
entire game. Karpov's move, his 75th, was played with only seven
seconds remaining on his clock. His only options were to try to
mate in those few seconds, or to play Qf2+ and Qxa7, after which
he couldn't lose even if his flag fell because Black would have no
mating material, or to play for stalemate, which he did. Someone
will surely ask Tolya whether his move was a deliberate decision
to avoid losing on time or a crude mistake, but there is no question
that it was a consequence of the punishing time limit. And Judith
played on, of course, because of the good chance that Karpov
would forfeit.

Karpov will not want to be remembered for that game (or for the
match, either). Judith herself reportedly said after the event, in
which she became the first woman to defeat a reigning world
champion in a match, that it would be remembered more for her
achievement than for the games. There is in that remark more than
a hint of regret that the games did not represent her, or Karpov, at
their best.

The J. Polgar-Karpov match, and the fifth game in particular,
recalls an issue that was controversial a century and a half ago and
may become controversial again. Until the middle of the 18th
century chess was played without a time limit. But some players
spent so much time pondering their moves that other players, as
well as sponsors and organizers, agreed that some sort of time
control was needed. Significantly, though, reports "The Oxford
Companion to Chess", "organizers, realizing that games are often
marred by blunders made by players in time trouble, sometimes
inflicted no penalty other than a fine for exceeding the time-limit.
This practice was virtually abandoned by 1914 ..."

Not only was the penalty strengthened to punish the offender with
loss of the game, but over the years the time limits have been
accelerated to the point that important matches can now be decided
by five-minute blitz games. The clock, which has nothing whatever
to do with the battle between two minds on the chessboard, has
become equal in importance to opening preparation and endgame
technique (but if game/30 and blitz-chess time controls prevail,
endgames will become unstudied relics of the past, like the old
Vienna Game).

Judith agreed to the match conditions knowing that the fast time
limit would detract from the quality of the games. She and Karpov,
and all the other players who participate in tournaments using
"rapid chess" and other fast time controls, make "a pact with the
devil," as GM Andy Soltis put it when I asked him about the
current trend toward ever faster time controls. They willingly
sacrifice quality and accuracy in return for certain practical
advantages fewer adjournments and shorter playing sessions, both
of which tend to make professional chess less exhausting. GM
Robert Byrne told me that overnight adjournments were even more
exhausting than the playing sessions themselves. Organizers, too,
favor faster time controls, especially in open tournaments, because
the lack of adjournments lets them make pairings early and start
rounds on time.

"I have always been against slow time controls and was one of the
first players to oppose adjournments," GM Arthur Bisguier told
me. "Adjournments come down to which player has the better
computer. You have to consider the exigencies of modern play.
Rounds have to start on time. But fast time limits can go too far.
Five-minute games in serious events are ridiculous."

Soltis agrees. "I hate the 'classical' 40-in-2 time control. But if
chess is a sport, which it seems to be nowadays, the time control
has to be speeded up. But it can go too far and turn chess into a
spectacle. When a player hangs his queen it's hilarious."

Not for the player, of course, which is exactly my point. Players
want to be represented by their best games, not by their blunders.
This was the reason that time controls and harsh punishments for
overstepping were resisted when they were first put into practice
almost a century ago. 

But why shouldn't chess be a spectacle as well as a sport? When I
had the great privilege of being harangued on several occasions by
David Bronstein, a man who missed the world championship title
but is clearly the world champion haranguer, he forcefully and
convincingly suggested that, to increase the popularity of chess,
games should be played like musical works in a concert. Imagine a
chess concert in the various auditoriums of Madison Square
Garden, for instance. Here's a typical program (ignore the
anachronisms)

8-8:45 Bronstein vs. Spassky, King's Gambit, game-in-15 minutes 
9-9:45 Petrosian vs. Fischer, Vienna Gambit, game/15 
10-11:30 Main event, teammates alternate moves: Kasparov and
Karpov vs. Korchnoi and Anand, game/30

Each game would be followed by analysis, question-and-answer
sessions, etc. In other parts of the stadium, similar events would
take place among lesser players, in the lobby there would be
simuls, lectures, bookstalls, etc. Patrons would buy tickets for the
entire evening or for individual program items.

I feel uncomfortable playing over blunderful games, and there's
nothing to be learned from them. I say save the fast time limits for
exhibitions and let the best players give us their best stuff in
important events without having to worry about the clock even
before they get their pieces out. Haste makes waste.