G R A N D M A S T E R
Part 17 of T H E R O A D
by Jude Acers (proofed and transcribed by Derek Bridges)
It is only good fortune that found me in
That night I thumbed through a dozen volumes to refresh my memory about the man that I had waited more than a decade to encounter. What I read was very hard to believe possible. How had Gligorich even survive all these years while playing so many great games, more international games than any chessplayer has ever played? It was then that I decided to ask him to make a special lecture for the crowd at the Mechanics Institute. I could have my demonstration chessboard and chessmen down to the chess club in the morning.
I already knew what game would be perfect for a Svetozar Gligorich lecture and searched “Chess Informant” for the game score. I sent over each move carefully beneath the lamp that Albert Raymond used during the day to repair machinery in his tiny hotel room. All night long I went over the game, taking apart all the complicated variations so that the grandmaster would be easy to understand.
“That must be really something, quite a game!” said Albert Raymond as he saw me on the floor still analyzing at daybreak.
“It’s Gligorich’s immortal, A1. He used your favorite defense, the King’s Indian against Tigran Petrosian. I’m going to ask him to make comments on the game tonight. Be sure to be there early or you’ll miss the best analysis you’ve ever seen at a chess exhibition!”
I walked 15 blocks to the Mechanics Chess Club and wondered
what it must be like to be Gligorich. He has traveled
more than any chess master in history. He is a very famous radio personality in
At long last Svetozar Gligorich’s ship has come in. He is guaranteed large fees
for his chess books. He is in tremendous demand for simultaneous exhibitions
all over the world. Then he plays in the Louis Statham World Master Open
Tournament in Lone Pine
Larry Evans has told us that world-class players are trying to murder their fathers. It is indeed amazing how many great professional players lost their parents and had a bad home life to begin with. Steinitz, Botvinnik, Alekhine, Fischer, Spassky and the list goes on and on. Svetozar Gligorich was the son of very poor parents who conducted war and were about to separate. His father died following an appendicitis operation hen Gligo was 8. Mrs. Gligorich had to take in boarders to support her only child. Mrs. Svetozar saw people playing chess in a bar through a window and became fascinated with the chess pieces. One of the boarders taught him the rules after Gligo pestered him relentlessly.
Larry Evans has told us that world class players are trying to murder their fathers. It is indeed amazing how many great professional players lost their parents and had a bad homelife to begin with. Steinitz, Botvinnik, Alekhine, Fischer, Spassky and the list goes on and on. Svetozar Gligorich was the son of very poor parents who conducted war and were about to separate. His father died following an appendicitis operation when Gligo was 8. Mrs. Gligorich had to take in boarders to support her only child. Mrs. Svetozar saw people playing chess in a bar through a window and became fascinated with the chess pieces. One of the boarders taught him the rules after Gligo pestered him relentlessly.
Gligo was second in his school
championship at 13. Gligorich hit the
The World War openers in 1939 ended all chess activity for
him and Gligorich was walking around the front with a
rifle! He was discharged as a captain with two medals for valor. The teenager
did his best to get himself killed and end his chess career before it even
began. He didn’t quite make it because the horrified president of
You see, Gligorich’s mother also had died of leukemia when he was 17 years old. (Nice start, right?) It was to Miljanic’s home and the good doctor’s three sons that Gligorich moved, bewildered, alone, famous. Glicorich had faced war by walking through German troops by himself in search of patrician troops. He found in war that “life is not worth anything and no-one cares for anyone.”
Gligorich organized the 1945
In 1946, in a four-man tournament, he came in first ahead of
Pirc, Pachman, and Dr. Vidmar – a respectable showing at his first great
international tournament in
My impression of Glicorich’s chess games has always been the same. He fights with the most tremendous energy and understands small threads. He will simply kill you if you do not have the opportunity to play strong masters regularly. He is very steady, the greatest of all routiners. He prepares for his games carefully and searches all tournament records for new ways to play in his style.
He has not changed very much in all those years since 1948. He is almost never afraid, believes in himself but has not an ounce of vanity in his body. You barely notice him until you look at the scoretable. You say, “My God, he is three games ahead. My god, he has won eight straight games against all master opposition. Here he comes again. Here we go again. He is going to win again. O no, not again.”
Go down the ranks of the top 20 international in the work in 1970. Gligorich had beaten 17 of them somewhere, sometime. Fischer, Petrosian, Spassky, Tal, Keres, Larsen, Olaffson, Korchnoi, Kavelsk, Huelbanes. It is hard to imagine how one man could even play so many games on every continent.
It is a measure of Gligorich’s
strange quietness without concession that Boris Spassky
and Bobby Fischer appeared twice via trans-Atlantic telephone hookup on
Whenever he travels Gligorich tape
records his daily impressions and airmails this diary to
Svetozar Gligorich
fascinates women worldwide. He does not attack like Browne, Matulovic,
or Acers. Rather he allows the ladies to seduce him in all ways while he stands
helplessly by and unable to thwart their tender, determined, all fronts
advances. He is the last of the bona-fide red hot gentlemen. Gligorich has tact. He does not miscue ever. Susan “Semantha Beckett” Peterson – of
I have mentioned that only cannibals usually move from city to city on the chess starvation tournament circuit nowadays. The courtesy, the niceties, the gracious comments to each and every lady at a huge banquet, the demeanor, the poise, the unmitigated class belong to Svetozar Gligorich alone. The suit and tie is gone.
Yet, despite his baffling absence of egomania, the Gligorich record may be challenged by very few players.
Fischer’s great victories in the sixties left him with nowhere to go. Fischer
almost never played chess tournaments or matches in his greatest years!
Counting absolutely everything he averaged less than three international chess
tournaments and matches a year 1960-1972. This left the field open to
Jude Acers watches Charles Bagby
carefully climb into the automobile. The master beat Alexandre
Alekhine in a 1929 exhibition. He can remember 40
years of chess history with the giants. Eighteen years ago Svetozar
Gligorich played “a nice sneaky escape move” to
swindle Mr. Bagby during a Mechanics exhibition. Mr. Bagby isn’t going to let Gligo
forget it! It has been 18 long years since Gligo has
come to
As the wheels run to the airport Jude Acers thinks bitter
things about the United States Chess Federation which has to be to this day
failed to name attorney Charles Bagby a “chessmaster emeritus.” He had been nominated by Guthrie
McClain, editor of the California Chess Reporter, and among the masters who
stated flatly that Bagby was fully qualified for the
honor were
“Mr. Acers you are so kind to encourage me. But outstanding young players like you must play now. Your future is bright young man. There will be Roman candles, yes fireworks in the Mechanics Institute chess rooms when you become an International Master, believe me. I shall supervise it myself!”
Jude Acers forces Mr. Bagby to
guarantee the best brand of firecrackers. The conversation strays to old
stories about Fischer and Reshevsky fighting it out
for Mrs. Piatgorsky’s ten thousand dollars in
Jude Acers tells Mr. Bagby that a chess lecture will be requested from the Yugoslavian grandmaster. “Hmmm – well, well, I most certainly shall be present for that. I understand he speaks excellent English,” commented Bagby as the airport comes into view just 10 minutes before Gligorich arrives.
Jude Acers carefully leads Charles Bagby down the airport corridors, up ramps and we wait as people file from the plane. The lawyer and the weirdo.
He is standing there as scheduled. He carries one extra suit
and a small fleabag. Svetozar Gligorich
has absolutely every detail of world travel down cold. Two suits, 1 bag that
you can carry right off the plane. He is ready to go to
Gligorich moves rather slowly,
seriously shaking our outstretched hands. His tour has exhausted him. He does
not know that Jude Acers understands last detail of
They, the rushing ones, do not know or care that one of the
top twenty chess grandmasters in the entire world has come to the
Svetozar Gligorich
gets into the car as he feels the need to apologize for “the high fee” necessary
for his appearance. Incredible. For a paltry $175 Svetozar has agreed to play forty chess opponents tonight!
Fischer starts at around $30,000 in
As always he reached into his vest pocket and pulled the address book into his hand. He whispers, “Please, would you …. Mr. Acers, carefully pronounce and spell each name and tell me perhaps a little about the gentleman who I met at the airport?”
Jude Acers is stunned. Jude Acers doesn’t even say hello to people if humanly possible. Gligo is from another world. But it is a much more pleasant world at that.
You tell Gligo that he is going to get a quick tourist trip from Dr. Kent Bach, the USCF chess expert, and doctor of philosophy. “And a lady has expressed great interest in meeting you, sir!” says Jude Acers. Svetozar Gligorich shifts his eyes to the top of the car, rolls them slightly in pious innocence as if he does not know what veteran road demon Jude is talking about. He would cooperate, would like to meet the lady. Far be it for him to refuse the company of the fair maiden this evening, to be discourteous, to plead fatigue.
He does not say a single word but begins to stare at Jude Acers in amazement. “When you see Susan ‘Samantha Beckett’ Peterson, Mr. Gligorich, you may not even make it to the Lone Pine Statham tournament! Ha, ha, ha!” says Jude … Susan “Samantha Beckett” Peterson is going to get a free autographed copy of Selected Chess Masterpieces just by shooting her warm, loving, gracious eyes in Gligo’s direction … It’s all set. Jude the fixer.
Climbing out at
“I am glad
The conversation turns to the world championship, the Russians. “I am hoping that Bobby Fischer will make some very big changes soon. I believe that even the Soviet players also wish good success to Bobby. It cannot be good for one nation to hold the world championship for so many years.” He sips tea and gazes curiously at mop-haired Jude Acers. Then Svetozar Gligorich smiles.
“You are very interested in the women. How can you play against the grandmasters when you like women so much!” he chides. “I do not believe it will be possible.” There sits Svetozar Gligorich in all his innocence, never dreaming that another simultaneous chessplayer exists. Jude Acers just laughs and rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. That’s when the lesson begins.
“Svetozar, I want to ask a favor of you, really for all the people tonight. I was the reason your fee was jumped from $100 too much more. I told the Mechanics people that I would blow up the chess club if they cheated you or wouldn’t pay you a decent fee. All I ask is that you give a little lecture for the crowd, to show them how a great grandmaster thinks. Please Gligo, please.”
Svetozar Gligorich purses his lips, dazed. “Please forgive, Mr. Acers, but I have no notes. I have very, very poor memory. I do not remember even the moves of my games. You see I must see everything over the board and I forget all my games, all the moves. My memory is poor.”
It is a tremendous shock. Just Acers just sits there with no idea how Svetozar Gligorich could possibly have said such an absurd thing. Jude Acers can remember the moves of his tournament and match games. Yet this famous grandmaster cannot. That is when the great lie in the mind of Jude Acers is born. Gligorich is a hard worker but Jude Acers probably has more talent, more class, can be better. If Gligorich cannot remember anything then Jude Acers must be better.
“Mr. Gligorich, for god’s sake, I know the moves of your brilliant prize game at Roving-Zagreb 1970, the game against Tigran Petrosian. I’ll make the moves on the demonstration chessboard and all you have to do is tell what happened, what you were thinking. Please, Gligo, please.”
“You mean the people would be interested in my general idea, my general plan without all the variations?” asked Svetozar Gligorich in astonishment.
“Are you kidding? You are so famous the chess fans would be willing to listen to you breathe. Gligo, I swear, that place is going to be packed. Svetozar, believe me. Your lecture would be super.”
Uncertain about everything but caught up in the excitement, enthusiasm, storm, and craziness of Jude Acers, the grandmaster promised to try. You keep wondering to yourself how is it possible that Svetozar Gligorich cannot remember …
Gligorich has only 3 hours for sleep
at Dr. Kent Bach’s “house of chess titans” where all the chess immortals stay.
Browne, Gligorich, Addison, and dozens of chess
masters from all over the world have visited there. Dr. Bach whisks Gligo to the top of the
Sitting there you wonder if you have not completely lost your mind, Jude Acers. What if you cannot remember exactly, move-for-move, the Petrosian-Gligorich game? Jesus. It would be horribly embarrassing to Gligorich. It was your idea in the first place. Suddenly it is not so funny. The chess club is across the street in one hour …
Jude Acers is beginning to feel very sick. He just eats a little salad, drinks a little water, and sits there desperately trying to review every single move in his mind. It must be a show. You cannot stand there with a silly chess magazine popping off the moves. It has to be crisp, snappy co-operation as you show the moves of the game while Gligorich analyzes a few variations when he finds a salient point for comment. Jude Acers has gone over the game in his mind ten times when it is time to cross the street …
The crowd is waiting and Jude Acers strides in immediately, rushing to set up the demonstration chessboard. He is confident now that he knows every detail of the game, can correct any little mistake in analysis that Svetozar Gligorich might make. Stay calm, Jude, just remember the moves.
Chessmaster Charles Bagby is his usual self as he plays a magnificent master of ceremonies. Gligorich is introduced in a brief, elegant three sentences and he steps out of the crowd to great applause. He is a little weary but is ready and looks over at Jude Acers, who is nervously placing the last chessmen on the wall chessboard. Gligorich smiles a forced smile and begins.
“Ladies and gentlemen I think you for inviting me to your city again after so many years.” I have so many pleasant memories of 18 years past and my exhibition in this room so long ago. I perhaps should apologize for taking Mr. Charles Bagby’s bishop off the board. He tells me that I should have lost the game. But I have suffered punishment for today he has reminded me of it again.” The audience begins to chuckle and Gligorich moves over the demonstration board.
“I do not have any prepared lecture this evening. Ladies and Gentlemen you must forgive me if I make perhaps a mistake or even several. I did not intend to give a lecture and as a matter of fact do not speak of my games usually. However, Mr. Jude Acers has asked me specifically to make a few comments on my game with Petrosian. He will make the moves and I will comment.”
Instantly, Jude Acers steps forward and adds, “Ladies and gentlemen this is the brilliant prize game Petrosian versus Gligorich played in 1970. I honestly believe this immortal game is one of the top ten games of all time. It contains a sacrifice of the most extraordinary brilliance, one of the most difficult games to analyze that has ever been played between grandmasters. “ The crowd packs ten deep directly in front of the chess pieces the famous chess writer Irving Chernev is getting out a note pad.
“I do not have any prepared lecture this evening. Ladies and Gentlemen, you must forgive me if I make perhaps a mistake or even several. I did not intend to give a lecture and as a matter of fact, do not speak of my games usually. However, Mr. Jude Acers has asked me specifically to make a few comments on my game with Petrosian. He will make the moves and I will comment.””
Svetozar Gligorich
(
BR, BN, BB, BQ, 1, BR, BK, 1.
BP, Bp, Bp, ! BP, Bp, BB, Bp
3 BP 1, BN, BP, 1
8
2WP, WP, WP, 3
2WN2WN2
WP, WP, 3, WP, WP, WP
WR, 1, WB, WQ, WK, WB, !WR
Former world champion Tigran Petrosian (
(Black has just made his fifth move)
“Yes, the King’s Indian Defense which, each time I play it against such a strong player, I think of as great danger for myself, dreading a new attack which will make me suffer. But ladies and gentlemen it is important for a chessplayer to play the style of opening which he feels most comfortable with and knows something about.”
Jude Acers is reaching to touch the white King’s bishop of Petrosian and make the next move. Jude Acers’ mind is
flashing back to the sandwich shop this afternoon. Suddenly Jude Acers has
learned something to remember for life. Gligorich had
said, “Yes I was so foolish not to play my best ideas, the best line worked out
in a few Yugoslavian master games when I played Bobby Fischer. I sat at the
chessboard, afraid for no reason at all. I knew that Bobby had not played very
many masters lately. I knew that it was not likely that he could have even seen
the latest games much less analyze their significance. He had only been in
Gligorich just stands there, eyes blazing and remembering it all now as he faces the fascinated crowd. He clasps both hands together and breaks their grip occasionally to point to a chess piece that Jude Acers is moving. Gligo’s King’s knight shoots to the side of the board and into Petrosian’s territory on his tenth move.
The Position After Gligorich’s 10th Move
Gligorich (Black)
BR, 1, BB, BQ, 1, BR, BK, 1
BP, BP, BP, 1, BN, 1, BB, BP
3, BP, 2, BP, 1
3, WP, BP, BP, 2
1 WP, WP, 1, WP, BN, 2
2 WN 5
WP, 2, WM, WB, WP, WP, WP
WR, 1, W B, W Q, 1, WR, WK, 1
Petrosian (White)
Gligorich stepped forward and electrified the audience by saying, “Please forgive me ladies and gentlemen for not showing any variations. But I trying to present the game as I played it. I saw no variations. I just said to myself that if I placed my knight near Mr. Petrosian’s king he would grow irritated at it sitting there. He would choose to weaken his king by pushing his pawns to get rid of the annoying knight.”
U.S. Master Dennis Waterman remembers that incredible moment and recalled it clearly years afterward. The idea that a grandmaster plays to bother his opponent greatly is not found in the chess books! Waterman was amazed and impressed.
But Jude Acers continued moving the chessmen about with no real concern over this general comment. He knew it all already. He had booked this game cold … At the twelfth move, Gligorich had started shoving his king’s knight pawn. Jude made the move on the demonstration board which looked like this:
Position after Black’s Twelfth Move
Gligorich (Black):
BR, 1, BB, BQ, 1, BR, ???
BP, BP, BP, 1, BN, 1, BB, BP
3, BP, 4
3 WP, BP, BP, BP, 1
WP, WP, WP 1 WP BM 2
2 WN, 2, WB, 2
3 WN 1 WP, WP, WP
WR 1 W B, WQ 1 WR WK 1
Petrosian (White)
Svetozar Gligorich did not hesitate one moment. “Here again I hope you will understand please that I do not show you lines of play ladies and gentlemen. But I remember thinking only that my three pawns and my knight are marching toward Mr. Petrosian’s four pawns on the queenside which are not marching toward anything. Perhaps you also notice that the white bishop can be attacked by the king’s knight pawn on the next move or very soon. Well, please forgive me for no moves, but I just said to myself, ‘Well, this looks very good.’ This means that I have five useful moves for attack on the enemy king while white’s moves have all been very silent. I am five moves ahead.”
With his mouth hanging open Jude Acers just stood there helplessly fumbling a little with the chess pieces in hand, not really moving, not able to say anything. He could not remember the next move for several moments. His mind was completely blown. All fuses gone. He stared into the deadly serious and totally cold eyes of a grandmaster who leaned toward him and whispered, “Excuse me please, I do not remember Mr. Acers … Mr. Acers? What did I play next? I do not recall.”
Svetozar Gligorich did not hesitate one moment. “Here again I hope you will understand please that I do not show you lines of play ladies and gentlemen. But I remember thinking only that my three pawns and my knight are marching toward Mr. Petrosian’s four pawns on the queenside which are not marching toward anything. Perhaps you also notice that the white bishop can be attacked by the king’s knight pawn on the next move or very soon. Well, please forgive me for no moves, but I just said to myself, ‘Well, this looks very good.’ This means that I have five useful moves for the attack on the enemy king while white’s moves have all been very silent. I am five moves ahead.”