Are you used to handling extreme pressure ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, September 17, 2006 (SF Chronicle)An extreme sport for nerds -- blitz chess/Tense matchups feature speedy
play, rock-star swagger
Scott Wilson, Washington Post
(09-17) 04:00 PDT Rishon Letzion, Israel -- A pawn, then another. A
knight, then another.
Emil Sutovsky watched from behind thick-rimmed glasses as his baby-faced
opponent seized piece after piece, tapping the digital timer next to the
chessboard after each move. A crowd clustered close behind a rope line,
breaking into whispers of hushed amazement. Something strange was happening.
This was Sutovsky -- the pale, pear-shaped phenom from Israel's national
chess team who just a few years ago became the first Israeli to win the
European Individual Championship. Sutovsky -- who an hour earlier
swaggered through the lobby of the Rishon Letzion Performing Arts Center,
glad-handing a crowd of young male groupies like a star shortstop at
spring training. Sutovsky -- the grandmaster.
Was he going to lose?
Um, no.
With several swift moves of his queen, bishops and a rook, each followed
by a rapid tap on the timer, Sutovsky dispatched his bewildered young
challenger (a former junior champion, it turned out) with a minute and 44
seconds to spare. Hands reached across the board to shake briefly. Nods of
acknowledgment followed. Then Sutovsky parted the admiring crowd, sipping
a bottle of chilled water tucked into a plastic bag.
"I played a combination he didn't see coming," Sutovsky, 28, said with a
superstar's nonchalance.
Sutovsky was one of the nerd-king headliners competing this month at the
World Blitz Championship of chess, a frantic, nail-biting twist on the
ancient game for the extreme-sport generation.
According to the rules of blitz chess, each player receives four minutes
and two seconds at the start of the game, and two additional seconds after
completing each move. Games last no more than 10 minutes, and the rapid
tap, tap, tapping of hands on the timer gives the contests the feel of a
pingpong match. Many, if not most, blitz chess games end when one player
runs out of time.
About 180 players gathered across the polished lobby recently for the
championship's qualifying round, observed over a frenetic two hours.
The fraternity -- almost all the contestants and audience members were men --
crowded around marble columns to peer at draw sheets taped up haphazardly.
Some turned away with broad smiles, others grim resignation, depending on
the name next to theirs.
The tournament, which drew players from a dozen countries, was that rare
venue where the smartest kids in class, and those who once were, had a
chance to strut like rock stars. Many of Israel's 40 grandmasters turned
out to vie for the $16,000 first prize, including Sutovsky, Michael Roiz
and Ilya Smirin -- the room's Ronaldinho in sandals and socks, who stalked
through the gathering between matches, awed whispers humming in his wake.
Hunched over chessboards were slackers in surf shirts and ultra-Orthodox
with long gray beards, scientists and students and soldiers. Che Guevara
appeared on the T-shirt of one high-ranking player, "Czech Open 2006" on
another. The pungent smell of sweat filled the air.
"Quiet please," the head judge sang out in Hebrew, English and finally
Russian, bringing temporary decorum to the raucous room. Players sank into
their seats, the top 30 or so at tables roped off from a crowd of photo-snapping onlookers.
Bella Igla, 21, extended her hand to a teenage opponent minutes before the
start of Game 1. Igla, a Russian immigrant and Israel's current female
national champion, pushed a pawn toward her uneasy challenger, tapping the
clock.
The lobby, echoing with talk of chess war stories and strategy moments
before, filled with a chorus of clicks.
A countermove, tap. Igla's knight rose out into the open, tap. The pace
quickened, then ebbed as Igla closed in on an opposing king sealed off
into a far corner. Tick, tick, tick. Moments later, as his time dwindled
to seconds, the teenager extended his hand in concession.
"Easy," Igla said later, pleased that her time practicing blitz chess on
the Internet was paying off.
With her win, she moved behind the rope line among the giants for Game 2.
She lost, giving a thumbs-down as she munched on a slice of apple.
Smirin, a 30-year-old grandmaster on the national team, yawned through his
first game, an easy win. Roiz, a 22-year-old grandmaster, agonized through
his, before defeating Michael Zaslavsky, 16, with less than a minute left
on his timer.
"I thought I'd get a tie," said Zaslavsky, an immigrant from Georgia. "But
as time started running out, I started making mistakes."
Sutovsky's match against Gaby Livshitz, 21, was a tense one, their fingers
splayed over their faces in concentration. Pieces disappeared, some into
Sutovsky's clutched fist. Then the grandmaster swept a queen across the
board -- tap -- pushed a rook forward -- tap -- and it was all over.
"I thought I was better after the opening," Livshitz said. "But it quickly
went bad."
Sutovsky sipped his water alone near a back wall, waiting for the next
round as the room clicked around him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/17/MNG1JL4QJF1.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment