Work Text:
Beth stared at the board, eyes fierce with unshed tears. She had stared at the ceiling for hours the previous night, searching for a way to recover from the way Mr. Shaibel had cornered her rook and queen simultaneously the previous day. It was the moment at which she seemed to have lost any chance of winning. She had chosen to sacrifice the rook, but it was futile- from that moment onward, all she could do was flail helplessly to keep up with the persistent attacks.
Glaring at the ceiling of the dormitory, Beth had played and replayed different possibilities branching from the last move at which she had seemed to be on equal footing with her opponent. Even in her imagination, the pieces had begun to blur from being stared at for so long.
Finally, in a flash- if she moved this neglected bishop into play, the way it combined with her pawn made Mr. Shaibel’s move riskier. She had checked it, playing through the ways he might respond. No, the way he had trapped her yesterday would no longer be a good move for him. Finally satisfied, Beth had rolled over and allowed sleep to drag her under.
The game didn’t proceed in exactly the same way today, but she did see Mr. Shaibel setting up for a combined attack on her queen and rook again. She carefully shifted her bishop to ward it off. He hesitated, then moved a pawn. Beth almost screamed with frustration. Yesterday’s attack deflected, and almost immediately back in another impossible position! Her mind whirled, and she made the best move she could think of, but it was yet another slow but steady assault until, throat burning, she had to resign.
~
The board was a sloppy mess. Backward pawns, barely-defended pieces, isolated attacks with no coherent strategy, crushed like so many bugs. Beth was six moves away from performing checkmate, and yet an eternity. She was floating, with no concept of time. Had it taken him ten minutes to think of that move, or was it a quick, impulsive reaction? She felt it vaguely as a thorn in her side, but fortunately she was too far outside of her body for it to really bother her. She sighed. (Internally?) Now she was going to need to deal with this feeble attack, that any decent player would have seen wouldn’t work. Why not go for her queenside rook? That, at least, would make for a worthy exchange before the superiority of her position was unequivocally demonstrated. Now the battering ram she had positioned at his house of straw would have to pause and demonstrate the pointlessness of his move. With a flick of her wrist, she moved her pawn. Who was this person and why was she playing them, again?
~
Beth was working her way through her birthday gift to herself, a 3-volume set called Great Chess Games. She was already familiar with a fair number of the games in it, whether by coming across them by chance in material that looked interesting or by studying a particular master in detail, but having a collection of some of the most dramatic, impressive, and influential games in the history of chess, all together in one place, was exhilarating. After initially devouring the first volume in the way some people did with pulpy mysteries, she made herself go back to the beginning and study it properly.
One part of that was getting out a physical chessboard. The weight and solidity of the physical pieces lent an air of serious studiousness to the exercise and grounded her in reality. And, as much as she prided herself on her ability to hold and play entire games in her mind, a tangible board was extra insurance that she wouldn't forget anything and thus was good to refer to during training.
So she worked through it like this, meditatively setting up the board, noting what move called to her, analyzing it against the other possibilities, seeing what the author had to say about it and how it had played out in the real game. (Though for many games, she hardly needed to. Still, it was the principle of the thing).
She focused on the physical things around her- the gentle clink of the smooth pieces forming elegant patterns; the routine of looking from board, to book, and back; the firm fabric as she leaned back in her chair, the swoosh of her skirt as she walked to get more tea; the taste of it on her tongue; the warm eggs in her belly.
These things were good, she reminded herself. They were enough. Later, she would meet Jolene for dinner. Today would be one more day without tranquilizers.
~
Ali Achey was a short man with a round, serious face. So this was the man who was taking the French chess world by storm. Beth shook his hand and settled behind the black pieces. Because black’s disadvantage meant you could only definitively prove yourself the superior player by playing from that side, Beth would never admit that she actually preferred to play white. She would rather forge ahead and immediately start manifesting her own will on the board, rather than being forced to take her opponent’s advantage into account when developing her own pieces.
She played the obvious defence to his opening move, and he was the first to deviate, choosing a less popular variation of the Sicilian. Achey had a few esoteric favourites, she had discovered by studying his games, but she suspected committing this early to a variation was an attempt to deny her the chance to dictate the direction of the opening.
Fine, then. She chose a bold, off-book move, not really expecting to throw him but interested to see what he would do. With only a slight pause, Achey chose a solid, supported move that was nevertheless an intriguing choice. And they were off.
In preparing for this match, Beth had seen Achey described as halfway between her and Borgov- careful and rigorous but also with a certain flair for the dramatic. Studying his games, she had thought that was a fair assessment. Beth had been braced for him to lean into the Borgov comparisons out of worry about beating her at her own game, and they'd be in for several tedious hours of book moves and chipping away at each other's defences, waiting for someone to make a mistake. She'd done it with Borgov, she’d proven she could do it with Borgov, but she had hopes Achey could prove to be a challenge in a more interesting way.
Happily, Achey was as good as his reputation. They got into a delightful little skirmish queenside, and regimented though his defenses were, she came to appreciate their fortitude as she contemplated how to break through them.
She made a few carefully considered trades that would gradually give her an advantage. He slowly battered away at her own defences. It was shaping up to be a scrappy endgame, but then-
Oh no . He really should have moved that rook one square further. It was a tiny mistake, but she could exploit it. He was visibly baffled by her next move, stumped by the next, and resigned after the third.
~
“Okay, you can take off the blindfold now.”
Doing so, Beth saw they were in a private room off the main tournament space, but she had eyes only for the chessboard. “Your surprise is a board that looks like it was set up by a kindergartener?”
Benny shrugged, like he couldn’t care less. “Thought it could be fun.”
“What, to make up our own rules like toddlers? ‘The bishops can teleport to any square I want, because they’re maaaagic!’ ”
Benny was starting to look annoyed. “No crazy new rules. I just randomized the starting positions of the pieces, to make it less about memorization and more about strategy.”
Beth looked at the board again, automatically analyzing the possibilities of the position despite herself. “It doesn’t look random”.
“Yeah, I’ve been fiddling with it for a little while. I’ve written up the constraints if you want to take a look.”
Instead of answering, Beth sat down at the board, chin in her hand and challenging him with a stare. “Castling?”
“I’m thinking, ending in the standard positions.”
Beth absorbed this information absently as she examined the board. The possibilities seemed endless in a way they hadn’t for years. It was both thrilling and terrifying. Of course, she knew what she wanted to achieve at this stage of the game, but the strengths and weaknesses of the possible openings were different from this position, and none of them had been analyzed before. It was almost paralyzing.
The game proceeded slowly, each carefully pondering the implications of every move. It wasn’t pure undisciplined fun- Beth had learned by now to harness her instincts, use them as a guide but first analyze whether her plan was as sound as it appeared. But it was freeing to know all the games she had studied could be tossed aside- keep the lessons she had learned, but the specific moves couldn’t help her now. She lost herself in analyzing each move from scratch, just her and her wits and the pleasing new strategies she could form.
~
Beth and Benny didn’t say a word to each other the first day of the tournament, but each knew where to find each other when the day’s games were over. A board was produced, and they played the first several moves in rapid silence.
As the opening positions were established, their play slowed. Beth talked about the best restaurants she’d been to when travelling and the finer points of some games she had played in less-publicized tournaments. She demonstrated a particularly elegant rook-rook check she had pulled off in Poland. Benny told her how Hilton and Wexler were doing and how easy it was to gamble New Yorkers out of their money. He pointed out a move he made that was inspired by a tournament in ‘34.
“Of course, in this situation, you’ve got your queen there.”
“Still. It’s a good move, if not for your pawn structure.”
“What’s wrong with my pawn structure?”
She pointed.
“That’ll be fixed in… wait, dammit, you’re right.”
It was good to talk strategy with someone who could keep up. She smiled as he made a move that was particularly characteristic of Benny’s style of play.
As Benny was pontificating on the historical masters he was studying, Beth suddenly looked down at the board, her gut twisting before she even recognized what she was seeing. She threw herself into the next few moves, but the dread continued to pool.
After studying the board for what felt like an age, she looked up. She concentrated on forcing the sick feeling out of her system, surprised when it mostly worked, and shaped its remains into defiance.
“That didn’t count. We were talking. I wasn’t playing to win.”
“Again?”
“Hell yes.”