Averbakh at 99: mens sana in corpore sano  | thearticle

Yuri Averbakh is an icon in the chess world. Apart from being the archetypal Soviet chess grandmaster, during the heyday of the USSR’s chess imperium, Averbakh is the Renaissance Man of

chess: a highly successful player, awarded the Grandmaster title in 1952, World Championship Candidate in 1953, Soviet Champion 1954, International Judge of chess composition (otherwise

known as chess problems) in 1956, International Arbiter in 1969. As Benjamin Disraeli might have put it, he reached the top of the Soviet greasy pole by becoming President of the USSR Chess

Federation from 1972-1977. Averbakh had clearly been enlisted for supreme office in order to shake things up, after the notorious Soviet disaster of Boris Spassky’s failed 1972 title defence

against the unpredictable American genius, Bobby Fischer. If those achievements were not already sufficient, Averbakh also became editor-in-chief of a number of Soviet-era technical chess

journals, including _Shakhmatny Bulletin_ and _Shakhmaty v SSSR_. In addition Averbakh authored many books, mostly focusing on his great area of expertise, the endgame. Averbakh was born in

Kaluga on February 8, 1922, which means that this month he celebrated his 99th birthday, thus making him the world’s oldest chess Grandmaster, and the sole survivor from the mighty World

Championship Candidates’ Qualifying Tournament, held at Zurich- Neuhausen in 1953. That stellar competition read like a roll call of the chess titans of the day, with Vassily Smyslov, David

Bronstein, Paul Keres, Sammy Reshevsky and Tigran Petrosian also in the lists. The sole absentee, of course, amongst the world’s elite, was the Red Tsar of Soviet Chess, Mikhail Botvinnik,

sitting alone on his throne in Moscow, awaiting the identity of his challenger, who turned out to be Smyslov. Averbakh is well known to British chess fans. I first encountered him at the

Junior World Championship in Barcelona 1965, where he acted as second to the Soviet representative, Vladimir Tukmakov. In 1983 he again functioned as second to the selfsame Vassily Smyslov

in the Candidates’ Semi-Final contest against the Hungarian Grandmaster, Zoltan Ribli, staged at London’s Great Eastern Hotel. In yet another London appearance, when our own Nigel Short

challenged Garry Kasparov at the Savoy Theatre in 1993, Averbakh assumed the role of Arbiter-in-Chief. Whenever Averbakh’s name surfaces, I cannot help thinking about the late first century

AD Roman poet, Juvenal, and in particular his prayer: _“Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.”_ _“You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body.” _ _ _Juvenal is widely quoted

in sporting and educational circles to express the desideratum that physical fitness  is an essential component of mental and psychological well-being. An earlier, similar, saying is

attributed to the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales:  “_ὁ τὸ μὲν σῶμα ὑγιής, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν εὔπορος, τὴν δὲ φύσιν εὐπαίδευτος;_ ” “_What man is happy? He who has a healthy body and a resourceful

mind…_” Juvenal’s _Satires_ were a clever intermingling of sound advice and, as one might expect from their title, barbed satire. They have inspired many authors, including Dr. Samuel

Johnson, (1709-1784) who modelled his poem “London” on Juvenal’s _Third Satire. _Johnson’s views on London are encapsulated by his famous remark, quoted by Boswell, that: “_when a man is

tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford…” _On reading Johnson’s satire, it becomes strikingly obvious how closely his concerns mirrored many of

our own. London becomes the target of unwanted illegal immigrants, the machinations of European powers, the untrustworthiness of the press, corruption amongst London’s government and, a

constant theme: lack of respect for our historical traditions. “LONDON! the needy Villain’s gen’ral Home, The Common Shore of Paris and of Rome; With eager Thirst, by Folly or by Fate, Sucks

in the Dregs of each corrupted State. Illustrious _Edward_! from the Realms of Day, The Land of Heroes and of Saints survey; Nor hope the British Lineaments to trace, The rustic Grandeur;

or the surly Grace, But lost in thoughtless Ease, and empty Show, Behold the Warriour dwindled to a Beau; Sense, Freedom, Piety, refin’d away, Of FRANCE the Mimic, and of SPAIN the Prey; All

that at home no more can beg or steal, Or like a Gibbet better than a Wheel; Hiss’d from the Stage, or hooted from the Court, Their Air, their Dress, their Politicks import; Obsequious,

artful, Voluble and gay, On _Britain’s_ fond Credulity they prey. No gainful Trade their Industry can ‘scape, They sing, they dance, clean Shoes, or cure a Clap; All Sciences a fasting

Monsieur knows, And bid him go to Hell, to Hell he goes, Ah! what avails it, that, from Slav’ry far, I drew the Breath of Life in _English_ Air; Was early taught a _Briton’s_ Right to prize,

And lisp the Tale of _Henry’s_ Victories; If the gulled Conqueror receives the Chain, And what their Armies lost, their Cringes gain?” Doubtless such themes reverberated from the identical

fears expressed by Juvenal himself from the days of imperial Rome. Juvenal also provided a source for the name of a significant species of beetle, Histeridae. In case it should be

erroneously assumed that Juvenal, like The Creator, in a phrase attributed apocryphally to both Darwin and Haldane, exhibited an inordinate fondness for beetles, Juvenal in fact used the

word “hister” to mean a dirty, lowly being. Juvenal is also the source for several well-known maxims, including, that the common people – rather than caring about their freedom – are only

interested in “bread and circuses” (_panem et circenses_; ‘fodder and fun’, in my loose translation, or perhaps, ‘chips and celebs’). We have Juvenal to thank for this perennially troubling

conundrum: “who will watch the watchers?” or “who will guard the guardians themselves?” (_quid custodiet ipsos custodes_).  The continuing relevance of Juvenal, not just for Dr. Johnson in

the 18th century, but for modern times, can be seen from the autobiography of the German Nobel Prize winner, Heinrich Böll (1917-1985). In the high school which Böll attended, under Nazi 

rule, an anti-Hitler teacher, Mr Bauer, drew special attention to Juvenal. Mr Bauer had realised the continuing topicality of Juvenal, how he analysed such phenomena as arbitrary government,

tyranny, corruption, the weakening of public morals, the decline of the Republican ideal, and the brutality of the Praetorian Guards, which in Böll’s time would be paralleled by Himmler’s

Schutz Staffeln, the dreaded SS. Incidentally, the word ‘Hister’ was interpreted from prophetic quatrains by Nostradamus {https://www.thearticle.com/chess-cricket-chickens-and-nostradamus}

by various ultracrepidarian commentators as being a forewarning of Hitler, whereas it is far more likely that the French seer was referring to the River Danube (“Hister” in Latin). Returning

to our hero, whose career so strikingly exemplifies the Juvenalian ideal of a healthy mind in a healthy body, Averbakh won the USSR Championship in 1954 ahead of Mark Taimanov, Viktor

Korchnoi, Tigran Petrosian, Efim Geller and Salo Flohr. Averbakh was equal first in the Soviet Championship of 1956, but lost in the playoff for first place to Taimanov — the only

Grandmaster to have a parallel career as a concert pianist and who was later to marry his daughter. Averbakh has a deep interest in chess history, shown in his book about life in the chess

world called _Centre-Stage and Behind the Scenes_. By modern standards he was a late starter, as he himself wrote: “_I learned to play chess at the age of seven, but I became fascinated by

it only much later, when I was already thirteen_.” Nowadays, if you are not a Grandmaster by that age, you may as well abandon any aspiration towards a career in chess. In his

autobiographical work _Selected Games,_ published by Cadogan in a translation by Ken Neat, Averbakh eloquently wrote of his induction into chess: “_The first chess book that accidentally

came into my hands was _My System _by Aron Nimzowitsch. It was hard to think of a worse choice! After all, in chess you must first learn to attack, and only then to defend, you must gain a

mastery of tactics, and only then strategy. _My System _is a good book, only not for beginners. It is a textbook on positional play, and first you must learn to make combinations. As will be

seen, with me it all happened the other way round, and it is not surprising that later, to a significant extent, I had to relearn._ _Late in 1935 I visited the Moscow Chess Club for the

first time, and there I was fortunate enough to listen to a lecture by the great endgame expert Nikolai Grigoriev. It made an indelible impression on me. When Grigoriev explained his pawn

studies, moving the pieces on the demonstration board with his thin, artistic fingers, I sensed, rather than understood, the great depth and beauty of chess, observing with my own eyes how

human thought spiritualises these little wooden pieces, and they, like real actors, begin performing miraculous spectacles, capable of touching the most sensitive parts of the human soul. It

was this perception of chess as an art that finally linked me with it. I wanted to understand chess and study it_.” Averbakh’s relation of the next phase of his upward chess trajectory is

most revealing, not only about his own inner dilemma as to his future, but for the light it throws on the status of chess within the USSR at that time. “_After gaining the master title and

finishing at the Institute, for five years I tried to combine engineering work with participation in tournaments of various standards. However, at the end of the 1940s I had to consider my

future. I was at the cross-roads. I had interesting work as a research engineer, and my candidate dissertation was progressing. In chess I had become Moscow Champion, and had reached the

final of the USSR Championship, although I did not have any great success there.  I could not help feeling that in the creative sense I was standing still in chess: time for improvement, and

even for preparing for competition, was practically not available. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the attempt to sit simultaneously on two chairs did not promise well: work

interfered with chess, and chess interfered with work. I had to make a choice.   And I chose in favour of chess. I decided for a time to give up work in order to try to become a grandmaster,

and to raise my chess playing to a higher standard._” If one compares the status of chess in the UK at the same time, the thought that one might abandon conventional employment, in favour

of becoming a chess Grandmaster, would have been virtually inconceivable. In Russia, an army of chess professionals was already on the march. Most British chess experts of the time —

C.H.O’D. Alexander, Stuart Milner-Barry, Harry Golombek, Dr James Aitken, to name the most prominent, had been deployed as breakers of Nazi codes at Bletchley Park during the war, and of

that illustrious group, only Golombek had the courage to turn professional.  Even in 1971, after I won the British Championship and decided to leave Trinity College, Cambridge, in order to

become a chess professional, I joined a very restricted group which still included Golombek himself, Bob Wade and Leonard Barden. Yet in the 1940’s, under the aegis of the Soviet chess

imperium, nourished and propelled by the sons of Lenin, Yuri Averbakh was able to regard the pursuit of science, or the quest for chess success, as equally valid and viable career

alternatives. After a most distinguished run as a player, Averbakh metamorphosed into the perfect roving ambassador, both for chess and his own country. His polished command of English,

engagingly suave personality and deep knowledge of chess, made him a perfect fit for this role, which introduced the civilising virtues of chess to numerous peoples around the world. I leave

the last word in this panegyric to Averbakh himself, who has consistently exemplified the ideals of one of the most illustrious bards of Ancient Rome: “_I have spent a long life in chess,

and have been not only a player, but also a trainer, arbiter, journalist and publisher; I have been an administrator of my own country’s Federation and internationally. And I am eternally

grateful to the Royal game, for the fact that it has brought me so much joy, the joy of creativity. I should like to repeat the words of Siegbert Tarrasch, that chess, like love and music,

can make man happy!_” This week’s game  is between Yuri Averbakh and Oscar Panno (1954). It is Averbakh’s most famous victory, one from the year which witnessed the perihelion of Averbakh’s

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