Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

The games started at one and went on until four or five in the afternoon. Adjournments were finished either in the evening or the morning of the next day. By noon her head was clear and when she started her one o’clock game against a tall, silent Californian in a Black Power T-shirt, she was ready for him. Although he wore his hair in a kind of Afro, he was white—as all of them were. She answered his English Opening with both knights, making it a four-knights game, and decided against her normal practice to trade him down to an endgame. It worked beautifully, and she was pleased with her handling of the pawns; she had one on the sixth and one on the seventh rank when he resigned. It was easier than she had expected; her endgame study with Beltik had paid off.

That evening Benny Watts joined her at the cafeteria table while she was eating her dessert. “Beth,” he said, “it’s going to be you or me.”

She looked up from her rice pudding. “Are you trying to psych me out?”

He laughed. “No. I can beat you without that.”

She went on eating and said nothing.

“Look,” he said, “I’m sorry about yesterday. I wasn’t trying to hustle you.”

She took a sip of coffee. “You weren’t?”

“I just wanted some action.”

“And money,” Beth said. Although that wasn’t the point.

“You’re the best player here,” he said. “I’ve been reading your games. You attack like Alekhine.”

“You held me off well enough yesterday.”

“That doesn’t count. I know speed chess better than you. I play a lot of it in New York.”

“You beat me in Las Vegas.”

“That was a long time ago. You were too wrapped up in doubling my pawns. I couldn’t get away with that again.”

She finished her coffee in silence while he ate his dinner and drank his milk. When he had finished, she said, “Do you go over games in your head when you’re alone? I mean, play all the way through them?”

He smiled. “Doesn’t everybody?”

She permitted herself to watch television in the lounge of the Student Union Building that evening. Benny wasn’t there, although a few of the other players were. She went back to her room afterward, feeling lonely. It was her first tournament since Mrs. Wheatley died, and she missed her now. She took the endgame book from the collection on the desk and began studying. Benny was all right. It had been nice of him to talk to her that way. And she had gotten used to his hair by now; she liked it long, the way it was. He had really very good-looking hair.

She won Tuesday’s game, and Wednesday’s. Benny was still playing when she finished on Wednesday and she walked over to his table and saw in a moment that he had it all but won. He looked up at her and smiled. Then he made the word silently with his mouth: “Tomorrow.”

There was a children’s playground at the edge of the campus. She walked to it by moonlight and sat on one of the swings. What she really wanted was a drink, but that was out of the question. A bottle of red wine, with a little cheese. Then a few pills and off to bed. But she couldn’t. She had to be clear in the morning, had to be ready for the game against Benny Watts at one o’clock. Maybe she could take one pill and go to bed. Or two. She would take two. She swung herself back and forth a few times, listening to the squeaking of the chain that held the swing, before heading purposively back to the dormitory. She took the two pills, but it still was over an hour before she could sleep.

Something in the deferential manner of the tournament directors and the way the other players looked at her told her that the attention of the tournament had focused on this game. She and Benny were the only players who had come this far without even a draw. In a round robin there was no precedence of boards; they would play at the third table in the row that began at the classroom door. But attention was centered on that table, and the spectators, who had already filled the seats and now included a dozen people standing, all became quiet as she seated herself. Benny came in a minute after she did; there was whispering when he arrived at the table and sat down. She looked over at the crowd, and a thought that had been present in her mind suddenly solidified itself: the two of them were the best players in America.

Benny was wearing his faded denim shirt with a silver medallion on a chain. His sleeves were rolled up like a laborer’s. He was not smiling, and he looked a good deal older than twenty-four. He glanced briefly at the crowd, nodded almost imperceptibly to Beth, and stared at the board as the tournament director signaled for the games to begin. Benny was playing the white pieces. Beth punched his clock.

He played pawn to king four, and she did not hesitate; she replied with pawn to queen bishop four: the Sicilian. He brought out the king knight, and she played pawn to king three. There was no point in using an obscure opening against Benny. He knew openings better than she. The place to get him would be in the middle game, if she could mount an attack before he did. But first she would have to get equality.

She felt a sensation she had felt only once before, in Mexico City playing Borgov: she felt like a child trying to outsmart an adult. When she made her second move, she looked across the board at Benny and saw the quiet seriousness of his face and felt unready for this game with him. But it wasn’t so. She knew in part of herself that it wasn’t, that in Mexico City she had overwhelmed a string of professionals before wilting in the game with Borgov, that she had beaten grandmaster after grandmaster in this tournament, that even when she had been playing the janitor at Methuen Home as an eight-year-old she had played with a solidity that was altogether remarkable, altogether professional. Yet she felt now, however illogically, inexperienced.

Benny thought for several minutes and made an unusual move. Instead of playing the queen pawn, he pushed the queen bishop pawn to the fourth rank. It sat there, facing her queen bishop pawn, unsupported. She looked at it for a minute, wondering what he had in mind. He might be going for the Maróczy Bind, but doing it out of the normal sequence. It was new—something probably planned especially for this game. She suddenly felt embarrassed, aware that although she had gone through Benny’s game book, she had prepared nothing special for today and had approached it as she always approached chess, ready to play by intuition and attack.

And then she began to see that there was nothing sinister about Benny’s move, nothing she could not handle. It became clear to her that she did not have to play into it. She could decline the invitation. If she played her knight to queen bishop three, his move might be wasted. Maybe he was only fishing for a quick advantage—as though playing speed chess. She brought her knight out. What the hell, as Alma Wheatley would say.

Benny played pawn to queen four; she took the pawn, and he retook with his knight. She brought out the other knight and waited for him to bring out his. She would pin it when he did and then take it, getting doubled pawns. That queen bishop pawn move of his was costing him, and although the advantage wasn’t much, it was certain.

But he did not bring out the knight. Instead he took hers. Clearly he didn’t want the doubled pawn. She let that sink in a moment before retaking. It was astounding; he was already on the defensive. A few minutes before, she had felt like an amateur, and here Benny Watts had tried to confuse her on the third move and had put himself in trouble.

The obvious thing was to take his knight with her knight pawn, capturing toward the center. If she took the other way, with her queen pawn, he would trade queens. That would prevent her from castling and would deny her the queen she loved for quick attack. She reached her hand out to take the knight with the knight pawn and then brought it back. Somehow the idea of opening the queen file, shocking though it was, looked attractive. She began to study it. And gradually it began to make sense. With an early queen trade, castling would be irrelevant. She could bring the king out the way you did in the endgame. She looked across at Benny again and saw that he was wondering why she was taking so long with this routine recapture. Somehow he looked smaller to her. What the hell, she thought again and took with the queen pawn, exposing her queen.