Chapter 2 two

After half a year, Mirko understood all the mysteries of chess technology. Of course, he still had a strange weakness-this point was noticed many times by experts, and he was constantly ridiculed by them.Because Czentovic has never played chess by memory, not even in the next game. In the words of experts, he can't kill blindfold chess.He completely lacks the ability to reproduce the chessboard in the infinite space of his imagination.He must always have a real chessboard with sixty-four black and white squares and thirty-two concrete pieces in front of him.Even after becoming a world celebrity, he always carried a foldable pocket chess set with him.In this way, if he wants to reproduce the typical chess game he needs, or solve the problem he is interested in, he can see the specific position of the chess pieces in an intuitive way anytime and anywhere.Although this flaw is insignificant in itself, it shows a lack of imagination and has caused a lot of discussion in chess circles.Just like in the music world, if an excellent performer or conductor is found to be unable to perform or conduct from memory without notation, it will surely arouse people's gossip.However, this shortcoming did not prevent Mirko from achieving amazing results.At the age of sixteen, he has won more than ten various championships, became the national champion of Hungary at the age of eighteen, and finally won the title of world champion at the age of twenty.Many great chess players undoubtedly surpassed him in intelligence, imagination, and courage, but they were all defeated by his tough and cold logic, just as Napoleon was defeated by the heavy and dull Kutuzo. In the hands of his husband ②, Hannibal ③ was no match for Fabian Conctator ④. According to Livy ⑤, Conctator showed indifference and stupidity in his childhood.Chess players are originally a combination of a variety of completely different intellectual characteristics, as well as creative qualities such as philosophers and mathematicians who are proficient in calculation and full of imagination.In this way, for the first time in the ranks of outstanding chess players, a completely out-and-out dissident-a sluggish, taciturn country youth entered.Not even the most astute reporter could pluck a sentence out of his mouth that would be published in a newspaper.What Czentovic did not supply the newspaper with epigrams was more than made up for by many anecdotes about him personally: Czentovic was an incomparable master at the chess table, but irrevocably transformed into A grotesque, almost comical character.Although he was wearing a black dress and a gorgeous tie with a dazzling brooch inlaid with pearls on it, and his nails were carefully trimmed, his demeanor showed that he was still the simple-minded country boy in the past, Not long ago, he was cleaning the kitchen for the priest in the village.He used his genius and honor to make as much money as he could, and he was very stingy and greedy.His clumsiness and shameless stupidity in scooping up money aroused the indignation and ridicule of his peers.He traveled from city to city, always staying in the cheapest hotel, and would play for any shabby chess club for his pay; he had his likeness printed on soap advertisements, and even agreed People bought his name to publish a book called "The Philosophy of Chess", and ignored the ridicule of his competitors. These people knew clearly that he couldn't even write three sentences.The book was actually written by a poor college student in California for a shrewd publisher.Like all tough people, Czentovic doesn't know what it means to be ridiculous.After he became a world champion, he thought he was the most important person in the world.He thinks he beats all these brilliant and brilliant speakers and writers too, and this awareness, especially the concrete fact that he makes more money than them, turns him from bewildered to apathetic, Often manifested as extremely clumsy supercilious.

①Napoleon, the first ruler of the French Republic from 1799 to 180, and the French emperor from 1804 to 1815. ② Kutuzov, the famous commander of Russia.Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, and the Russian army under the command of Kutuzov crushed Napoleon's army. ③Hannibal, the famous general of Carthage during the Second Punic War.In 218 BC, he made a detour to Spain, crossed the Alps, entered the Apennine Peninsula, and repeatedly defeated the Roman army. ④Fabian, Roman commander, successively served as consul.Fighting against Hannibal during the Second Punic War (2182-201 BC), he adopted the delay tactics of waiting for work to eliminate the enemy's vital forces, thus earning the nickname "Conctator" (meaning delayer).

⑤ Li Wei, ancient Roman historian, author of "History of Rome". "After all, how can such quick fame not go to this empty mind?" My friend gave several typical examples of Czentovic showing off his power with a purely childish vanity. Then he said, "A twenty-one-year-old farm boy from Banat can make a lot of money in a week just by moving pieces on the chessboard, which is more profitable than the whole village in a year. Wood earns more from hard work, how can he not be infected with vanity? Besides, if your brain doesn’t know that there were Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante and Napoleon in the world, then you don’t Is it easy to think of himself as a great man? The only idea in the limited mind of this lad is that he has not lost a game of chess for months, and because it never occurs to him that there is anything in the world other than chess and money other valuable things, so he has every reason to indulge himself."

① Banat, located in a fertile area between Romania, Yugoslavia and Hungary. My friend's remarks naturally aroused my curiosity.I've always been interested in all kinds of paranoid people, that is, people who are stuck in a single thought, because the narrower the sphere in which a person limits himself, the closer he is in a certain sense to infinity.It is this kind of people who seem to be indifferent to everything in the world on the surface, tenaciously like white ants, use their special materials to build their own strange, but to them, it is a unique microcosm of the universe. .I have therefore made it plain my intention to observe this curious sample of one-sided intellectual development during a twelve-day journey to Rio de Janeiro.

But my friend reminded me: "You may not be able to do this. As far as I know, no one has been able to get a little material that is helpful for psychoanalysis from Czentovic's mouth. This cunning The farmer, seemingly incredibly imbecile, is secretly brilliant, never revealing his weakness. His method is simple: except for a few fellow countrymen of his own origin whom he encounters in cheap hotels, Czentovic avoided talking to anyone. As soon as he felt that a man of culture was in front of him, he shrank back into his shell like a snail; therefore, no one could boast that he had ever heard him say something stupid, Or take stock of his astonishing ignorance."

It seems that what my friend said makes sense.During the first few days of my trip, it was impossible to get close to Czentovic without begging for nothing.Of course I wouldn't be that thick-skinned.Sometimes he would come for a walk on the upper deck, with his hands behind his back, proud and absorbed in meditation, just like Napoleon in a famous painting.in addition.He was always darting around in such a hurry on his walks that if I wanted to strike up a conversation with him, I had to run after him.And he never showed up in lounges, bars, or smoking rooms.I quietly asked the waiter for information. It is said that he spent most of the day sitting in front of a large chessboard in his cabin, studying the chess game or replaying the chess games he had played.

Three days later, I was really angry, Czentovic's defensive strategy seemed more subtle than my desire to try to get close to him.I have never had the opportunity in my life to personally meet a famous chess player.The more I want to understand this type of people, the more I find it inconceivable that people's brains can revolve around a small space divided into sixty-four black and white squares for a lifetime.From personal experience, I am well aware of the mysterious allure of chess, known as the "King's Game". Among the various games invented by people, this is the only game whose outcome does not depend on any trickery. It crowns intelligence only, or rather, it crowns only a particular form of intellectual endowment.But isn't it an insulting limitation to call chess a "game"?Isn't it also a science, an art?Something that floats between the two, as Muhammad's coffin is between heaven and earth.A unique mixture of contradictions: a game that is both old and always new; its foundation is mechanical, but only imagination can make it work; it is bounded by a rigid geometric space, And at the same time its combinations are infinite; it is ever-evolving, yet utterly fruitless; it is thought without result, mathematics without answer, art without work, architecture without substance.But, nevertheless, this game has proved to have stood the test of time better than all the books and works of men, it is the only game of all peoples and all times, and no one knows what god put it It is brought into the world to relieve sorrow, to sharpen the mind, to inspire the heart.Where does it start?Where does it end?Its simple rules can be learned by any child, tried by every novice, and at the same time, within its narrow, unchanging squares, a very special and incomparable kind of mastery arises— A man with only one extraordinary talent for chess.This is a unique genius, and in them, imagination.Patience and skill work in the same way as in mathematicians, poets, and composers, only in different ways and in different combinations.In the days when phrenological research was prevalent in the past, a German doctor surnamed Garr might have dissected the head of such a chess master to determine whether the gray matter in the brain of this chess genius had a special pattern of the brain, whether Unlike ordinary people, there is a special kind of chess muscle or chess tumor.How much Czentovic would interest such a phrenologist!In him, amidst the absolute stagnation of the intellect, sprang forth a peculiar talent, like a vein of gold hidden in a great block of ore.I have always understood in principle that this unique game of genius must produce respectable fighters, but I have always found it difficult, almost impossible, to conceive of an active mind confining itself to a small area. On a small black and white space, and can find a life's work in the activity of moving thirty-two chess pieces back and forth, left and right.I cannot conceive of a man who thinks it a heroic feat for him to move the knight rather than the pawn at the opening, and to occupy a pitiful place in some corner of the chess guide means immortality; It is unimaginable that a smart person can dedicate all his thinking ability to an absurd thing over and over again in ten, twenty, thirty, and forty years—thinking Do everything you can to drive the wooden chess king into the corner of the wooden chessboard without becoming mad yourself.

① German "chess" (Schachspiel) is composed of Schach (chess) and Spiel (game). Schach comes from sah in Persian, meaning "king".So Xiangqi is translated as "King's Game". ② Muhammad, an Arab, was born in Mecca, the founder of Islam. ③Garr, a German doctor and the founder of phrenology, claimed that a person's talent and personality can be judged based on the shape and bulge of a person's skull. Now, for the first time in my life, I met a man of this kind—such a queer genius, or such a mysterious fool, who was so near me, in the same boat, only six cabins apart, and I, the unfortunate man, I couldn't think of a way to get close to him.I have always been curious about all things intellectual, and this curiosity has often turned in the end into a great passion.I then devised all sorts of absurd schemes: trying to stimulate his vanity by pretending to interview him on behalf of an influential newspaper, and hoping to arouse his greed by proposing a profitable trip to various parts of Scotland. travel competition.Finally, I remembered a tried-and-true tactic of hunters: luring pheasants by imitating their calls in heat.What better way to get the attention of a chess master than by pretending to be playing chess yourself?