Vasily
SMYSLOV

I became captivated by chess when I was six and played mostly with my father until I turned 14. He instilled in me a love for the so-called simple positions, when the game is played with only a few figures. In this way an inexperienced chess player can not only understand, but to feel deeply, what each figure is capable of. *

Fatalism certainly exists. But I prefer a more subtle term – predestination – to fatalism. I have an absolutely clear feeling in this regard: all events on the Earth are connected with certain cosmic forces and are largely predetermined. You can’t become a champion out of the blue.

Intuition is a sense of harmony. And harmony is the desire to come close to the divine. I searched for harmony in chess and music.

My most vivid memory is the performance in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and at the Eurovision Song Contest, where I sang an aria from Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, and Mark Taimanov accompanied me.

Chess compares favourably with other games. It has its own logic, different from the game logic: for example, to checkmate the king, you can sacrifice a number of figures. Alyokhin said once that there is no such sacrifice in any other game. Beauty requires sacrifice.

For me, the paragon of a chess player is an Indian sage, bent over the board in majestic silence, and not a man feverishly rearranging the figures. I was once asked to name the top ten chess players of the twentieth century. The question is incorrect. Each champion reflected the era and spirit of the time.

A computer for young people is not only a creative ally. It is also fraught with danger: a chess player, speaking in school language, comprehends higher mathematics, omitting the multiplication table. The time continuum is broken.

When I talked about future machines with Botvinnik, I asked him what role chess players would play in this. And he replied: “Chess players will not be needed. There will be programmers, and that's enough.” I see a serious conflict in this. Man the creator builds a machine that later surpasses him. It is like a conflict between God and man.

* The information is based on the accounts of the personas featuring in this section as well as accounts of their family members, acquaintances and colleagues