The Chess Mind

While most of you probably haven't heard of Jacqueline Piatigorsky (1911- ), American players especially should know who she is. While she wasn't a world championship candidate in her prime, she was once the second highest rated female player in the United States before turning to tennis (she decided that chess was too tiring). And while the cream of the current crop of American talent have surpassed her on the chess board, Piatigorsky's contributions to the chess world greatly exceed theirs (at least at this point).

How's that, you say? The answer is sponsorship. Because of her love of the game she, together with husband, the world-famous cellist Gregor Piatigorsky (check out the examples here), several major events occured on American soil in the 1960s: two major invitational tournaments and the (in)famous Reshevsky-Fischer match in 1961.

The first of the invitational events, the 1st Piatigorsky Cup (held in or near Los Angeles in 1963), was intended in part to be a vehicle for Bobby Fischer, but when his requested honorarium was declined he refused to participate. In any event, the tournament was won by the powerful Soviet pair of world champion Tigran Petrosian and Paul Keres.

In 1966, the Piatigorskys did succeed in securing Fischer's participation, and after a rocky start he caught fire, closing with 7.5/9, finishing second half a point behind Spassky and well ahead of Petrosian. (You can read more about these events here. One quibble about the write-up on the 1966 event: the author of that page wrote that Petrosian "had passed his peak." Given that just a few weeks earlier he may have played the best chess of his life in defeating Spassky, that comment is something less than plausible. The more likely explanation is that he was simply fatigued.)

The most famous of the events sponsored by the Piatigorskys, however, was the unfinished 1961 match between Sammy Reshevsky and Bobby Fischer, two prickly personalities who regularly terrified organizers. Add to the mix Reshevsky's unwillingness to play on the Sabbath and Fischer's unwillingness to play before certain hours and both players' general lack of flexibility, and the result was an explosion waiting to happen. It did. With the 16-game match tied after 11 games, game 12 proved disastrous. The game was scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 p.m., which was still during the Sabbath, so the scheduling committee pushed it to 9 p.m. - after sundown. No problem? Hardly. Realizing that a 5 hour session (the norm at the time) would go to 2 a.m., they needed to push the next round to 1:30 Sunday afternoon.

That, however, would almost surely cut into the time of a concert performance by Gregor Piatigorsky that Jacqueline wanted to attend, so she requested that the Sunday time start at 11 a.m. Fischer protested - not unreasonably, given not just his normal habits but the probably ending time of the previous round - but unfortunately his request went unheeded. Everyone stood their ground, and Fischer was forfeited, first for the game and then the match. What a mess! It is to the Piatigorskys' credit that they went on to sponsor to the invitational events mentioned above, and invited both Fischer and Reshevsky to those events.

Gregor passed away in 1976, and Jacqueline is no longer involved in the chess scene. But she has continued to live an active and interesting life, even as nears the century mark. You can find an inspiring essay by her on aging here, and a series of her sculptures (an art she took up in her late 40s) here. And when you're done, maybe even send her a thank-you note.