There is nothing abnormal about a chess player being abnormal, this is normal...

(...)

And still in Vitolins' appearance one sensed something strange and languid. He was as though not of this world, with his inadequate, often unpredictable reac­ tions and his strange laugh. In his youth this was not so marked, but with the years these features became ever more obvious. By nature he was hon­ est, nai:ve and kind. The smile that sometimes stole over his face made him look child-like and defenceless - all his life Alvis essentially remained a big child. As often happens with this type of people, he was physically very strong. When the doctor advised him to take up some sport, he, an indi­ vidualist by nature, acquired a seven-kilogram shot and every day threw it on his farmstead. He did this with passion, rejoicing over improvements in his results, and taking his personal record, so it is said, up to thirteen metres.

He did not have any close friends. He avoided people, especially strang­ ers, and especially those who were not chess players. At tournaments he was often seen in the company of Karen Grigorian ( 1947- 1989) . Karen Grigorian's father was the outstanding Armenian poet Ashot Grashi and his mother was a professor of philology. Very intelligent and well-read, from childhood Karen could cite many poets from memory. His favourite image in literature was Lermontov's Demon, and, in painting, Vrubel's Demon.

Karen grew up as a highly sensitive and vulnerable boy, with a subtle feel­ ing for art. It is hard to say how his fate would have turned out, had he fol­ lowed in the footsteps of his parents, but at the age of seven the boy became devoted to chess. He possessed a striking, versatile talent and was considered the chess hope of Armenia.

In the 70s Karen Grigorian regularly took part in the finals of the USSR Championship. Like Vitolins, he did not seem to belong to this world, per­ haps not so morose as Alvis, but also strange, unusual, not like others.

It is curious that Karen studied for a time with Lev Aronin, an outstand­ ing player and theoretician, who was also burdened with serious mental problems. One of the critical games in Aronin's chess career was his meeting with Smyslov in the  19th USSR Championship in 1951. It was ad­ journed in a position where practically any move would have led to a win for White. However, Aronin, who had a whole day for analysis, went into a pawn ending, which allowed his opponent a study-like way to save the game. Karen later remembered that whenever he called in him, Aronin would be sitting at that position, pensively moving the pieces about.

One of Karen's favourite questions was: 'What do you think, which tournament was stronger, Nottingham 1936 or the  1973 USSR Champion­ship?' Karen asked it regularly, grasping the other person by the elbow and looking him in the eye. In that tournament in 1 9 7 3 , one of the strongest in the entire history of USSR championships, he played splendidly. By pres­ent-day standards Karen was a strong grandmaster. After winning two suc­cessive games in a USSR Championship or an international tournament, he would consider himself a genius and would readily set up a link: 'Yester­ day I won against Tal. Of course, Tal is no longer World Champion, but he has a positive score against Fischer. What do you think about my chances in a match with Fischer?' The following day, after losing a game, he could become dejected and depressed, repeating that his own play was repulsive to him, that his life was of no use to anyone. He would begin talking about suicide, long before he became a patient at a psychiatric hospital and long before that final free-fall jump from the highest bridge in Yerevan on 30th October 1989.

The friendship between Grigorian and Vitolins was not a friendship in the generally accepted sense of the word. Shut off from the other world, they simply understood each other, or, more correctly, trusted each other. They intuitively felt that the other was a kindred soul, who after a conversation with you does not go off and begins retelling its content with an ironic smile. And of course, in their world, chess, which they both loved self­ lessly, played the most important role.
Both Alvis Vitolins and Karen Grigorian were outstanding masters of blitz. While in tournament chess they were strong and dangerous, al­ though uneven players, in lightning play they had few equals. This also ap­ plies to Lembit Oil (  1966- 1999) , the Estonian grandmaster who possessed a rare memory and was a brilliant theoretician, a man of similar fate, who also suffered from a psychic disorder and in the same way voluntarily de­parted from this life. The explanation suggests itself. The time allotted for play in a classical game allows one to sink into thought, generating doubts and uncertainty. For them, with their sharp falls in mood and excitable nervous system, this served only as a stimulus for mistakes and oversights.

Blitz, however, demands instant reactions, while psychology and self-re­proach retreat into the background. Here, they obviously thrive on their great natural talent. Any game of chess contains a wide range of emotions, with joys and vex­ ations, great and small. These emotions accompany any type of creativity.

But whereas in painting or literature it is possible to cross out, rewrite or change, in chess one movement of the fingers, communicated by the mind, is final. Often it can be repaired only by sweeping the wooden pieces off the board. Or you can castigate yourself, by hitting your head against a wall, or by rolling around on the floor, as one modern grand­ master does after losing a game.

It is a rare game that develops with the smooth accumulation of an ad­vantage and its conversion into a point. But even in this case a player who is honest with himself knows what he was afraid of at a certain moment, what he was hoping for, and how he flinched after miscalculating a varia­tion. Time and again, however, a game proceeds according to the follow­ing approximate pattern: slightly worse, clearly worse, a mistake by the opponent, joy, winning chances, time trouble, missed opportunities, draw.
Such changes in mood and emotion occur both in professional and in ama­teur play, with the only difference that in the latter case these sharp peaks of ascents and descents can be seen several times.

A change of mood during the course of a tournament, although not in such an abrupt form as with Karen Grigorian, is also familiar to every player. 'Even the way you walk has changed' , said the observant David Bronstein in January 1976 in Hastings after I had managed to win a cou­ple of games in a row. This sort of emotional stress and sudden decline during a game or during a tournament, does not serve to strengthen the inner mental core. Chess at top level constantly shakes it, which can have far-reaching consequences, especially if this core is shaky or diseased. In no other type of sport does one encounter such a large number of peculiar people, engrossed in themselves and living in their own world. What at­ tracts them, with their shaky, unstable psyche into this, by Nabokov's def­inition 'complex, delightful and useless art'? Or is it the other way round and is it chess that affects the psyche?

One does not have to turn to Vladimir Nabokov or Stephan Zweig. In the living gallery of chess of yesterday and today it is not difficult to find ge­ niuses or unfulfilled geniuses among this type of people. 'Torre's first steps were those of a future world champion' , wrote Emanuel Lasker at the start of the career of Carlos Torre ( 1905-1978) , the highly talented Mexican player, who at a young age was forced to give up chess and to spend part of his life in a psychiatric clinic. Albin Planinc, who in his manner of play so resembled Tal, flashed across the chess firmament in the late 60s and early 70s, and played brilliantly in tournaments. His career also did not last long: as a result of a severe psychic disorder he too had to give up chess and became a regular patient at a special clinic.

But what are the boundaries of common sense, reason, normality? Clear reference markers are lacking. Often it is a question of frontier regions, in the thickets of which even psychiatrists lose their way. Vladimir Nabokov, who by his own admission took particular pleasure in composing 'suicide studies' - where White forces Black to win - said in an interview on French television: 'Yes, Fischer is a strange person, but there is nothing abnormal about a chess player being abnormal, this is normaL Take the case of Rubinstein, a well-known player of the early part of the century, who each day was taken by ambulance from the lunatic asylum, where he stayed constantly, to a cafe where he played, and then was taken back to his gloomy little room. He did not like to look at his opponent, but an empty chair at the chess board irritated him even more. Therefore in front of him they placed a mirror, where he saw his reflection, and, perhaps, also the real Rubinstein. ' Even in the years of his triumphs the great Akiba liked to sit half turned at the chess board, as though keeping aloof from his opponent and playing only his own game. And is not the same aloofness from others and defence of his brittle ego to be heard in Rubinstein's words: 'Tomorrow I am play­ ing against the black pieces' , in reply to a question about the name of his opponent in the next round. His nurse, madame Rubin-Zimmer, remem­ bered: 'He was an unusually calm and self-controlled person. He was easy to look after. Physically he was exceptionally strong and very healthy for his age. But from time to time he would behave strangely. For days on end he would not come out of the room for even a short walk. Or sometimes in the evening he would not want to go to bed. Then he would sit in the armchair next to the bed and meditate deeply about something or move the pieces on a pocket chess set.' We do not know how the lessons went, when the young O'Kelly went to the clinic to visit the famous Maestro. What was Rubinstein thinking of when, in the very last period of his confinement, he would sit for a long time in front of a chess board, with the pieces set up in the initial position, sometimes making the move l .c2-c4 and, taking the pawn back after half an hour's thought, again looking at the chess board? What solution to the secret of the initial position did he imagine that he saw?

It is hard to say how the life of a nervous and impressionable American youth would have turned out, had he, after shining at university, based it in accordance with the inscription on his diploma : 'Paul Charles Morphy Esquire, has the right to practise as a lawyer over the entire territory of the United States. ' The chess world would have lost one of its greatest ge­niuses, but, perhaps, he would not have spent the last twenty years of his life in a state of severe psychic disorder. The first world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, who also ended his life in a psychiatric clinic, wrote : 'Chess is not for the weak of spirit, it devours a person entirely. To get to the bottom of this game, he gives himself up into slavery. ' This voluntary, pleasant slavery went without saying for one of the most outstanding players of the last century. Robert Fischer expressed genuine surprise: 'What else is there?' in reply to a question by an interviewer, as to what he did apart f rom chess. A champion gave the following explanation for his victories at the chess board: 'I devote 98 per cent of my mental en­ ergy to chess. The others devote only 2 per cent. ' To what use did he put the two per cent of mental energy, remaining after chess? From childhood Fischer knew that money is good, that it is even better when there is a lot, and if possible if this is expressed in figures with six noughts. But what to do with this money ? With money in general? In the end, does it matter along the streets of which town - New York, Pasadena or Budapest - you wander, fearing the omnipresent journalists and photographers? After all , that other chess world, the only one, is always inside you, at any time of day and night and at any point on the earth.

Aristotle wrote: 'Of the winners at the Olympic Games, only two or three gained victories both as boys and as mature men. The premature strain of preparatory exercises so exhausts one's strength, that later, at a mature age, it is nearly always lacking . ' In our day top chess demands even more all-devouring preparation, complete concentration, and aloofness from everything else. In the future this tendency will only be intensified. Players will reach the summit and pass their peak well before thirty. Too much nervous energy will have been spent on preparation and struggle in the younger years.

Giving the joy of creativity, and sometimes prizes and money, chess at the very highest level demands a trifle in return - the soul.

In the very last period of his life Alvis Vitolins would still be in the club nearly every day, giving advice to anyone who asked him , playing blitz, and analysing often until deep into the night. Sometimes he would even spend the night there. He was still gripped by a frenzied passion for anal­ ysis that could last for long hours or days, not distinguishing yesterday from the day before. For him chess was never amusing ; his life in chess, outside of everyday concerns, was his real life. He lived in chess, in soli­tude, as in a voluntary ghetto, and he felt uncomfortable outside the gates of this ghetto in the other big world, which was unreal and often hostile for him.

In addition he had reached the age of fifty and at this stage of his life he must have felt that he was no longer needed by anyone. Material things became determining and this material world, which he had always re­ garded with fear, menacingly impended over him. Vitolins was discarded by the federation, where he had been working as a trainer, for the simple reason that his job ceased to exist. It was not a question, of course, of the pennies that Alvis received there - his connections with the world col­lapsed. He had always been indifferent to what he ate and what he was dressed in. While his parents were alive this was their concern. They died within the space of one week, and on New Year's Eve 1996 the psychia­trist Eglitis, also a chess player, who had been treating Vitolins for free, also died.

Ragged, unkempt and toothless, Alvis came to say goodbye, the day be­ fore carrying out his conscious decision, to those who still remembered him. Only the following day did they realise what kind of a goodbye it had been.

What did he think about on his last day? What is life for? What is the reason for this world? What is fate? What is chess? Did he say farewell to it, or, like Nabokov's hero did he feel that : ' . . . the chess men were pitiless, they held and absorbed him. There was horror in this, but in this also was the sole harmony, for what else exists in the world but chess? Fog , the un­known, non-being . . . ' Did he remember the fatal jump of Karen Grigorian, who also rebelled against the conventional : mors certa, hora certa sed ignota (death is certain, its hour is inevitable, but unknown) ? Ignota? Or did he subconsciously fol­ low the advice of the ancients: 'The main thing is, remember that the door is open. Do not be cowardly, but, like children, when they do not like a game, they say: I won't play any more. So, you too, when to you some­ thing f eels the same, say : I won't play any more - and go way, go away, and if you remain, don't complain. ' He had never complained about this life, but also he did not want to re­main in it any longer.

Sigulda is one of the most beautiful places in Latvia. Mysterious sandy caves, the ruins of medieval f ortresses and castles, an enormous park with ancient oaks divided by the swift-flowing Gauja with its precipitous banks.

It is also good here in winter, when all is snowy and the trees are covered in hoar-frost. When the only thing sparkling in the sun is the white-blue ice of the hardened river, and it beckons, beckons to you, and there only remains the last jump. Like Luzhin, who 'at the instant when icy air gushed into his mouth, . . . saw exactly what kind of eternity was obligingly and in­ exorably spread out before him'.

On a frosty day, the 1 6th February 1997 , Alvis Vitolins threw himself down onto this ice from the railway bridge spanning the Gauja river.

Genna Sosonko
Russian Silhouettes