A wet, gray fog drifted along Nikitskaya Street this evening. Perhaps because of this people felt especially gloomy. Even the most carefree splashed along the slippery sidewalk, harboring melancholy thoughts, resigned to sopping feet. The illuminated windows of the semi-basement apartments did not arouse curiosity, and it occurred to no one to stop and peer into one of them…

And looking in, you would first see a portrait, enormous and dusty. A portrait of a tall, stooped man, pensively leaning against a marble balustrade in some elegant entrance hall. Behind him, it seemed, stretched a beautiful path through an old park. All this would remind you of similar backdrops found in our photographers’ studios, but let’s not dwell on such trivialities. The stooping man, quite distinguished, has one hand tucked inside the front of his modest black frock coat. His eyes are looking straight at you, seeming dead, almost glassy. His face is severe, somber, and his arched nose stands out sharply between wide, protruding cheekbones. His chin is framed by a small thin beard, which matches an equally thin and neatly trimmed mustache.

And looking more closely, you would see the original himself. The same figure, stooped over a table covered with a yellowish oilcloth. The same small beard, stubbornly trembling above a glass of unfinished vodka. The same cheekbones, only now even more sharpened by the added weight of years.

And if you could overhear what seemed to be his very animated conversation with a man whose appearance vividly recalled the clever primates of the stock exchange, you would catch the end of a strange but meaningful conversation.

“Ah, Professor, how many years you’ve wasted…”

“But I couldn’t, you see, I simply couldn’t… I was too uncertain about these people…”

“What do people matter when you have pure profit at your fingertips… Believe me, now that I’ve crossed your path, things won’t end so simply… You don’t yet know all my talents, Professor. Thanks to me, you’ll make more headlines than Reza Khan in Persia or that Abd el-Krim fellow in Morocco… The world—the entire world—is before you, practically in your very hands, yet you sit here in silence…”

“I truly don’t know what to say… You see, my whole life, an entire lifetime I’ve worked, never offering it to anyone, afraid they wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t value it… And who needs my work, my endeavors?…”

“Who needs it? First and foremost, you and I, Professor! How much do you make at the university? A hundred fifty? I guarantee you five, ten, twenty times more. You’re a strange one, Professor, really, not seeing your own advantage. If what you’re saying is true, you could become a Napoleon, a conqueror… And yet you… ah, what a shame!…”

“I agree with you, but what could I do on my own?… I’m old and sick and everything else…”

“That’s all nonsense. We’ll start the business tomorrow, and I promise you that within 24 hours you’ll be famous…”

Along Arbat, through the side streets, down Petrovka, Myasnitskaya, and Povarskaya, along Kuznetsky, people with leather briefcases and those without, people in overcoats, in galoshes, in shoes with pointed and blunt toes, people carrying bags and small suitcases, people in peaked caps and fedoras, people wearing gloves and those with cold hands tucked into pockets, people hurrying in the morning to their offices, to stores, to kiosks, and the pawnshop—all of them read the poster with mild surprise, with a touch of irony, but ultimately with the typical indifference of those preoccupied with their daily affairs.

On that same day, on the back page of all Moscow newspapers, was printed:

and a bit lower, in bold and insistent type, it announced:

From reviews in the world press:

Times

…The automaton of Professor Yastrebov’s design represents perfection in technology and a model of chess artistry…

Le Matin

…Never before in the world has there been anything like it. Professor Yastrebov’s automaton plays better than first-class masters. There has not been a single case where the automaton lost to anyone…

Berlin Tagblatt

…The chess automaton of Prof. Yastrebov’s system has caused surprise and admiration not only in chess, but also in scientific circles…

The New York Herald

…Never before have we witnessed such a phenomenon. Even the finest chess masters falter before the enigmatic play of this automaton… Professor Yastrebov has genuinely created a masterpiece that marries technological innovation with the art of chess…

The next day, readers of all dispositions—the intrigued and the indifferent, the amazed and the skeptical, the enthusiastic and the scornful—could find a sensational interview with Professor Yastrebov in the latest issue of Red Sport, the central newspaper serving as the official All-Union authority on sporting matters:

“Our correspondent held an extensive interview with Professor M. I. Yastrebov concerning his automaton, which has already generated considerable buzz among Moscow’s chess circles.

“Whereupon the professor disclosed the following:

“‘I will not divulge any technical specifications or details regarding the construction of my chess automaton until the results of its performance in action have been properly assessed. I can assure you only that what we have here is genuinely a mechanism, not a person concealed within the automaton’s casing. I control the automaton merely as an operator or chauffeur, if you prefer that term. Personally, I am a poor chess player—or more accurately, I scarcely play at all. I certainly wouldn’t venture to compete against Moscow’s finest players, nor even against reasonably skilled amateurs. My chess knowledge extends only to a rudimentary understanding of the moves and positions of pieces on the board.’

“‘How, you might ask, could I construct a chess-playing automaton without being a skilled player myself? This seemingly paradoxical circumstance is, in fact, not paradoxical at all. For a competent mathematician familiar with the theory of moves and the essential nature of chess combinations, the required mathematical calculations present no extraordinary difficulty.’

“‘Regarding these calculations, as I have already stated, I do not intend to disclose any details until such time as I deem appropriate. In any case, anyone interested in the operation of my automaton may come and witness it firsthand this Sunday at the conservatory.’

“‘How does the automaton work? I had no intention of giving it any human form, nor even an appearance remotely resembling a human figure. I enclosed the automaton’s mechanism in an iron casing approximately shaped like a parallelopiped. The device is equipped with a clock and a rectangular screen behind glass, upon which—following certain technical operations—letters and numbers appear, indicating the intended move.’

“‘How did I create the automaton? Through many years of painstaking work. Last year, while on an official assignment in Germany, I met engineer-mechanic Theodor Weiblitz of Nuremberg, who agreed to realize my concept. It was there that the first model of this automaton was constructed—the very one you will see in operation.’

“‘Why have I not presented the concept of a chess automaton until now? Partly because I was unable to implement it, and partly because, without a working model, I could not verify the correctness of my mathematical and technical hypotheses.’

“In conclusion, Professor Yastrebov remarked that with the Second International Tournament soon to be held in Moscow, his automaton should arouse considerable interest, since, in his estimation, even world-class chess players would be unable to win a single game against his machine.”

In Moscow’s chess circles, this issue of Red Sport hardly caused a sensation. Two years earlier, during the international tournament in Moscow in 1925, the city’s masters had their first encounter with foreign champions. For the first time, Berlinsky faced Capablanca and Zubarev played against Lasker. And now, in 1927, their second meeting awaited them. Such excitement, joy, and tension in the preparatory battles! Who could spare a thought for some automaton? Why bother with contraptions made by idle professors who haven’t the faintest idea what chess truly is!

No, this called for irony, nothing but irony. The poster with its ‘reviews from the world press’—typical charlatanism of ‘gala concert’ promoters. Legless officers from Napoleon’s army, struggling to cram their truncated bodies into an automaton’s mechanical casing, had long since vanished into oblivion. Hideous monstrosities of wood and iron defeating lords from the Strand and Bishops of Canterbury exist only in the cinema. Mechanical nonsense against the Napoleons and Kants of the chessboard! Some contraption pitted against world champions, grandmasters, and maestros! What absurdity! It could only provoke laughter.

But beyond the smiles, there was curiosity. A mild, somewhat bemused curiosity from acknowledged champions summoned to battle against an unknown contender…

…While in London, Paris, Warsaw, Vienna, New York, Sofia, and Brussels, there wasn’t even curiosity. On this day, twenty-six of the world’s most renowned chess masters had not yet heard a whisper about the automaton.

The Small Hall of the Conservatory seemed embarrassed by the strange silence within its age-faded walls. Never before had it witnessed anything like this. The ghosts of Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and Bach, frozen in astonishment amidst swirls of tobacco smoke—smoking was unexpectedly permitted—felt ill at ease. For the first time, they sensed they were strangers here.

And indeed, who cares about Bach? Bach is decoration. Conservatory is a pseudonym for a place where one might suddenly witness strange, almost extraordinary phenomena.

What does decoration matter when a creature of wood and metal unexpectedly conquers the knights of international tournaments? Who needs such decoration when Alekhine’s patented defense proves powerless to avert death? The magnificent armor of opening theory crumbles beneath the silent onslaught of the automaton. Who could possibly think of Beethoven and Mozart at a time like this?

Strange, incomprehensible thoughts hang suspended in the air. They are enigmatic and offensive to the invisible inhabitants of this ancient castle of melodies and sounds. They are mysterious and grotesquely absurd, as absurd and grotesque as that gray metallic contraption on the stage atop its massive pedestal.

A gray metallic idol that has usurped the place of the Bechstein grand piano. Not a single melody. Not one note, not even the simplest scale. Absolutely no sound at all. Silence. On a small, white, glass-encased rectangular screen appear strange combinations of letters and numbers. Some sort of abracadabra:

Nd2-f3 or Bb3-d5

What is this? Beethoven and Bach never played chess. Perhaps these are secret signs of a Masonic lodge or the liturgy of some new religious cult?…

The air is thick with smoke. Cigarette butts. Scraps of paper. Fragments of exclamations. Sweaty brows.

Cigarette after cigarette. Check to the king. Knight f3 to d4. Think. Pawn forward. Just so. Hastily, half a glass of tea.

A tall, predatory-looking old man lovingly caresses the gray covering of the metallic idol. The idol—a parallelepiped. An expressionless, ridiculous, and stupid parallelepiped. Move after move, the numbers and letters ceaselessly change on its glassy-white rectangular forehead.

What is he doing, this old man? Could the machine be a hoax? Perhaps he is simply a brilliant player who, for a joke, for a sensational stunt, has disguised himself as an automaton…

But no matter. What a strange move he makes! Rook to g2. What could this odd combination be leading to? Think. Damn it all, the idol plays like Capablanca!

What spirit lurks within the metallic belly of this gray idol? Could it be the ghost of Chigorin or Morphy playing under the guise of Professor Yastrebov’s automated system? Or perhaps some legless officer, a brilliant thief of his Napoleonic colleague’s idea, an officer who left his severed limbs beneath the cliffs of Perekop or on the green fields of Ukraine? Who? Who?…………

In the foyer—commotion. Handkerchiefs slide and crumple against sweaty cheeks and bald spots. Damp, disheveled hair partings. Gesticulation. Machine-gun bursts of words. And astonishment, endless astonishment.

“…Damn it all, I never thought Grigoryev would lose to this machine…”

“…Just imagine, when he moved his knight to h5, I thought the automaton wouldn’t find a decisive response…”

“…And yet, friends, I am absolutely certain that it’s a living person playing…”

“…But it’s quite an original contraption all the same, wouldn’t it be something to see Capablanca play against it…”

“…Fraud…”

“…What fraud are you talking about, when Zubarev resigned on the 27th move…”

“…Comrades, come quickly, an extraordinarily sharp position…”

Before the apparatus stands a young maestro with the burden of twenty years of wisdom upon his strong shoulders. He plays according to the meticulously studied Lasker-Rubinstein game from the International Tournament in Moscow two years earlier.

The young maestro is certain of victory. He is immovable as a rock. His memorized game is his Nibelung sword. His face is that of a general, combining Caesar’s calm assurance with Napoleon’s nervous intensity.

Move after move. The white rectangle spews forth terrifying figures. Knight f3 to e5. Napoleon falls from his horse. Alas! He loses his queen.

Several days later, in Izvestia, under the headline ‘Triumph of the Automaton,’ the following was published:

“The matches between Moscow’s finest players and Professor Yastrebov’s automaton in the Small Hall of the Conservatory over three days yielded completely unexpected results.

“In short, all of Moscow’s leading chess players lost to the automaton, not to mention numerous amateurs. It is difficult to describe the panic that ensued. According to Moscow’s most veteran players, they cannot recall anything comparable in their entire careers.

“Levenfish and Rabinovich, who had traveled from Leningrad, also lost to the automaton. Particularly notable was Rabinovich’s defeat. Having performed brilliantly in recent tournaments in Moscow (1925), New York, and San Sebastian (1926), Rabinovich played with remarkable elegance and virtuosity. Employing the Caro-Kann Defense, he maintained an excellent position until the 17th move. But then the automaton’s move (Bf4 x c7) restricted his pawn front and trapped his knight. Unable to bring his rook into play for another three moves, Rabinovich opted for the queen exchange recommended by theory, which, due to his opponent’s masterful maneuvering, resulted in the loss of a pawn. By the 28th move, he was forced to resign.

“According to the Moscow champions who witnessed the games, the automaton selected its moves flawlessly and brilliantly. The endgame it played, in their estimation, was worthy of Lasker himself.

“Among the public and in chess circles, the prevailing opinion is that—despite Professor Yastrebov’s own assertions—a living person must be playing here, as only a human brain, and a genius one at that, could create combinations with such profound insight and talent.”

Excerpt from an article by Dr. S. Tartakower, telegraphed by him to the chess magazine 64.

“Chess automatons have never before appeared in serious competitive play. In medieval times, there existed, it is true, concepts for creating mechanical humans (homunculi), which in turn gave rise to the idea of a chess-playing automaton.

“Medieval thinkers and mechanicians always envisioned such an automaton in the form of a human figure playing chess independently, without the participation of a human mind. They quite seriously entertained the possibility of a mechanical basis for chess play, founded on certain numerical laws. One needed only to discover these laws. One needed only to find their formula.

“Many brilliant minds labored in search of this formula. Attempts to create chess automatons date back to the 15th century. Manuscripts of the Jesuit order contain references to such an automaton created by Abbot Antonio Ferrari of Bologna. He even succeeded in constructing a mechanism, the secret of which perished along with its creator in a fire that consumed the monastery buildings.

“The same can be said of the attempts by Rudolf Teolicius and the mechanic Kurt of Nuremberg. In Simon Goulart’s work from the late 18th century, entitled Tresor d’histoires admirables (Treasury of Remarkable Stories), there are, admittedly somewhat obscure but nonetheless adequate references to experiments in this direction by the Frenchman Arnaud de Villeneuve, the Lübeck mechanicians Karl Fogg and Dr. Sibelius, and the Englishman Richard Geldingen. All these experiments, according to Goulart, yielded no concrete results and merely generated a certain ‘fermentation of minds’ around their names and ideas.

“We have the most information about Kurt’s automaton. According to eyewitnesses, his automaton took the form of a human figure with exquisitely crafted face and hands. However, this automaton also yielded no practical results, as Kurt, in a fit of madness, destroyed his mechanical doll.

“At the court of Philip II in Madrid, during the First International Chess Congress, the Dominican monk Brocard attempted to demonstrate an automaton of his own construction. Brocard even challenged the then-famous Ruy Lopez and other strong chess players of the era, such as Leonardo de Cutri and Paolo Boi. However, Philip II inexplicably forbade this demonstration, and Brocard found himself in an Inquisition prison. In any case, no further information about this automaton has survived.

“The remains of a similar automaton (its creator remaining unknown) are preserved to this day in the museum at the palace of the Duke of Lichtenstadt. They amount to little more than a heap of old rusty iron, ready to collapse at the slightest touch. Yet behind glass you will see a crude semblance of a human figure, seated in a large armchair before a chessboard mounted on a small table. Whether this automaton ever actually played chess has remained unknown.

“History provides us, alongside attempts to create genuine mechanisms, with examples of sometimes quite ingenious charlatanism. Beyond the legless Napoleonic officer concealed inside a hollow doll during play, we encounter similar ‘automatons’ at fairs throughout Germany and England. According to contemporaries, many of these ‘automatons’ played brilliantly and defeated even the strongest players of the era. In most cases, however, these were simply commercially profitable schemes designed to ensnare credulous amateurs.

“According to newspaper reports, Professor Yastrebov’s automaton neither takes human form nor attempts to imitate human movement. Based on its dimensions (if memory serves, it was reported to measure approximately one meter in both length and height), we are dealing with a rather substantial mechanism. It is difficult for me to comment on the automaton itself, since, firstly, I have not seen it, and secondly, the inventor maintains its construction as a closely guarded secret.

“Are we dealing here with a mechanism or with a living person? I find it personally difficult to judge. One might surmise, given that the automaton always plays exclusively with white, that we have here a certain mathematical premise underlying some concept, but I dare not venture any definitive statement about this.

“It is quite possible, however, that this is mere charlatanism. In any case, it matters little—if not an automaton, then a living master player, with whom it would be a pleasure to compete.

“In light of your upcoming International Tournament, I believe that all the chess masters arriving in Moscow will find this encounter of considerable interest.”

The Izvestia report and Tartakower’s article were reprinted by most of the major European and American newspapers.

Those twenty-six of the world’s most renowned chess masters had finally heard about the automaton. In Vienna, Paris, New York, Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, and Brussels, ironic smiles played at the corners of their lips. Yet somewhere in the mysterious depths of their eyes, curiosity stirred. The same mild, somewhat bemused curiosity of acknowledged champions facing an unknown but formidable challenger.

…Maestro Capablanca was traveling to Russia. At the Sebezh international station, in the buffet, over a glass of coffee with cognac, he was handed the latest New York newspapers. The weary, jaded eyes of the world’s favorite skimmed the lines, and that same ironic smile crept across his crimson Havana lips. An automaton against the world champion? Absurd!

The newspaper fell indifferently to the floor, and the automaton’s fate was sealed.

The entire world remembers this event. Chess players from across the globe, talented and talentless, theoreticians and novices, people who had never touched a chess piece, people of all genders, ages, and nationalities, surviving aristocrats—from members of the House of Lords to unemployed representatives of somewhere-reigning families, leaders of revolutionary and reactionary parties, deputies and bakers, engineers and clerks, notaries and maître d’s—all on one fine day opened their newspapers: and their eyes, from their naturally oval shape, suddenly became round as hazelnuts.

This astonishing event occurred in Moscow, which remembered Capablanca’s admittedly modest, yet still respectable showing two years prior during the international tournament of November 1925. That tournament had not brought the Havana maestro many laurel wreaths or rapturous ovations. His colleagues claimed he was simply ‘having a run of bad luck.’ Yet at subsequent tournaments in New York, San Sebastian, and Vienna, Capablanca regained his almost-faltering reputation.

Admittedly, in 1926 at San Sebastian, Capablanca lost to Dr. Lasker. This game, in which all seven of Capablanca’s pawns became isolated, and Lasker’s brilliant knight sacrifice (Nc3 x d5) allowed him to win the queen on move 17, permanently entered the annals of chess alongside the masterful games of Anderssen, Morphy, and Chigorin.

Nevertheless, the world champion restored his former glory, winning a series of games remarkable for their beauty and virtuosity against Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Marshall, and Réti. Moreover, the ‘old lion’—Lasker, who was, as they say, ‘off his game’ at the most recent tournament, could pose no serious threat to the swarthy Cuban.

Thus, everything was progressing exceptionally well, and then…

An entirely unexpected development occurred. Capablanca, who had taken two luxurious rooms at the Savoy Hotel, was somewhat taken aback while receiving Moscow reporters that they didn’t pose the usual stock questions about Russian chess players, about his tediously overreported rivalry with Dr. Lasker, or about his position on hypermodernism. Instead, they spoke with one voice only of the automaton.

“Automaton?” Capablanca repeated—and the exhausted interpreter, breathless under the bombardment of cross-questioning that followed all the rules of American journalism, reminded the maestro of the latest New York newspapers he had read at Sebezh and related everything Moscow knew about the remarkable automaton.

The Small Hall of the Conservatory must have greatly regretted that its walls were not made of rubber and that, with a certain elasticity, it could not expand to become a Large Hall.

The ghosts of Beethoven and Bach, who had by now learned to play chess and had become well-versed in the abracadabra of Queen’s and King’s openings—even they were awestruck by the silent grandeur of what was unfolding.

For what was unfolding here now was worthy of being inscribed upon the tablets of history, onto the pages of brilliant novels, or within the capricious staves of a magnificent symphony.

Even the forgotten Bechstein grand piano, even the walls aged by music, even the docile chairs shifted in their excitement—these wordless extras in the grandiose spectacle—they too froze anxiously in tense anticipation of the extraordinary finale to this extraordinary struggle.

Chess players—masters and amateurs, young and old, those speaking all European languages and those speaking only Russian—all of them, like a flock of penguins before sleep, like figures molded by a mad sculptor, appeared frozen with tension, while only their hearts passionately trembled and beat with their entire being upon the black and white squares of the hall’s solitary board.

The maestro, whose sonorous name is traversed four times by hyphens; the maestro, whose name had become a byword at every crossing of the City, Unter den Linden, and Broadway; the maestro in his elegant jacket of gray covert cloth resembled an archangel of the approaching apocalypse.

Across his cigar-brown lips slithered a thin, malicious smile. Yes, yes, imagine it—having lost a pawn on move 17 and unable to develop his bishop, he was nevertheless smiling.

Professor Yastrebov, with his sparse trimmed mustache, thoughtfully let his eyes—weary from his sixty years of life—wander over the smoky contours of the Staunton chess pieces. He seemed not to be thinking about them at all. After each of Maestro Capablanca’s moves, his thin fingers glided over the hidden levers of the automaton, and on the white forehead of the metallic monster appeared an unerring combination of letters and numbers.

Occasionally his razor-sharp lips would cast into the dark, sweaty mass of the crowd a smile as light and enigmatic as the theory of relativity. It would glide through the hall’s tense silence and ironically whisper to the uncomprehending people: “Fools. Do you imagine it is I who will deliver checkmate to your king and hero on the 27th move? Naive enthusiasts, who have forgotten the theory of ascending numbers and the elementary laws of differential calculus.”

The Havana Maestro remained silent. Only his nervous fingers and the serpentine bluish veins, slightly bulging at his graying temples, betrayed his suffering beneath the mask of feigned apathy.

This was a battle compared to which Abd el-Krim’s struggle against France in Morocco and the Canton-Peking conflict in China seemed like children playing with toy soldiers.

The human mind, in this battle against the iron and steel of this newfound Moloch, was dying publicly, convulsively protesting across the 64 squares of the checkered board.

Dempsey-Carpentier, Napoleon and Blücher, the Kuomintang and Peking armies, Carthage and the Roman legions, the Bible with its Judeans and Philistines, David and Goliath—all mere trifles, nonsense, soap bubbles compared to what was unfolding somewhere inside, concealed by the lapels of his elegant jacket and the futile irony on his pale, compressed lips.

And the people—crushed, sweaty, tense—convulsively awaited the end.

There were few women present. Chess is a man’s game. Chess is the bane of wives and mistresses. Chess—the thief of half the attention and duties assigned by fate and law to every man.

And the men here formed a crowd. A strange, extraordinary crowd. Hungry, yet silent. Passionate, yet restrained. They thought of and remembered nothing. Their eyes appeared glassy, and in their pupils wavered only the reflection of the board, where the most original mind in the world was being sacrificed to an idol of wood and iron.

Who could possibly describe this scene? What poet would dare resurrect in his timid, pallid verses this spectacle, directed by myriads of wordless passion, tension, dread, and suffering? And these myriads were juggled, cast upon the checkered canvases of chess diagrams, upon the smoky contours of palm wood pieces, upon astonished, gaping mouths, upon eyes ready to leap from their sockets and hurl themselves directly onto the black and white squares of the board, upon frozen, exhausted faces, upon mute, blanched smiles, cast upon the nervously scratching pencils of reporters, upon the dully bewildered faces of buffet attendants, and upon the hands of clocks racing with the speed of a Rolls-Royce.

The maestro, his lips compressed into a taut line, is thinking. Yes, the clocks gallop like madmen. Time, which at tournaments had crawled like caravans in the desert, now races like a thoroughbred at the derby. And who drives it so? Who?

Could it truly be that mere combinations of mathematically precise calculations, that mere turns of hidden levers within the mysterious mechanism could advance against him with such lightning-swift attack? With such technically admirable force—and without a commander!

No, there must be a commander. A commander without revolver or regulation cap, a knight without sword or armor, yet formidable and powerful, an almost brilliant player.

He, Capablanca, had never encountered this player at tournaments. This lightning-swift judgment and rare combinational talent were entirely unknown to him. His continuation against the Caro-Kann Defense was flawless and elegant. And yet it was completely novel to him, the celebrated theoretician and virtuoso practitioner. It surpassed even Réti’s famous continuation in his game against Lasker at the recent Vienna tournament.

How absurdly his heart trembles! It beats even faster than the racing clock hands, already threatening merciless time pressure.

Temples throb with bluish veins. Quickly, a cup of coffee. Another cup. What a fearsome battle!

Sacrifice the c4 pawn. Knight to b4. Queen to the right corner. Yes. But why to h4? Strange. What a spectacular move! This iron-masked sphinx plays like a god. In three moves, he—the maestro of both hemispheres—will lose a piece.

Agony. The world champion’s thoughts spin madly, like the wheels of his brand-new Rolls-Royce on Broadway’s asphalt. This is the finale. This is Waterloo. Napoleon’s final gambit. The death of glory. The setting of his brilliant star.

Thus the sun burns away. Slowly but inevitably it vanishes behind the horizon. Thus do heroes fall. Thus fell Napoleon, crushed by Wellington. Thus fell Leonidas, trapped with his warriors in the fateful pass of Thermopylae.

Describe the spectators? This whirlwind of bewilderment, passion, and rapture? This aftermath of three hours of silence and mute tension? This tempest of hoarse cries, fragments of conversation, words flying madly?

No, let the cold-blooded reporters write their historic lines:

“Capablanca’s match against the increasingly astonishing automaton attracted extraordinary attention. The hall was unable to accommodate all those wishing to witness the remarkable spectacle. The audience included numerous foreign newspaper correspondents who had arrived for the opening of the international tournament, members of the diplomatic corps, and nearly all Russian chess masters currently in Moscow.

“Capablanca played black, as Professor Yastrebov’s sole condition for any opponent is that he always plays white. Employing the Caro-Kann Defense, the world champion held an exceptionally solid position through move 12. On move 13, due to the cunning maneuvering of the white pieces, he was forced to sacrifice a pawn to save his pawn front from immediate destruction, which would have inevitably followed.

“But the pawn sacrifice did not save Black from ruin. By move 21, their position was hopelessly constricted. The white knight’s maneuver Nd2:c4 led to the loss of another pawn, resulting in a most unwelcome exchange of queens. Within two moves, the maestro inevitably lost a piece. The remainder was merely a matter of technique, and Capablanca continued his defense purely out of pride, but his game was already decided.

“This defeat of the world champion compels one to conclude that the automaton represents an utterly extraordinary phenomenon. And this compels us to formally request explanations from Professor Yastrebov regarding his apparatus. We must definitively establish whether we are truly dealing with a sophisticated and complex mechanism, or merely with a supremely talented player who has, for whatever reason, chosen to mystify the public under the guise of a chess automaton.

“One must concede, in any case, that this automaton presents an enormous threat to the reputation of all foreign masters arriving for the tournament. And although Capablanca’s defeat does not yet give us reason to believe that the same fate awaits Bogoljubov, Torre, or Lasker, nonetheless the encounter between these chess luminaries and Professor Yastrebov’s automaton will be of extraordinary interest.”

The language of reporters is a direct line to the imagination. The language of radio is dynamite, blasting it to its very foundations. The broadcasting antennas of Moscow’s radio station hurled into the world words that served as sufficient spark to ignite the powder keg of millions of minds. The spark—released by an utterly indifferent radio technician and consisting of only two words:

CAPABLANCA DEFEATED,

found its mark.

These words streaked across the globe with meteoric speed. Intercepted by radio stations in Berlin, Paris, New York, London, Chicago, and Spitsbergen, they were relayed onward. They soared triumphantly over nations and cities, over the green-yellow patchwork of fields, over the taiga forests and Canadian woodlands, over the jungles of Hindustan and the pampas of Argentina, over the snow-covered slopes of the Himalayas and the towering peaks of the Alps, over the glaciers of Greenland and the sands of Egypt, over skyscrapers and bridges, temples and pyramids—soared everywhere, outpacing the timidly crawling airplanes and countless flights of birds that seemed like plodding tortoises by comparison.

They crashed upon cities in a mighty avalanche of shouts, exclamations, leaping headlines in newspapers and magazines, telephone calls and letters. They were frantically tapped out by thousands of Morse and Hughes operators, hummed along telegraph wires, raced through cables on the ocean floor, blazed in luminous advertisements, erupted in the frenzied cries of newsboys—everywhere, in every place, they halted, stunned, struck unerringly.

CAPABLANCA DEFEATED!!!

These words scattered through conversations in clubs and hotels, in international salons and theater foyers, at resorts and dance halls, everywhere and anywhere, from university lecture halls to the common bakery. They were uttered hastily, between handshakes, before the next table d’hote, during intermissions at premieres and screenings, amidst love scenes and business meetings.

Everyone who followed international tournaments, everyone who knew how to arrange Staunton pieces on the black and white squares of a chessboard, everyone who had even caught whispers of names like Lasker and Réti, Torre and Rubinstein, Spielmann and Bogoljubov—indeed, everyone who simply read the daily papers—could not comprehend, would not comprehend, refused to comprehend. The king of chess kings, the Napoleon of international tournaments, defeated somewhere in some Moscow by some preposterous automaton. Was this not outrageous, was this not bizarre?

Meanwhile in Moscow, amidst the excitedly dispersing crowd, an equally excited cameraman from Kultkino bustled about. He had already immortalized Professor Yastrebov’s goatee on film and captured close-ups and wide shots of the colorful mixture of military tunics, silk dresses, and jackets, yet he searched in vain for someone whose absence from the footage would rob the newsreel of its most sensational element.

And at last he found him. The hasty frames whirred into motion. The celluloid world sprang to life, enriched by an elegant hero with the profile of a Hollywood gentleman and the bearing of Childe Harold, whimsically transplanted into our decidedly un-Byronic age. His slender fingers nervously kneaded a scented handkerchief, while the fixed smile on his dark lips quivered, occasionally transforming into a grimace.

In Berlin, London, Vienna, Paris, Prague, and Brussels, along the Rue de la Paix, Wall Street, Broadway, Friedrichstrasse, the Strand, and Prater, the chess masters arrived at train stations in Rolls-Royces, Fords, Mercedes, Fiats, Renaults, and Packards. Twenty-six first-class champions and knights hastily gulped their coffee in station buffets, and the springs of international Pullman cars, cradling them on soft divans in lounges and sleeping compartments, rushed them with meteoric speed toward a single point on the globe. That point was Sebezh—the border gateway to the country where doom, prepared by the automaton, awaited them.

On an Atlantic giant, a thousand-ton behemoth of the New York-Hamburg line, beneath a lazily unfurled canvas awning, Marshall—calm as a rock—leafed through a freshly printed issue of the ship’s newspaper. Across his lips, drawn taut and thin as thread, played a slight, incredulous smile. The old Yankee did not believe in the automaton. Something must have happened to Capablanca. The elegant maestro had evidently been off his game.

The automaton? Nonsense. It has been proven thousands of times that the art of chess combinations cannot be reduced to any mathematical laws. The automaton is merely a blind. The player is likely a chess master—good, strong, perhaps brilliant, but still human. And being human, any outcome is possible. There are no absolute victories. Capablanca is not infallible…

In the plush compartment of an international carriage, with quiet, melancholy eyes magnified by thick spectacles in horn-rimmed frames—for Torre was an American, and what American does not wear round horn-rimmed glasses?—he gazed thoughtfully at the fine-print exclamations of Moscow correspondents in New York newspapers.

He did not trouble himself with questions about the automaton. What was Capablanca? Four resounding names joined by hyphens. And beyond that? Beyond that—an aging mind and deteriorating technique. What significance had Capablanca when Torre had scored half a point more than the celebrated world champion in the latest tournament? In the upcoming battle in Moscow, Mexico would surely finish ahead of Cuba. Mexico had youth on its side, the burning fire of competition, and a tremendous will to victory. This will was recognized even by impresarios, even by shrewd stock market players ready to hastily exchange their lucrative Goliko Oil shares for stakes in Torre’s future glory.

Champions? Rubbish. He would yet topple these champions as easily as this empty ashtray. The automaton held no terror. Even if defeated—he would endure it with more grace and fortitude than the celebrated maestro di-Graupera…

At Volokolamsk station, a reporter from Evening Moscow, with all the impetuosity of a businesslike American, managed to gain access to the sleeping car graced by the presence of the great Dr. Emanuel Lasker himself.

The same carriage. The same compartment. But now Germany, not Mexico. Not spirited youth, but the burden of sixty years of life.

A captivating smile. Half-closed, merry eyes twinkling with flashes of something that involuntarily makes one want to remove one’s hat. A snowy crown of silver hair that automatically softens your step and causes your voice to modulate timidly in especially reverent tones.

His lips, slowly puffing on a cigar between words, occasionally tossed to the reporter—perspiring with delight—words as weighty as stones:

“It is difficult for me, unfamiliar as I am with the younger generation of Russian chess players, to suggest to you that the automaton is merely a pretext, merely a cheap sensation. Perhaps this prevailing opinion has no foundation whatsoever.

“Mathematics has not, however, encroached upon the art of chess. For all its comprehensiveness, it could not master chess, which yields to no mathematical premises or justifications. Mathematicians seeking definite numerical laws in chess have always collided with the insurmountable obstacle of countless, incalculable combinational positions. To solve this problem, to somehow formalize it, to constrain it within specific mathematical parameters—this seems to me personally to be absolutely impossible.

“Yet at the same time, many things are possible. It may well be that this problem has, after all, been solved. Who can guarantee that there has not finally emerged a brilliant mind that has resolved the impossible?

“But then, to what end? Why, in verifying harmony through algebra, must we kill this harmony finally and irrevocably? Why deprive humanity of an art so exceptional in its heroic character? Why?

“I would welcome with all my heart a brilliant player, but would gladly destroy a super-brilliant machine, for it brings death to chess.”

Moscow—this was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the multicolored domes of St. Basil’s, Zaryadye, Sukharevka, and Filippov’s kalachi… That was in the past.

Moscow—the automaton on Nikitskaya Street, chess diagrams on the streets, and the Moscow Hotel Administration. So it is now.

However—this is only for the flock of non-Russian speakers who have suddenly traded the elegant avenues of Paris and London for Moscow’s muddy ravines. For the rest of the citizens, as everyone knows, there still exists the People’s Commissariat of Education and the People’s Commissariat of Finance, housing allocations and registry offices, workforce reductions and the aging theater directors Meyerhold and Tairov.

For the foreigners—hotels. They are overflowing with guests who cast into the smoky air of their modest table d’hotes a peculiar medley of German, French, and English words.

For the chess masters — the Savoy, the Grand Moscow, the Metropol. For the rest—more modest accommodations—those that the Moscow Housing Administration has hospitably scattered throughout every corner of the international city, and whose list is posted, to the greatest delight of arriving visitors, at each of Moscow’s nine railway stations.

People in leather coats and gaiters, tightly cinched with clever belts at the waist, in soft felt Borsalinos, in blunt-toed shoes and round glasses, people in black, brown, gray, and blue, people with notepads and fountain pens, whirled like a tempest through the halls of the Metropol, where the international tournament was opening.

And in the streets—a crush of bodies. Serpentine queues winding from Lubyanka, Mokhovaya, and Dmitrovka, their tails intertwining in Neglinniy Passage, halting trams and buses, filling Theater Square to overflowing.

Cordons of militia, both on foot and mounted, advanced in closed ranks following all the principles of trench warfare against the thousand-headed hydra of the crowd that had violated every law of ordinary human existence.

Along Mokhovaya, Lubyanka, Dmitrovka, and Neglinnaya, trams stood in a long procession. Buses dozed at the mouths of streets. Passengers shouted in vain, conductors strained themselves hoarse, and cabbies cursed.

All four ticket windows at the Metropol had long since been shuttered, with the cashiers escaping through the back entrance from the roars and hoarse cries of the crowd. ‘SOLD OUT’ signs had been posted on the doors long ago, yet a stately doorman in a blue livery single-handedly held back the spontaneous assault of the crowd that continued to roll in endless waves toward Theater Square.

In the Metropol—an event of global significance. An event followed by millions of minds beyond the Vistula, beyond the Rhine, beyond the Seine, across the ocean. An event more thrilling than ministerial crises and more captivating than rumors of a new war.

In the Metropol, at the opening of the world’s most magnificent assembly of chess geniuses, Professor Yastrebov’s automaton was to compete against the strongest among them. The final champion in this formidable tournament was Lasker.

And Moscow was in a fever. Moscow was in turmoil. Moscow waited in tense expectation.

On every street corner, in squares, lanes, and building entrances, daily bulletins from the chess administration were sold. Chess literature was available everywhere. The latest theories of chess sages were snapped up like daily newspapers.

Professor Yastrebov’s portrait was sold for five kopecks in every stationery shop. Mosselprom, the Moscow Agricultural Products Trust, hastily released “Capablanca” and “Chess” cigarettes. The black and white checkered pattern became one of the most fashionable motifs in the ensembles of ballet beauties and in the display windows of fashion ateliers.

Everywhere and anywhere—chess. In trendy cafes. In public canteens. In clubs. In beer halls. In every apartment and in every room.

Chess became the essence of life. Its very center. Medical professionals documented a special type of infectious disease—chess fever. Everyone succumbed to it—even women, who now expertly deciphered the abracadabra of such absurdities as queens, bishops, and knights.

Even children. During breaks between classes, chess pieces were hastily set up. They played in “Kamchatka”—the back rows of the classroom, traditional refuge of troublemakers. They played during lessons. Even in the restroom.

A long-forgotten American film “Check and Mate” featuring Priscilla Dean was promptly retrieved from the Sovkino archives by enterprising cinema managers. It featured a chess automaton and had already been showing for three weeks straight at Moscow’s five largest movie theaters. “Chess Fever,” produced by Rus Studios in 1926, was shown as a companion piece, drawing sold-out audiences daily.

Tournaments were organized in every institution. Housing cooperatives competed against housing cooperatives. Apartment versus apartment. Every building had its champion; every apartment, its maestro.

“Pyotr Stepanovich played on four boards yesterday…”

“And did you know that a knight and bishop can only deliver checkmate if the opponent has a pawn?…”

“Lasker will win without a doubt…”

“Nonsense, beating the automaton is inconceivable.”

“Inconceivable? Well, I’d try it…”

“Marya Petrovna, would you like a rook advantage?”

“Have you no shame? I already hold my own against you when you have both your rooks!”

“Kolya, put those chess pieces away and come to dinner!”

“Just a minute… bishop to the right corner and then…”

“Then I’ll move my knight to h2.”

“Kolya!!!”

“The automaton now has every chance of becoming world champion…”

“Ha-ha-ha, a mechanical champion!!!”

“If you touch a piece, you have to move it…”

“But I can’t move into a pawn’s attack, can I?”

“Come on, comrades, this isn’t a tournament – it’s turning into child’s play…”

“Pawns don’t move backward…”

“Lenochka, it’s impossible to play with you, you’re always playing for a draw…”

“Citizens, spare some change for a blind chess player!!!”

“Strange, he’s blind, yet a chess player?”

“Ivanov, playing chess during class again, how many times have I told you…”

“Comrade, two bottles and a chess set!!!”

Such conversations had become as commonplace as the morning cup of tea.

The automaton dominated all conversation. People no longer simply talked about it—they gushed with excitement. Reporters ran out of words to describe its victories. Spectators’ breath caught at the mere sight of Professor Yastrebov’s goatee.

Citizen Nakhimson, the administrator of the automaton’s exhibitions, traveled exclusively by taxi and offered everyone just two fingers to shake. An angelic smile never left his face. But what is an angel, really? He was a million times happier than any angel. He was a god.

Newspapers wrote about the automaton—“a miracle.” The Evening Moscow gushed—“brilliant.” Only the chess journal 64 remained skeptical—“nonsense, a hoax.”

At the Metropol, preparations were actively underway for the exhibition: the automaton versus Rubinstein, Marshall, Torre, Spielmann, and Lasker. The clock hands raced toward the starting time.

Moscow was delirious. Moscow was agitated. Breathlessly, Moscow… waited.

The final round had ended. The crowd of lucky spectators, excited and stunned as though by an explosion, hurled the sensational news to the even larger crowd waiting outside. The news itself was an explosion. Its reverberations rumbled through ears already raw from shouting.

Marshall, Torre, and Spielmann—forfeited!

Rubinstein and Lasker—lost!

Lasker, the great Lasker, invincible and brilliant—lost!

Madness. Panic. Caps askew. Exhilaration. Wild gestures. Throats hoarse with roaring.

Lasker lost!

And then what?

Where is truth? Where?

People were dispersing. In the end—bewilderment. Dejection. A strange pity. Indignation on behalf of humanity, of the brain, the brilliant human brain.

The youth, girls in red kerchiefs, short-haired girls in worn-down shoes, leather jackets, gray blouses—were resentful.

A machine? But who needs this machine? For what purpose? Is the art of chess not beautiful? Does it not provide creative joy? The sharp and full-blooded thrill of victory?

The machine kills it. Kills creativity. Mathematics destroys the idea. For what purpose?

In the tournament committee room, Krylenko himself, outwardly calm but nervously biting his lips, hurled hard words into the crowd of agitated Komsomol members.

“Comrades, you are right, of course. And your agitation demonstrates the position we must take regarding this automaton. This invention is not merely useless. It is an enormous, irreparable harm not only to the art of chess. It strikes a blow against culture itself, of which chess is one modest vehicle. It could instantly destroy all the work we have done to make chess the property not of a handful of professionals, but of the entire population, the broadest masses. And if this invention is based on certain mathematical laws, then these laws refute the most fundamental principle of chess: the free choice of combinations and the complex, intense play of the mind. One could, of course, invent an ingenious mechanism that would allow us to destroy, let’s say, the Museum of Fine Arts or the Tretyakov Gallery in an instant. But how necessary and useful such a mechanism would be, I think, is beyond doubt. Therefore, calm yourselves, comrades; in the very near future, we will try to clarify the essence of Yastrebov’s invention and dot all the ‘i’s in this question that troubles you…”

And, leaving the room, each person carried away in their memory an unclear, but angry thought:

“The Professor is a murderer; the machine is a monster, pointless and useless. And to chess, it brings death…”

So thought the columnist from the Workers’ Gazette. Thoughts arranged themselves, straightened out, aligned, became more precise, more hard-hitting—and the article was ready. Hurry to the editorial office. Pencil to paper. There. Now to the printing press…

Professor Yastrebov, stepping slowly in his old, worn-out overshoes, for the first time carefully observed those departing.

So many young people! Fervent, enthusiastic, passionate youth. They probably all are chess enthusiasts.

How strange! Chess is becoming everyone’s heritage. It is growing in popularity. And he brings it death. Is he right to destroy that which provides creative joy to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, millions?

But he had science behind him. Thirty years of relentless labor. The joy of achievement. This justified all sacrifices.

All sacrifices? Was it truly worth it? Perhaps years wasted in pointless work on a pointless discovery? Perhaps it is unnecessary, meaningless?

How his heart aches. It rattles like a torn drum. The burden of vile, insulting old age has descended upon his shoulders. A heart defect. Rheumatism. Persistent, nagging pains in the stomach.

Was it worth living, working…

The next day Professor Yastrebov did not leave home. His heart ached and faltered.

The article in the Workers’ Gazette stirred up oppressive thoughts about the uselessness of his entire work. He made no excuses to himself. In every line of the scathing article, he saw bitter, offensive truth.

Later, they brought Izvestia. There he read, gasping from heart pain, words of Emanuel Lasker that seemed written in blood.

“Professor,” wrote Lasker, “surely you will not refuse to finally reveal to us the essence of your invention. Our defeat gives us the right to ask this of you. There are no opponents left for you. There is no one left for you to defeat.

“If you have truly discovered a system for chess play, truly managed to reduce its combinatorial complexities to rigorous norms of specific mathematical laws, then reveal them at last. We ask for and await your answer, professor.

“We want to know the principles that so effortlessly and relentlessly disprove our theoretical premises and the most subtle practical analysis of the game. We want to know them to understand its foundations and methods. We want to know whether chess can and will continue to exist and develop in the future.

“If not, if the creative processes of this most subtle and most fascinating of arts are to be replaced by dry arithmetic calculations, then your discovery is evil. Your invention is a colossal and irreparable harm. Then we will fight against you. Fight with all possible means. And humanity, the people of a country that now values this art more than ever before — this humanity and these people will stand with us, not with you.

“Therefore, we await your answer. Only you can put clear dots over all the mysterious “i’s” in this strange affair.

“And if—forgive my skepticism, professor, it is entirely justified here—if your mechanism is merely a mask for someone’s brilliant and subtle play, then you must reveal to us this player’s name. We all would concede primacy to him. We all would bow before him. But he is needed by us just as much as by the masses who now follow chess, who take interest and find fascination in it. His play is too valuable to be disguised in the charlatan’s—forgive me, but that is precisely what it would be—cloak of an automaton.

“We await!

“Signed on behalf of
          all Russian and foreign chess masters:
                    Dr. LASKER

The professor stood up. In his mind, a firm decision had formed.

One morning, people unfolded the newspaper as usual. People were at home, on streets, at tables in the dreary morning beer halls, behind the dusty windows of trading offices. Eyes, preoccupied as always with sugar cubes in glasses of warm tea, slid yawning across the lines and read with astonishment:

People were bewildered. How? Why? Could it really be that after defeating the world champions, the mechanical knight was retiring? Impossible! A hoax. Rubbish.

In the newsrooms—pandemonium. Telephones ringing. Remingtons and Underwoods clacking. Reporters dispatched to the battlefield one after another. Editors blessing them for interviews. Return with your shield—or on it.

By evening, a second bombshell. It strikes the reporters first. Editors, mad with impatience and fury, tear up the galley proofs of the current edition.

Professor Yastrebov is ill and is receiving no visitors.

Quick, to the telephone. Hello. Hello. Hello… Operator… If you would be so kind…

Ring after ring. A long ring. The switchboard. The operator again… Oh…

—The telephone is out of order, not working.

Reporters rush to Nikitskaya Street. Again and again. The doorman grows weary of announcing—the professor is receiving no one, no, it is absolutely impossible. Attempts to persuade the grim-faced servant. To no avail. Citizen Nakhimson, sweating with agitation, mournfully declares:

—He is ill, truly ill. There is nothing I can do. I myself understand nothing about it…

In the Metropol, the stunning news races through the hall in all languages. The chess masters are astonished. Thirty-nine foreign reporters feverishly draw out their notebooks. Fountain pens scratch across the paper.

Within ten minutes, mind-boggling revelations will race to all thirty-nine newspapers.

In corners, the news is discussed in hushed tones. The chess masters are secretly pleased. But their curiosity has been piqued. It grows and fills their minds to the brim. The tournament is postponed. Lasker and Capablanca have refused to play. Let the details be clarified first. Then we shall see…

After work, people hurry home so that in the evening—at home, in clubs, at housing committee meetings, at friends’ gatherings—they can discuss, ponder, and marvel at the news.

Sleep eludes the eyes. In the half-darkness of bedrooms, black and white Staunton chess pieces glide about, along with the gray body of the metallic monster. Professor Yastrebov’s face emerges in close-up from the pattern of the wallpaper.

In the morning—yet another revelation. This one doesn’t merely astound; it strikes, takes one’s breath away, and makes the knees buckle.

Just a small news item. But in people’s minds it grows into a nightmare beyond explanation. Four lines of dry reportage and the result—panic, bewilderment, terror.

Yesterday, at 11 o’clock in the evening, Professor M. I. Yastrebov of Moscow University suddenly passed away. The deceased had suffered from a severely developed aneurysm, and doctors had long expressed the possibility of a fatal outcome.

Panic. Panic. Panic.

Reporters are in a trance. Pursuit of the bombshell—sudden death—becomes a vital problem. From one editorial office to another. Telephones rasping. Inquiries to the Academy of Sciences. A frenzied rush at the university.

Papers, more papers—quickly. Even scraps of documents will do. The Evening Gazette pays fifty kopecks a line. Kings of the newspaper trade racing like rally cars.

To no avail.

The final news stuns, rends the mind. Conjectures shatter against the rock of impenetrable mystery. The reporters feel a pain in the pit of their stomachs and a heaviness in their hearts.

To no avail.

The revelation screams, halts, crushes with a black, muffled nightmare.

The papers are gone. The documents destroyed. The automaton smashed and demolished.

Any trace at all! Perhaps fragments of blueprints, formulas remain?…

No! Nothing remains. The broken pieces of the machine lie on the floor—a heap of useless nickel and iron.

People are settling down. Nothing to be done about it. Another unsolved mystery hangs over the world. The Gordian knot tied by Professor Yastrebov cannot be unraveled by anyone…

A day of breaking news. Editors’ hearts soar. People breathe sighs of relief. At last!

Eyes devour the lines hungrily. Letters dance with pleasure. Printer’s ink blurs with joy.

The Gordian knot has been severed.

“The editorial office of Izvestia received a letter from M. Nakhimson, an employee of Moscow State University and son of the somewhat renowned administrator of the chess automaton’s demonstration sessions. Citizen Nakhimson himself turned out to be completely uninformed about Professor Yastrebov’s invention. And beyond what had already become common knowledge after the professor’s death, he could provide no new information. The absence of documents, destroyed by the inventor, eliminated any possibility of finding scientific traces of the sensational discovery.

“Therefore, considering that this letter is the first and only source shedding some light on the essence of Professor Yastrebov’s system, the editorial board publishes it in its entirety:

‘Respected Comrade Editor,

‘In view of the fact that I presently find myself the sole person in possession of the secret—albeit not in its entirety—of the late Professor M. I. Yastrebov’s discovery, I consider myself duty-bound to inform all those interested in this matter.

‘I had been acquainted with the Professor since our university days, where, as is well known, he taught a specialized course in differential and integral calculus. Recently I often encountered him at my father’s home, from whom I learned of the forthcoming demonstration of the chess automaton.

‘Being a mathematician and something of a chess player, I naturally became interested in both the essence of the Professor’s system and the principles underlying the construction of his mechanism. After my repeated entreaties and his persistent reluctance to explain to me on what laws and premises this remarkable mechanism had been created, the Professor, having extracted my word that this would remain secret, finally overcame his mistrust.

‘His theory proved, in principle, to be quite simple. And conveying it here presents no great difficulty. Therefore, believing that this question now interests a considerable number of minds, I shall endeavor not to omit a single detail.

‘First, a bit of background.

‘In his youth, the Professor was passionate about Egyptology. While participating in an expedition excavating near Hempden in Egypt, he discovered an extraordinarily intriguing document, which he dated approximately to the reign of Amneris II. The document was a papyrus scroll depicting a chess board with rather primitive drawings of the pieces and various groups of numbers and symbols.

‘The Professor spent approximately five years working to decipher this document. He finally succeeded in establishing that it contained a unique theory of chess, setting forth specific mathematical laws governing its combinations.

‘According to the theory of the document’s authors, each piece and each square was assigned specific, constant numerical values. The combination of these numbers, precisely calculated and verified, would, in their view, invariably yield the correct move and the proper variation.

‘Through persistent work developing and verifying these principles—primitive though they were in essence—the Professor established a clear and precise system.

‘Here, approximately, is its essence:

‘For every move there is always only one correct response. No other responses are possible, since their apparent equal value is always merely illusory, and all of them, save one, are invariably wrong.

‘The human mind cannot, with mathematical precision, calculate the correctness of its response ten—twenty—thirty or more moves ahead, /therefore errors are always inevitable/. The player who makes the fewest of them usually wins.

‘Correct moves in play occur quite frequently, as modern investigations by chess theorists have established, through numerous verifications, the error-free moves for many positions. But considering the enormous number of chess combinations (the first move alone yields four hundred possibilities, and calculating the number of combinations arising from the second move would require higher mathematics), it is clear that the number of correct, error-free moves—even among the most accomplished masters—is always limited.

‘Therefore, when White plays with absolute precision, Black—who inevitably makes errors of one kind or another—always loses. Even when Black plays with absolute accuracy, White still wins if they move first. This is why the automaton always played only as White.

‘But how could one determine this correct move for any situation and any combination? By applying the numerical designations for pieces and squares found in his document, the Professor succeeded in devising a specific formula with which it was always possible to identify this error-free move in any position.

‘In devising the formula, M. I. Yastrebov was guided by the following factors:

‘1. \(X\)—the needed correct move.

‘2. The numerical value of the piece, designated \(a\), \(a_1\), \(a_2\), \(a_3\), etc., up to 16.

‘3. The numerical value of the square, designated \(b\), \(b_1\), \(b_2\), \(b_3\), etc., up to 64.

‘4. The relationship between the numerical values of each piece, expressed as \(\frac{a}{a_1}=c\).

‘5. The relationship between the numerical values of each square, expressed as \(\frac{b}{b_1}=d\).

‘6. The relationship between the numerical values of pieces and squares, expressed as \(\frac{a}{b}=e\).

‘In addition, a specific coefficient \(1, 2, 3\) and certain constant values, which he designated \(\alpha, \beta, \gamma\).

‘Denoting the sums of the piece values and square values and the relationships between them by capital letters, we obtain:

\[\sum a=A, \sum b=B, \sum c=C, \sum d=D \text{, and } \sum e=E\].

‘Thus, applying the Professor’s notation, we have the following formula:

\[X=1.23\frac{\beta(AB+BD)EC}{\alpha(A+B)\gamma (C+DE)}\].

‘By substituting numerical values into this formula, we always obtain a fraction in which the numerator represents the piece value and the denominator represents the square value.

‘But here precisely is where our knowledge of the essence of the Professor’s system ends. He did not reveal to me the numerical values of the pieces and squares, and these were burned by him along with the blueprints of the automaton. If someone should ever manage to determine these values (of which, if I am not mistaken, the Queen was valued at 73, according to the Professor’s example), then by applying M. I. Yastrebov’s formula, one could always verify his mathematical foundations and conclusions.

‘Now regarding the construction of the mechanism. About this, only a little. I can report only that it was a complex system of calculating machines, capable of computing all the derivatives at any moment in the game, for any position. These calculating machines were controlled by two specialized keyboards, marked with numbers and the names of pieces and squares. I confess I understood and grasped little of the intricate system of levers, and besides, what interested me primarily was the system itself, not its mechanical implementation.

‘That is all I know, and everything I could convey I have presented in the same approximate outline as it was transmitted to me by the late M. I. Yastrebov.’”

In the Academy, in universities, in mathematical and technical institutes, the article created no sensation. In its headlong rush forward into the future, science took no notice of little kings and queens and the quaint, trivial laws of their humble domains.

But chess players breathed a sigh of relief. Chess was saved. The art had not fallen victim to the mathematical guillotine.

And their lives once again rolled on quietly and smoothly.

Price 45 kopecks

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