Chess: A Gentleman's Game?

In the golden age, Chess was widely accepted as a gentleman’s game. A game of honor and dignity for the noblemen of society. But for a gentleman’s game, chess competition can sure get ugly. In LA recently, two tournament players got into an argument over their game. Rather than doing the gentlemanly game and asking the tournament director to mediate their dispute, they took a different approach. They started jabbing each other with pens. Not a very respectable way of resolving their differences, but satisfying nonetheless. Ungentlemanly behavior is not a recent development, either. Sixteenth-century Ruy Lopez (of the famous Ruy Lopez opening) took a decidedly ungentlemanly approach to give himself the advantage in his games. As much as possible, he’d insist on playing outside with his opponents, where he’d position the board so that the sun was to his back, and directly in his opponent’s eyes. Gentlemanlike? No. Effective? Certainly.

The chess giants of the late 19th and early 20th century, too, had their fair share of erratic behavior. Alekhine (of the famous Alekhine’s gun setup, in which the queen is positioned behind two rooks so as to form a “gun” and shatter the enemy's defenses) once found himself in a losing position. After accepting his defeat, the noble Alekhine chose not to resign. Instead, he simply hurled his king across the room and walked out of the tournament hall. Nimzovich, the prodigious author of My System, too, found himself losing his tournament game. Nimzovich at least had the honor to resign his game like a true gentleman. But then he got up on the table, dropped to his knees and shouted “Must I lose against these idiots!”.

Modern day International Master Jeremy Silman has found himself playing against quite the gentlemen in his years playing chess. One of his opponents brought a coke bottle full of tequila to the board with him. When the game went south, he simply drank the bottle and moved his pieces around like a blubbering fool until he was checkmated. In a London tournament, Silman’s opponent found himself on the precipice of defeat. Did he resign? Well, sort of. He slowly pushed all the pieces off of the board and onto Silman’s lap and then, without saying a word, sauntered out of the tournament hall.

So, is chess a gentleman’s game? Well, it may have been played by noblemen and gentlemen for much of its history, but their behavior while playing was often anything but. Chess is a fierce, stressful fight, and often your opponent will snap after losing such a battle. I’ve never experienced such extreme ungentlemanly behavior first hand before, but I’m terribly excited for my first run in with it.