I met Jacqueline Piatigorsky at the 1965 Pacific Southwest Open in Santa Monica, California. She has just gotten back from the US Woman’s Chess Championship, where she had finished second. Everybody was coming up to her and congratulating her on finishing second.
I could see that she was politely thanking everybody who congratulated her for finishing second, but that she was not entirely happy with the enthusiasm with which people congratulated her on her second place finish.
So, I went up to her and I said something different. I said, “It is too bad that you could not have won it.”
She immediately brightened up. She said, “Yes. I could have won it. Let me show you how.”
She asked me to sit down at the chess board with her. She set up a position.
It was from her game with Ruth Herstein. The position was complex but she showed me one simple move that would have won the game immediately.
There was no doubt that the move she showed me would have won the game. Instead, she had played another move and lost.
That win would have given her 8 ½ – 1 ½ and she would have won the US Woman’s Championship with a half point over Gisela Gresser, who had finished with 8-2.
Unfortunately, that game has never been published. However, here is another game from the same tournament, in which she defeated 7-times US Woman’s Champion Mona May Karff.
[Event “US Woman’s Championship”]
[Site “Marshall Chess Club”]
[Date “1965.04.26”]
[White “Piatigorsky, Jacqueline”]
[Black “Karff, Mona May”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “E11”]
[PlyCount “81”]
- d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 Qe7 5. Nc3 c5 6. e3 O-O 7. Qc2 Nc6 8. Be2 d5 9. O-O cxd4 10. exd4 Rd8 11. a3 Bxc3 12. Bxc3 Ne4 13. Rfe1 f5 14. Bd3 Qf6 15. c5 Nxc3 16. Qxc3 a6 17. b4 Bd7 18. a4 Na7 19. Qb3 Nc6 20. Qb2 a5 21. b5 Nb4 22. Bf1 Rac8 23. Ne5 Qe7 24. Ra3 Rf8 25. Rc3 Be8 26. Rec1 Qc7 27. Qd2 Rf6 28. c6 b6 29. Rh3 Qe7 30. Rcc3 Rc7 31. Be2 Qd8 32. Rh4 Rf8 33. Rch3 g5 34. Rh6 Qe7 35. Rxh7 Qxh7 36. Rxh7 Rxh7 37. Qxg5+ Rg7 38. Qc1 Rc7 39. Qh6 Re7 40. Qc1 Rc7 41. Bf3 1-0
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Here, the game was adjourned but Black resigned without further play.
Black is in a virtual zugzwang. Nether rook can safely move. On any horizontal move by the rook on c7, the pawn on c6 pushes through to a queen. The black bishop also has no moves.
Just about the only move that does not lose immediately for Black is to move the knight to a2.
In that era, games were adjourned and masters who worked as seconds would analyze the games and find ways to win. No doubt they did find a win and Mona May Karff resigned for that reason.
It seems that the black knight can just keep moving back and forth between b4 and a2. What they probably found is that White wins after 41…Na2 32.Qh6 Re7 43. Nd7 Bxd7 44. cxd7 Rxd7 45. Qxe6+ Rff7 46. Bxd5
Her result in the 1965 US Woman’s Championship shows that she was a strong player, especially since she was 54 years old and the second oldest player in the tournament. She must have been a master when she was younger, in an era when there were very few woman chess masters. However, she played so rarely in tournaments that she is remembered today almost entirely for being a patron of the game. She is especially remembered for the 1961 Fischer-Reshevsky Match and its unfortunate end and for the First and the Second Piatigorsky Cup tournaments.
Jerry Hanken was working on a major article on Jacqueline Piatigorsky for Chess Life magazine at the time that he died on October 1, 2009. It is not known if Hanken left behind any notes.
Jacqueline Piatigorsky is still alive today at age 98. She was born Jacqueline Rebecca Louise de Rothschild on November 6, 1911 in Paris, France. She was a member of the Rothschild Banking Family, who owned Europe and who bought and sold kings the way that we buy and sell tickets to the Yankees Games.
Being born to great wealth had its disadvantages. In her memoir “Jump in the Waves”, she writes that she has no recollection of her parents as a child. In that era, royalty and members of the super-rich elite did not take care of their own children. Instead, the care was assigned to domestic servants. Jacqueline cannot remember her parents. She only remembers her nanny.
It was due to a tragic mistake that Jacqueline came to be born. Her mother wanted the nannies to be young, active women. Thus, a 19-year-old girl was assigned to take care of her next older brother. However, when that brother got sick, the nanny let it go for months without reporting it to the parents. When the parents finally found out, they called a doctor immediately. The doctor came and diagnosed it as appendicitis. It was decided to perform the operation there in Ferrieres, the palace where they lived, rather than go to a hospital. Due to a tragic error, the child died immediately after the operation. Jacqueline’s mother then declared that she would have another child to make up for the child she had just lost. Nine months later, Jacqueline was born.
This circumstance of her birth, which was often discussed in the family, deeply affected Jacqueline. Another problem was that each of the children of her parents was assigned a different nanny. The nannies did not get along with each other and, as a result, Jacqueline almost never got to see her remaining brother. Then, a younger sister was born, so now there were three nannies fighting each other. Finally, all the children were united together under just one nanny, and they all stayed together under that nanny, a Miss Swainston, until Jacqueline was 16 years old.
Jacqueline’s future husband, Gregor Piatigorsky, had the opposite background. While she grew up in great wealth, he grew up in great poverty. He found a way out of poverty by becoming the world’s greatest player of the cello.
His biography, “GRISHA: The Story of Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky”, ISBN 0976002302, describes his harrowing escape from the Soviet Union. Gregor escaped along with two other musicians, wading across a river with his cello held high over his head, while the border guards were shooting at them. When they finally reached what they thought was the safety of the other side, they were arrested in what was then Poland but is now part of the Ukraine. They were taken to a police official, who deemed them to be Soviet spies disguised as musicians and who ordered them sent back, where they faced a certain death.
When they arrived at the platform of the train station where they were to be taken back to the Soviet Union, they took out their instruments and started playing. A crowd gathered, no doubt believing that they were street beggars, and not famous and renowned concert performers. Due to the confusion created by the gathering crowd, they were able to jump on a train as it pulled out of the station and to escape from their captors. Soon, they made it to Lvov and not long thereafter to Warsaw and Berlin, where they were once again acclaimed as famous concert performers.
Although widely recognized as the world’s greatest string instrument player of any instrument, Gregor did not make that much money playing the cello. His wealth came primarily from his marriage to Jacqueline.
In her biography, Jacqueline describes how she came to be a chess player.
When she was six years old, she was in bed for several weeks with a serious illness. A nurse brought her something to keep her occupied. It was a chess set.
She played with the nurse until she got well. After the nurse left, she challenged her father to a game. She beat her father easily, and he never played her again.
Soon, Jacqueline taught her younger sister how to play. They played millions of games with each other, writes Jacqueline. (By the way, the sister, Bethsabée de Rothschild (1914-1999), was a patron of dance, but not of chess.)
When Jacqueline was a teenager, her father brought a big burley man to play her. This was her first real opponent, outside of her father and her sister. This time Jacqueline lost. She was upset but was determined to do better.
Although best known in the world of chess for the disastrous Fischer-Reshevsky Match and for the two Piatigorsky Cup tournaments, Jacqueline was also a big organizer and promoter of chess in the schools. She worked with crippled children, teaching them chess. She organized big annual events for school children, where as many as 1200 kids played. Unfortunately, she found that these events disintegrated and collapsed when she was not personally involved.
Her biography makes no mention of the 1961 Fischer-Reshevsky Match. Here is how she describes first how she learned to play chess and then how she came to organize the Two Piatigorsky Cup tournaments.
I started to feel better, but the days seemed longer and longer as I lay in bed. I twisted and turned and called the nurse, but there was nothing to do. Boredom was reaching a dangerous level when one morning a new nurse entered. “My name is Miss Coque,” she said, “tomorrow I will bring you something.”
“Oh, what?” I asked.
“You will see. It is a surprise. The only thing I can tell you is that with it you will never be bored again.”
A surprise for me! 1 looked at her, not knowing what she meant. That night I slept well. And the next morning, barely awake, I asked, “Where is Miss Coque?”
“It is too early,” I was told, “she will be in later.” So I waited. Every few minutes I asked, “Is Miss Coque here? When will she arrive?” Then she really did arrive. The night nurse greeted her, saying, “Jacqueline has been asking for you.” Miss Coque smiled and said nothing. I just looked at her and waited. She hung her coat, spoke to the night nurse, read some papers. I started to doubt that she really had something for me. But I thought it was nice to have her around anyhow. When finally we were alone she came to me, took a chair, and sat near the bed. Then she pulled out of her large pocketbook a small board. She opened a box containing little wooden pieces, placed them on the board and explained, “This is the king and this is the queen, the knight, the rook, the pawns. Look, this moves this way, that goes there. If you put this here it can take that one off.” And suddenly I found myself moving the pieces, capturing hers, putting them back so they faced each other equally. I played with Miss Coque all day. I could not part with my new game. She was having fun too, which made the game even more thrilling. We played for hours. And suddenly the days went by quickly. I was surprised when I was told one morning, “Today you will get up.” I had been in bed for several weeks and when I stood up my legs buckled under me. But soon strength came back and Miss Coque said, “You won’t need me anymore; you’re well now.” My stomach turned into an empty pit. “You can keep the chess set,” she went on, “it’s yours. Good-bye, dear, and good luck to you.” She left me with Nanny and soon I was thrown back into the old routine.
FROM WITHHOLDING TO COMPETING
Yes, the chess set was mine and I treasured it. But it lay dormant in its box. A new life was bubbling in me; I yearned to play, but there was no one to play with. One evening my father said, “I’ll play you a game.” I jumped up to get the set and set up the pieces. “I haven’t played for a long time,” he said, “but I’ll try.” After a couple of games he started playing slowly. It was his move and he was sitting and thinking. He didn’t seem able to move. I couldn’t understand. I was just pushing pieces and he was suffering. He tapped his fingers on the table, humming some monotonous little rhythm. “Well,” I said, “it’s your move.” I was getting annoyed. He waited still longer and finally moved. Although he had studied the position for such a long time, he left a knight where it could be taken. I grabbed the knight. “Oh, no! I didn’t see it,” he said, “I told you I hadn’t played in a long time. I can’t do it anymore.” He got up and left.
I had won. But my father had walked off. He’d turned away from chess, from me. I sat alone in front of the chess board, frustrated, wanting to call to him, “Come back! Play some more.” But he’d left.
Now chess had become more than a game, more than a companion. It had created an exchange with my father. We had actually competed, and I’d tasted a win. But more important even than the win was my feeling for chess: I loved the game, the pieces, how they moved, the challenge to find a solution to the infinite combinations. I had actually fallen in love.
The next day I asked my father to play but he wouldn’t. Of course I hadn’t liked the hours he seemed to take before making his move, but in spite of them I wanted to play. “No,” he answered, “I have no time.” But I kept on asking.
“I’m too old,” he said, “I can’t anymore.” So, finally, I understood that he wouldn’t play with me anymore and the pieces with their burning life went back into the box. But I couldn’t let the game die. What to do? It didn’t take me long to find a solution. I taught my four-year-old sister how chess pieces moved, and we played together-just the two of us. We didn’t know the existence of books on chess, nor did we know that chess could become a study, but we found combinations. We didn’t miss not knowing anyone else who played. We just played together-literally millions of games. Passionately involved, we played, fighting over blunders taken back. Being older, I had an edge over my sister and won more often than she did. The board and its pieces became part of our life, part of us. We kept discovering more combinations, but we played fast, without concentration or any thought to improving our game. Playing chess was our recreation, our pastime, our fun, and it became an important tool in our fierce competition. One day-I might have been in my teens-in Ferrieres during a weekend hunting party my father called me. “Go and get your chessboard,” he ordered, pointing at Jacques de Breteuil, one of my parents’ friends who spent most weekends in Ferrieres to join the hunting parties. “He wants to play with you.” My opponent was a huge man weighing several hundred pounds. He had thick hands, covered with fat, and his enormous belly made his arms seem short. But in spite of his size he wasn’t clumsy. His deep voice penetrated and he waddled around with a large voluptuous smile. As we sat down in the living room among all the other guests and faced each other across a small chessboard, I remained very silent. As it served to hide a little uneasiness, his smile now could almost be heard.
“She’s good,” said my father, pointing at me. “She’ll beat you.” And suddenly I felt worried. I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t talk. Why did he say that? I had never faced anyone but my sister. I was on the spot, flustered and annoyed. As the game progressed my position became more and more difficult. My opponent’s relief could be felt again through his smile. It was more reserved but soaked with a sadistic beam of triumph, like a baba bloated with rum.
I played on for a little while longer. Then I had to admit defeat. I had lost. My obese opponent got up and his smile flourished, accompanied by a faint cackle. My father ran up to me, casting a condescending glance. I said good-bye and left the room. I remained quiet and polite. But although I may have looked indifferent, inside I was devastated. I hadn’t lived up to my father’s proclamation. I had disappointed him. His daughter was not a genius. But what, I asked myself, gave him the right to make such a presentation? I was ashamed and angry, ashamed of myself, ashamed to face him. Deep in me a growing force needed revenge. I wanted to crush. the world. “Some day,” I murmured, “some day I’ll show them!”
==========================================
At the time I was involved in chess tournaments, Grisha said, “You must do something big-organize an international tournament. It should be called the Piatigorsky Cup. We must get Bobby Fischer and, from Russia, the world champion, Tigran Petrosian.” Yes, Grisha was always thinking big. Of course, I knew that would be very costly, but I thought it was a really good idea. There was no important tournament held in the United States. The last international tournament had been held in Dallas in 1957, and the world champion had not been present. We created a chess foundation, not only to promote the Piatigorsky Cup, but to encourage chess in public schools and for underprivileged, crippled, and deaf children.
At one time we were teaching chess in every crippled children’s school in and around Los Angeles. I organized a program to teach in schools for deaf children. I even learned a little sign language so as to be able to communicate with them myself. But those schools resented our interference, and when we got there they made it a point to have the children out at a ball game. Although the children loved the game, we were obliged to give up. I organized a club for deaf people, which was successful as long as I was running it, but when I had to go out of town for a while, I found the club had disintegrated so I discontinued it. I worked with the youth center of the public schools to promote tournaments, one of which was called the Tournament of Champions. The idea was to encourage schools to hold a chess tournament during the year. The winner of each school tournament would represent his school in the Tournament of Champions. Another effort was the Christmas tournament held during Christmas vacation. When we started, about 125 children entered. We kept building it up every year until we had over 1,200 children. At that point I thought that, as the tournament was so well liked, the schools’ youth center could continue it. I supplied them with the same amount of funds and the same people who had helped me to work for them, and I withdrew. Each year there were fewer entries, until it almost reached the point at which we had started. It was discouraging to have to discontinue the tournament.
The First Piatigorsky Cup, held in 1963, was an international grand master event comprising eight players: from the Soviet Union, Keres and the world champion Petrosian; Najdorf and Panno from Argentina; Gligoric from Yugoslavia; Olafsson from Iceland; and Benko and Reshevsky from the United States.
Though Bobby Fischer was not yet world champion, he was a famous star and probably the greatest player. Naturally, we tried to get him. He wouldn’t appear under the same conditions as the other players-he wanted more money. I felt that complying with his demands would lower the standard of the tournament. I was anxious to hold a genuinely high quality event. I was criticized from all sides. People said, “The United States has to be represented by the best player”; “We cannot hold the tournament without Fischer”; “He is a genius; one has to cater to him.” Even my husband disapproved of my views. But I held on to what I believed.
Until then, the only way the public could follow the games was by setting up magnetic boards and having youngsters run back and forth, moving pieces on the board to adjust to each new position. It was cumbersome. So I invented a new system with overhead projectors and electric clocks so the public could not only follow the games comfortably, but also the time control.
Three years later, in the Second Piatigorsky Cup, Fischer played under the same conditions as everyone else. I think I was the first person ever to stand up to him.
The invitations to the Second Piatigorsky Cup went out. Everyone accepted except the Russians. Months went by. We started sending telegrams: silence from Russia. Six months went by before the phone rang from the Soviet Embassy, asking for my husband. As I happened to answer the phone, I could not resist and said, “In Russia they are really not polite.”
“What do you mean?” said an indignant voice.
“We invited Petrosian and Keres to play in the Second Cup. We have written and wired and we never got an answer. That is rude.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said the voice on the telephone, “you will hear from them right away.”
A few days later a telegram came: “Thank you for your invitation.” We waited. Another two weeks went by. Another telegram came that said, “Sorry, we are not free on that date.” Within the hour I invited two other players. Finally we had eight players. We proceeded with the arrangements-renting the hall, making room reservations, printing the programs, and many other commitments.
A few weeks before the tournament, Grisha went to Moscow as a member of the jury for the Tchaikovsky Competition. After he had been there a few days I received a telegram: “Could you still arrange to include Petrosian and Keres in the tournament?” I was stunned. Was he pressured? Did he want me to say yes? Would he be in any danger if we refused? Prize money would be doubled, rental of the hall should be extended if possible, programs reprinted, publicity changed. I tried to stall, answering that it would be extremely difficult to incorporate Petrosian and Keres and reorganize the tournament, but that I would try. A second telegram came, more insistent, so I finally accepted. During Grisha’s stay the players themselves had come to him, so very unhappy, begging him to help them get into the tournament. As I said, it was difficult and very costly; nevertheless, we rearranged the tournament to adjust to ten players. But when I. Kashdan, the chess editor of the Los Angeles Times and the director of the tournament, went to meet them on arrival, they weren’t on the plane. No message, no explanation. They missed the introductory meeting night and they were not there for the draw. Finally, we heard that their visas had not come through but that they would arrive in time to play. And they did.
Sam Sloan
November 18, 2009