I live a pretty insulated life, I guess. In reviewing the month's worth of personal email that accumulated while I was gone (the Neomail script works fine from the store, BTW), I ran across a note from a complete stranger, informing me of the death of Edmar Mednis a couple of weeks ago. The stranger was, apparently, a friend of the family and was simply passing along news that would otherwise cause hardly a ripple in the great scheme of things.
A web search led to the on-line obituary page of the Los Angeles Times, which noted that Mednis was 64 and had died of complications related to pneumonia.
Mednis was a chess grandmaster, and was known for having beaten Bobby Fischer when the latter was at the height of his powers; the Times says he was the first to beat Fischer in a U.S. Championship tournament. It doesn't really matter; Mednis was a strong player and wrote clearly about the game for us amateurs. One of his books was titled How to Beat Bobby Fischer, wouldn't you know, and it's quite readable.
What did Mednis mean to me? Well...
I forget the exact venue, except to say it was a room somewhere in one of the ancient dormitories at my alma mater, the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Somewhere in G Quad, or maybe H. It's junior year. It's Wednesday night, April 4, 1973, and don't ask me how, but I end up playing one of (I think) 40 boards against Edmar Mednis in what's called a "simultaneous exhibition."
As the name implies, a "simul," as it's called for short, is an event in which a strong player of Mednis' caliber plays against several opponents - typically 30 or more - at the same time, physically moving from board to board (said boards arranged to make such movement efficient) to consider the position and make the next move. Typically, the amateur particpants in the simul get creamed, with one or two exceptions who manage a draw or a rare win, and this event was no exception.
At the time the following game was played, it had been less than a year since Bobby Fischer beat Boris Spassky in Reykjavic, Iceland, and the country was in the midst of the so-called "Fischer boom." Lots of people had started playing chess, just the same way as a lot of girls will start skating on ice this year in the wake of Sarah Hughes' gold-medal performance at the Salt Lake City Olympics.
I remember that during the simul, there was concern that Mednis might have to cut short his exhibition in order to catch the last LIRR train out of the Stony Brook station headed back toward New York. In those days, you see, chess grandmasters got around using public mass transportation; it's only been relatively recently that a select few at the top of the calling can roll around in chauffeured limousines.
Anyway, when I heard the buzz, I approached the organizers and volunteered to drive Mednis back to Queens, if that would help. My offer was accepted.
The exhibition proceeded to its inevitable conclusion (Mednis victorious against nearly everyone in the room, except for me and one other), and as a pleasant followup to my draw and autographed scoresheet, I got to spend a little over an hour driving the soft-spoken, bespectacled Grandmaster home to his apartment in Elmhurst.
I met GM Mednis again almost exactly 13 years later, on April 9, 1986, when he visited the Jacksonville Chess Club. I recall deliberately not playing in the simul the club had arranged, but I don't recall why. Perhaps I did not want to risk my even score?
* * *[Event "Simul"]
[Site "SUNY at Stony Brook"]
[Date "1973.04.04"]
[White "Mednis, Edmar"]
[Black "AlexPGP"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 d6 4.Nf3 Nxe4 5.d4 Bf5 6.Bd3 d5 7.O-O Be7 8.Re1 O-O 9.c4 c6
{Perhaps 9...Bb4 would be better here.}
10.Qb3 Qb6
{Maybe 10...Nbd7.}
11.Qxb6 axb6 12.a3
{A possibility is 12.cd5 cd5 13.Nc3 Bb4 14.Ng5 Nc6 15.Nge4 (The move 12. axb4 is out of the question because of 12...Rxa1. White would move the Rook, allowing the Rook on f8 time to move to e8.)}
12...Bf6
{Perhaps 12...Bb4 is a possibility.}
13.Nc3 Nd6 14.Bxf5
{An interesting idea here is 14.Bf4 and if 14...Bxd3 15.Bxd6}
14...Nxf5 15.cxd5 cxd5
{I vaguely remember considering 15...Nxd4 with 16.Nxd4 Bxd4 17.d6 Nd7 18.Re7 Re8 to follow, and that pawn-on-the-sixth and rook-on-the-seventh just stuck in my craw. The text loses a pawn with no compensation.}
16.Nxd5 Nd7 17.Nxf6+ Nxf6 18.Bd2 Rad8 19.Bc3 Rfe8 20.g3 Nd5
{Blockade that pawn!}
21.Bd2 f6 22.Kf1 Nc7 23.Rxe8+ Rxe8 24.Rc1 Nb5 25.Bc3
{Maybe 25.Rc4 would've been better.}
25...Rc8
{Pins the Bishop, nullifying its defense of the pawn on d4.}
26.a4 Nbxd4
{I get my pawn back.}
27.Nxd4 Nxd4 28.Rd1 Ne6 29.Rd7 Nc5 30.Rd4 Ne6 1/2-1/2
Cheers...
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