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No blare of trumpets this time.  Instead, a dread roll of drums before an execution.  Or, more accurately, an executioner’s muffled step in slippered feet along an underground hallway of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison as he puts a bullet in to the base of a victim’s skull from behind.  Botvinnik-Bronstein (Moscow, 1951; Game 23) is certainly one of the most controversial resignations in the history of chess – the greatest of all resignations in category eight:  “I’m Resigning Because I Don’t Want My Liver Ripped Out.”

     The 1951 world championship match between Mikhail M. (note this initial) Botvinnik and David Bronstein was a battle between approved New Soviet Man Botvinnik and unapproved public Jew Bronstein.

     In 1948, when Golda Meir opened Israel’s embassy in Moscow, she was met by a modest display of Jewish enthusiasm, a peaceful but spontaneous demonstration.  Stalin went into a rage, and there began one of his last reigns of terror against what became known as “rootless cosmopolitans.”  “To be Jewish,” historian Paul Johnson has written of the Soviet Union in the late 1940s and early 1950s, “was to expect arrest and death at any moment.”  Jewish doctors attached to the Kremlin were arrested, and Stalin shouted at his security chief, “Beat, beat and beat again!” to obtain ritual confessions.

      Now, Botvinnik’s middle initial “M” was never spelled out in Stalin-era publications, but it stood for “Moiseyevich.”  Botvinnik was, then, an approved, non-public Jew.  But Bronstein?  Not only was he a public Jew, he was the second cousin – as stupefyingly bad luck would have it – of Stalin’s ultimate hate object, Leon Trotsky, whose real name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein.

     And so, after 22 games in their 1951 match, Bronstein led Botvinnik, 11 ½ - 10 ½.  He had been growing obviously stronger as the match progressed, but in game 23, to use GM Keene’s phrase, he “virtually committed suicide in a drawn ending.”  Then came the following position after 57. Bf4-g5:

Botvinnik - Bronstein, 
World Championship Match, 1951 (Game 23).

     A pawn up, Black resigns.  Justifiably, in purely chessic terms?  The consensus is that White has a win, though so far as I know, the position has never been run through a suitably powerful computer for exhaustive analysis.  One winning line given by Vasily Smyslov is 57. ... Nc6  58. Bxd5 Nd6  59. Bf3 Kf5 (there are other moves for Black)  60. Bc1 b5  61. Bxc6 bxc6  62. a5. 

      If Black varies in the above with 59. ... b5, a Russian analysis gives 60. Bf4 Nf5  61. Bxc6 bxc6  62. a5 Ne7  63. a6 Nd5+  64. Kb3 Kf5  65. a7 Nb6  66. d5! cxd5  67. Be3 Na8  68. Kb4 Ke4  69. Bd2 d4  70. Kxb5 Kd5  71. Ba5 d3  72. Bb4!, when White wins.  A classic illustration of the power of the Bishop over the Knight.  But in this line, English master Gerald Abrahams suggested in The Chess Mind that Black could hold with 71. ... Kd6  72. Ka6? Kc6  73. Bd8 d3  74. Ba5 d2  75. Bxd2 Nc7+  76. Ka5 Kb7  77. Be3 Nd5  78. Bc2 Nf4  79. Kb5 Ng2, followed by ... Nxh4.

      Larry Evans, however, scotched Abrahams’ line by pointing out that after 71. ... Kd6, White could pose “an insoluble dilemma” with 72. Kc4! Kc6 (futile are 72. ... d3  73. Kxd3 Kd5  74. Bd8 and 72. ... Ke5  73. Kc5, followed by Kc6 and Kb7)  73. Kxd4 Kb7  74. Ke5 Kxa7  75. Kf5 Kb7  76. Kg5 Nc7  77. Bxc7 Kxc7  78. Kxh5 Kd7  79. Kg6 Ke7  80. Kg7, when he wins, as Evans wrote, “by a hair.”

     In the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union of 1983, Bronstein wrote, “To resign an almost drawn position, and after 45 minutes’ thought, was pointless.”  Later, he claimed that Soviet officials ordered him not to win the match.  In Dmitry Plisetsky and Sergey Voronkov’s post-Soviet work, Russians Versus Fischer, there is evidence that as early as 1960 Bronstein made the claim of having to throw the match.   Linares organizer Luis Rentero is quoted in that work as saying, “Fischer told me how he lost to Spassky in Argentina [Mar del Plata, 1960].  After the game he went to his room and started crying.  Bronstein dropped in and said, ‘Why are you crying?  Don’t cry.  Just because of one game?  I was made to lose a world championship match to Botvinnik, and yet I didn’t cry.”

     Moscow didn’t believe in tears.

Please everyone:  a blare of trumpets, a roll of drums, and the Old Watermelon cheer!  Our second most famous resignation occurred in a drawn position.  At the time, humans wept, machines clacked, and Garry Kasparov smoked so much that he looked like a car exhaust pipe attached to an engine needing a valve job.

     The story begins in Philadelphia in February 1996, when Kasparov easily defeated IBM’s Deep Blue, +3 –1 =2.  Never one to miss a chance at a further big payday and, perhaps, an opportunity to humiliate a supposedly unfeeling computer, Kasparov challenged Deep Blue to a second match.  After all, he lost game one of the first match, won the second, drew the third and fourth, and only managed to pull away in games five and six.  And, too, Deep Blue’s handlers would be fielding a more formidable opponent the next time around.  So a rematch would have credibility.

      Deep Blue-Kasparov II took place in New York in September 1997.  Kasparov’s 10-ply opponent of 1996 was replaced by a 12-ply (searching 12 half moves) monster that could calculate 200 million moves a second with its Power Two Super Chip.  Kasparov claimed to be defending the human race, and the human race took notice of its champion.  In the final hour of the last game in the match, the official website received 22 million hits or 10 million more than the entire Atlanta Olympics.  IBM received, as these publicity gimmicks get calculated, $50 million dollars in publicity from the match.

      Kasparov, of course, lost the final game and the match, +1 –2 =4.  After playing beautifully and scoring a full point in game one, Kasparov reached this position on the move in game two:

Deep Blue - GM Garry Kasparov, 
New York, 1997. (Game 2)
     

     Most human-race units probably calculated that 1. ... Qxc6 would lose after 2. dxc6 Rc8  3. Ra7+ Rc7  4. Ra8, when Black is, as GM Larry Evans wrote, “hogtied.”  Instead, the human race, filled with Lasker-like spunk and spirit, was analyzing 1. ... Qe3! and where it might lead.  But Kasparov, in what GM Evans called a “failure of will,” resigned the game.

      Why?  Because Kasparov was tired and because he was not filled with Lasker-like spunk and spirit.  Category five in Chess Beat 4.1:  “I’m Resigning Because I’m Not Emanuel Lasker.”  

     The immediate reason for rejecting 1. ... Qe3! was 2. Qxd6 Qxe4  3. Ra7+ Kg8  4. Qxb8+ Kh7  5. Ra1 Qf4+  6. Kg1 Qe3+  7. Kh1, when White’s King would escape the perpetual.  Yet Kasparov had nothing to lose by first playing 1. ... Qe3! and then, as GM Evans so cannily observed, “taking a long look at the position.”  He might have found the saving resource 2. Qxd6 Re8!!, leading to a draw after, say, 3. Bf3 Qc1+  4. Kf2 Qd2+  5. Be2 Qf4+  6. Ke1 Qc1+  7. Bd1 Qxc3+!  8. Kf1 Qc1!.

      “I was surprised by the second game,” Kasparov later stated.  “It had a profound impact on my psychology.”  It may also have written the footnote that will later be Kasparov’s place in the history books.  “[D]espite all his formidable achievements,” writes GM Evans, “he might be remembered 100 years from now solely as the strongest player who ever lost to a computer.”

Hail, Fischer!  Hail, Caesar!  (In that order, one hastens to add.)

     The entire civilized world followed Deep Blue-Kasparov II.  The entire world followed Fischer-Spassky I in Reykjavik.  Hundreds of millions of people know the name of Garry Kasparov.  Billions know the name of Bobby Fischer.  Kasparov is the greatest ever.  Fischer is the strongest ever.  Kasparov is No. 2 in the millennium.  Fischer is No. 1.

     So, too, with resignations.  Kasparov finishes second, Fischer first.  Though, of course, Fischer did not do the resigning.  His opponent, Boris Spassky, did.  On September 1, 1972 – 33 years to the day after another famous September 1^st – at 12:50 p.m., by telephone, Spassky said No Mas!, the ultimate category one resignation:

GM Boris Spassky - GM Robert Fischer, 
 Reykjavik, 1972. (Game 21)
 

       Spassky sealed the move 41. Be6-d7? (see the above position) rather than the more stubborn 41. Kh3!, when he would have had drawing chances, though Bobby with a friendly laugh told Spassky at the final banquet, “You’da lost no matter what you sealed.”

      If Bobby said so, then bet that 41. Kh3! also loses.  For we know that he analyzed the adjourned position furiously, continuing to work out lines even after hearing that Spassky had resigned.  As he told his second GM William Lombardy, “How do I know it’s not a trick to make me stop workin’ so he’ll win?  Tell Schmid [GM Lothar Schmid – chief match arbiter] I demand to see Spassky’s resignation in writing!”  Fischer’s win would not have been easy.   As GM Evans and Ken Smith wrote in their yet-to-be-superseded book on the match, Chess World Championship 1972:  Fischer vs. Spassky:  “A much sturdier defensive try is 41. Kh3! Rxf2 (41. ... Kg5  42. f3!)  42. a5 Rf1! (42. ... Ra2  43. a6! Rxa6  44. Kh4 holds)  43. a6 Rh1+  44. Kg2 Ra1  45. Bc4 Kxf5  46. b4 Ke5  47. b5 Kd6  48. b6 Kc6  49. b7 Kc7 where Black uses his King to blockade the passed Pawns while his Rook aids the advance of the K-side Pawns.  But there are many problems and it would have been interesting to see this line tried.”

     One theory is that Spassky played 41. Bd7? to end the agony.  Wrong.  Although his resignation after sealing a mistake was certainly an example of how the thought of further pain overcomes all thoughts of gain, the sealed move itself was undoubtedly an honest error.  He did not want to leave Reykjavik with a defeat.

    By one account about what happened after the playing session, Spassky lay in bed wide awake at about 3 a.m., the following Friday morning of September 1.  He regarded his sealed move as a careless flub and had to decide whether he would go down fighting in the playing hall while an enormous crowd cheered or tender his resignation to the chief arbiter.  He chose the latter course.

      Bobby later told friends, “I’m surprised at Spassky giving up that easy!  There was still plenty of play in that position – these things should be played out!”  Still, Black had a clear winning plan as outlined by GM Evans and Smith:  After 41. Bd7? Kg4, “the winning plan is to force the Bishop to take the h1-a8 or f1-a6 diagonal, relinquishing hold of the f-pawn and h-pawn.  Black would then systematically advance his f-pawn and h-pawn until White is forced to sacrifice his Bishop:  e. g., 42. Bc6 h4  43. Bf3+ Kxf5  44. Bc6 Kg4  45. Bf3+ Kf4  46. Bc6 Rc2  47. Bd5 Rc3, taking control of f3 and h3.”

     One wants to write a book titled One Day That Shook the World, trumping John Reed’s Ten Days.   One wants to write that the all-time, number one chess resignation moved the planet.  And, to be sure, Soviet GM Yuri Averbakh could not stop himself from worrying out loud, “At home they don’t understand.  They think it means there’s something wrong with our culture.”  Bobby himself talked up his victory, “I had to beat the Soviet system .... now they’re in trouble.  Ha!  Ha!  This one thing, me winning the championship, did them more damage than everything they did to me in the last fourteen years.  They’re demolished!” 

     Yet, yet ....  the majestic rotation of planet Earth on its axis continued unperturbed after Spassky’s resignation, and the Great Game between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for several thousand more moves.  The latter did not resign its lost position – an uneasy art indeed! – until Christmas Day, December 25, 1991.