According to a number of publications, the world champion skillfully beat his opponent in an unusual party, in which the figures were replaced by alcohol capacities. We checked the reliability of such messages.
Typically, the participants of the unusual party are called the world champion in 1894-1921 Emanuel Lasker and the Hungarian Grossmaster Gez Marotzi, and the organizer is somewhat carried away by the businessman's chess. Instead of pawns and figures, either glasses or bottles of different volumes and with different alcoholic beverages were placed on the board. Under the terms of the party, the chess player who took the figure of the opponent had to drink the contents. The Lasker played the white on the third move allegedly sacrificed Fergy, who was a 200-gram bottle of whiskey. After her devastation, Marcius could not continue the struggle, and the victory went to Laskera.
It is not difficult to find publications on an unusual confrontation on social networks - numerous publics in VKontakte tell about the ingenuity of Laskera as thematicnot related to chess, but having more than a million subscribers (among them "5 interesting facts", "Leprosy", "History in photographs", "History of mankind" et al.). Similar posts were popular in Facebook, Livejournal, on Pikabu and other platforms. Mention of an unusual confrontation can be found in books like "1111 amazing facts that you did not know".
From any serious sources, we were able to find the mention of this story in book Chess historians Isaac and Vladimir Linders about the Neblast. The description of an unusual episode is placed in the “Curials” section, in the presentation of the lenders there are bottles with different drinks instead of figures, the queen was a “solid bottle of cognac”. The authors do not report from what source they learned about an unusual party between Lasker and Marci and whether this source was reliable.
In 2014, this episode Interested Historian of chess Edward Winter. As Winter found out, the publications about Alkoshahmat appeared in the 20th century. For example, the unusual confrontation of Lasker and Marotzi is mentioned in the book “History of Chess”, published in 1972: “They say that Lasker once won the party in“ Alcohol Chess ”, having fun at the very beginning of the game. Ferge contained about a quarter liter of cognac; The opponent who drunk this was immediately disabled. ” The author of the book cited this information with reference to B. H. Wood - founder Popular British magazine Chess.
In 1959, the pages of the same magazine appeared a retelling of the BBC radio program dedicated to chess, where they told the story of a caresser, which "may not be precisely reliable, but describes its character well." The author claims that once a rich “patron of chess” invited Lasker and Marocius to dinner and after a meal invited guests to play. The three of them went to the library, where they installed a huge chessboard with unusual figures on the floor. The pawns were performed by glasses with a liquor, and glasses with other drinks in the role of other figures, and their fortress corresponded to the strength of figures. Ferge, in turn, was a large bottle of vodka. The owner of the evening invited the guests to fight for a prize of £ 1000, putting one condition: the contents of the “taken” figure had to be drunk. The development of further events as a whole coincides with descriptions in later publications.
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According to Winter, for the first time about this story it became known even earlier, in the late 1930s. The probable primary source is a historian calls The column of the editor of the magazine Chess Review, published in the fall of 1938. In this note, the author talks about Lanka with the Belgian and then American chess player George Koltanovsky, “one of the most unreliable chess chronicles” according to Winter. In Koltanovsky’s version, some details were significantly different from later: he clarified that the action took place in Hungary, while arguing that the chess set was standard, and the glasses filled the cognac. After Maroti was forced to drink the contents of the Fersi, the game lasted four more strokes, while later it was alleged that he immediately abandoned further struggle.
Bruce Pandolfini - an American chess player, coach and writer, I agree with the conclusions of Winter, Spended A consultant in creating a novel, and then the mini-series The Queen’s Gambit. In 2009 Pandolfini He emphasizedThere are variations of popular history with the participation of different chess players, although Lasker and Marci are its most common characters. In the veracity of all these versions, the specialist seriously doubts, but writes about Koltanovsky that he "generally spoke an incredible many things."
Thus, the story of the party in alcoholic chess between Lasker and Marci has existed for several decades in the form of a kind of historical joke, presented in different editions in several versions. These versions differ in details: different types of drinks and containers, the shape of the chessboard, the circumstances of the game itself are mentioned. The chess historians could not find reliable evidence of that party, while they characterize the likely primary source as not the most reliable.
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