CHESS PRACTICE           Updated: November 2008   - JOHN E HAWKES' BLOG - John E Hawkes Chess Pages

GM Peter Svidler: A new Carl Schlechter

«Russian Grandmaster Peter Svidler at Home
At home he has real human twins:
Peter with a gift from chess fans
Peter Svidler - ©Photo: ChessBase.com»

«The Christos Kefalis'Blog
- Chess, Art & Philosophy -
"Carl Haffner love of a draw"»

                                    «Carl Schlechter in Cologne
                                    1911 - Schlechter vs Tarrasch»

                                                «Grandmaster Peter Svidler -
                                                An upward glance at the past»

A poem on the great Austrian master
by Sheenagh Pugh

STALEMATE
Carl Schlechter, 1874-1918

I want to stroll with Carl Schlechter
in nineteen-hundred, down a street of stone

the sun's turned to honey. From some window
a piano's playing slow, and Carl's sad eyes

kindle a little. I ask about his chess,
why he always offers a draw,

and he shrugs. White pigeons gurr
on the sills. "I hate that look in men's eyes

when they lose." I love him. We buy cherries
from a stall, morellos, dark, half-bitter,

and feed them to each other. I kiss him,
tasting them in his mouth. I want to tell him

"Carl, you die starving, at forty-four,
and you could be world champion. Play to win."

But then he wouldn't be who he is,
and I wouldn't come all the way

from the next century to hold hands
with the drawing master, watching

the light slant, hearing pigeons hush,
one by one, into sleep. Gentleman; gentle man.

«Carl Schlechter - Austrian
Master - ©Photo: Public domain»

Internal link:

   «Carl Haffner's love of a draw»

[This page has been created by John E Hawkes]