ANew York Times, New York, New York, Saturday, July 22, 1972 - Page 29
At U. N., Blitz Doesn't Always Mean War by Israel Shenker
United Nations, N.Y., July 21—The United Nations plays an important role on the international chessboard, and international chessboards play an important role at the United Nations.
Every lunch hour the boards are set up in the ground-floor lounge of the Secretariat Building here. Then the members of the United Nations Chess Club—a voluntary nonagency with no permanent members, no veto rights, and precious few obligations to anything except the clock that will summon them back to their jobs upstairs—meet to test strategy and tactics.
Lev Maksimov of the Soviet Union, who works in the United Nations information service, sat brooding at Board 1 today, playing black. Opposite him sat Abelardo Perez of Spain, who works in the translation service. They were playing blitz chess, in which each player gets five minutes in which to complete all his moves. If the game has not ended by the time one player has used his five minutes, he loses.
“I'm trying to play like Spassky,” Mr. Maksimov said, “although nobody wants to play like Spassky after yesterday's game.” He hurried over his words, as if to save time.
Studied Neutrality
Boris Spassky is the world's champion, who is defending his title against Bobby Fischer and who blundered into defeat in yesterday's game. At the United Nations, each move by the Russian champion and the American challenger is carefully analyzed, usually with studied neutrality.
Suddenly, Mr. Perez moved a pawn onto the seventh rank—immobilizing Mr. Maksimov's king. Mr. Maksimov sat back startled. “Spassky blunders again?” chortled a spectator, throwing neutrality to the winds, and, indeed, Mr. Maksimov's fate was sealed.
“He has a better reaction than me,” the loser said, referring to Mr. Perez. “He's younger.” Mr. Maksimov is 44, and Mr. Perez is 30.
“No matter how good you play strategically, it is easy to make a tactical blunder,” Mr. Maksimov said.
Likened to U.N.
“Chess can be scientific and technical, and suddenly you make a tremendous blunder, just like the U.N.” he said. “Happily the U.N. rarely blunders—it's a very steady, conservative player, good without being too brilliant. When you are too brilliant, you can make big blunders.”
“The U.N. is like an academic player. It will always be ready for a draw instead of pushing the game to a finish.
Caption: Lev Maksimov, Soviet Union, stops his clock as Abelardo Perez, Spain, reaches to make his move in blitz chess game at the United Nations chess club, while kibitzers struggle to remain neutral.
