Hope you had a good weekend! — Dan

On July 11, 1972, American chess player Bobby Fischer faced off against the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky in the finals of the World Chess Championship. Spassky was the defending champion, having won the title in 1969 (at the time, the tournament was held every three years). The Soviets had held the title for 24 years, a stain against the United States and its efforts in the Cold War. Fischer, the world’s top-ranked player at the time, was America’s best hope to dethrone Spassky (#2) and the Soviets. The match — which consisted of 21 games and went through August 31 — was dubbed the “Match of the Century” due to the geopolitical undertones. Fischer won, earning glory for the United States and about $78,000 (just under $600k in today’s dollars) for himself; Spassky’s second place purse of about $47,000 (about $360k) was hardly consolation, albeit a nice payday.

The tension doesn’t get much higher than that. Yes, the world was watching, and yes, the backdrop of the threat of nuclear war was definitely cause for concern. And yet, despite the politics of the time, neither player’s life was on the line during this match. Chess, rarely, is played for blood.

But not never, as Ossip Bernstein could attest.

Bernstein was born to Jewish parents living in the Russian Empire in 1882, ultimately earning a law degree in 1906. While studying law, he also studied up on chess, becoming a dominant player by his early 20s. As Chess.com notes, at age 19, he “almost earned the title of Master in his first tournament, finishing second in the Hanover Hauptturnier in 1901. A year later, he did obtain the title, and from then on, his rise to the top was incredible.” He was one of top ranked players in the world by his 25th birthday, but spent most of his time working as a lawyer and building his wealth. Nevertheless, when he played chess, he often won, and built a name for himself in the sport.

Unfortunately for Bernstein, being a wealthy lawyer in Russia in 1917 wasn’t actually a good thing. When the Bolshevik Revolution began, he was seen as a “counterrevolutionary” and arrested by the Bolshevik secret police on charges of conspiring with bankers — his clients — and, of course, convicted. This was a capital crime at the time, an in 1918, Bernstein was sentenced to execution by firing squad. But fate stepped in.

As History Collection recounts, “as the firing squad lined up to end Bernstein’s life, a superior officer asked to see the list of prisoners’ names. He recognized Bernstein as a great chess master of the previous decade.” The officer, a fan of the game, did not want to rob the world of such a great chess mind. But there could be many Ossip Bernsteins out there, so the officer needed a way to verify that this Bernstein was, indeed, the famed chess player. And the easiest way to do that? In a 1963 tribute to Bernstein in Chess Review, fellow chess grandmaster Edward Lasker shared the following, via the above-linked Chess-dot-com story: “[The officer] asked [Bernstein] whether he was the famous chess master. Not satisfied with Bernstein's affirmative reply, he made him play a game with him; and, when Bernstein won in short order, he had him and the others in the group led back to prison and later released.”

Bernstein probably never played another game of chess with such high stakes. (How could he have?) His life, however, was a series of ups and downs. After leaving Russia, he moved to France, where he amassed another fortune in the 1920s, only to lose it in the Great Depression. He rebounded toward the end of the 1930s, only to lose everything again when the Nazis invaded France, causing him to flee to Barcelona. But he survived. When the International Chess Federation announced its inaugural group of those designated International Grandmaster in 1950, Bernstein was on the list. He ultimately passed away in 1962 at the age of 80.

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Today’s Bonus fact: A chess match ends when one player places the opponent’s king in peril of being captured and there’s no legal move available to remove that threat. That’s called “checkmate.” But you won’t see many of those in competitive play. As Chessable notes, “contrary to what the general public may believe, the vast majority of decisive chess games are finished long before a checkmate appears. Most players resign when they know their position is hopeless. It is considered an insult to play on when the opponent has a large advantage and it is a waste of energy too.” And of course, high-level players tend to abide by this norm. As a result, the first and last time (to date) a World Chess Championship match ended in a checkmate was nearly a century ago, in 1929.

From the Archives: Held in Check: Another way chess saved lives.

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And thanks! — Dan