The Sham Sacrifice Donald Byrne was the king of 64-squares for more than a decade, beginning his reign after winning the 1953 US Open Championship and becoming an International Master later on. He was facing a 13-year-old cocky boy across the table on October 17, 1956 at the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York City. The outcome was almost foregone after the standard opening moves. The boy was darned lucky just to be having the experience of his lifetime playing an International Master. Donald was warming up on his tempo and would wrap up the game soon. The 11th move saw him make a minor mistake. The damage wasn’t much. But the boy had other ideas. In a brilliant sacrificial play, he martyrs his queen on move 17. Donald moves in with lightning speed capturing the queen, but hold on, the boy gets far too much material for it – a rook, two bishops, and a pawn. At the end, the boy’s pieces coordinate to force checkmate, while Donald’s queen sits, useless, on the other side of the board. Bobby Fischer had just become a legend and in the annals of Chess history this became the Game of The Century when the Sham Sacrifice became folklore. Looking at recent apparent hara-kiri of an immature political heir of a family whose business is ‘managing’ the country, I couldn’t help but recall this game of chess. The attention of the literati, social and traditional media and the intelligentsia is focused on a fatal interview conducted by a pompous journalist. Even the political opponents are busy using this show of stupidity as an example of poverty of leadership in a 130-year-old party. The discussion has been successfully deflected from the real issues of corruption from Commonwealth Games to Coal Block or helicopter deals and 3G in between. The old but canny party hasn’t yet declared its candidate frustrating the opponents without a target to aim their ammunition at. Are they gearing up to let the family being the king maker and like the last time when they fielded a respected economist to take on the ‘leadership’ blunting the opponent’s attacking moves, are they readying another national icon like figurehead to take on the mantle? Was this interview the sacrificing of the prince to protect the queen?
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 07:57:30 +0000
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