You may not be aware of the fact that the women’s world chess champion is now a 22-year-old Ukrainian, Mariya Muzychuk. A native of Stryi, in the western province of Lviv, Muzychuk won the title on April 5th, after defeating Russia’s Natalia Pogonina in a four-game match. The victory garnered Muzychuk the title of Grandmaster, the highest designation in the world of chess.
Muzychuk’s victory is consistent with Ukraine’s long tradition of excellent chess players. One of the world’s current best male players is Vasyl Ivanchuk, also a western Ukrainian. Ukraine also has a long tradition of excellent mathematicians. Small wonder, perhaps, that Ukraine boasts some of the world’s best IT specialists and hackers and is a leader in pirated technologies. When Ukraine’s economic growth resumes in 2016, keep your eye on the IT sector, which is likely to attract substantial foreign investment and serve as a motor for the emerging post-industrial Ukrainian economy.
But back to Muzychuk—and Putin.
Albert Silver of Chess News nicely described the atmosphere at the final game of the Muzychuk-Pogonina match:
In the last game of the match, Natalia Pogonina needed a win at all costs, and the question was whether Mrs. Comeback herself would be able to pull off a fourth miracle in the tournament. Unfortunately, the task was made all the harder as she had Black, and White only needed a draw, and Muzychuk pretty much shut down Natalia in the game. At the end, a new champion was crowned.
Pogonina certainly understood how desperate her situation was, and the opening had to have had silent cries of dismay echoing inside her head. Mariya Muzychuk’s decision to play the Scotch Four Knights caught her off guard, and possibly afraid of her preparation to boot, Pogonina opted for a strange sequence 5...Bc5 and then 6...Bb4, giving up a tempo in order to force Mariya out of whatever it was she had planned. It certainly worked, but at what cost?
The opening was completely in favor of White, and though she was never quite teetering on the edge of victory, nor was she ever in any kind of trouble.
Or was Silver really writing about Russia’s geopolitical chess player, Vladimir Putin?
Just look at poor Vlad. He needs a win at all costs, but the question is whether Russia’s Comeback Kid can pull off another miracle in the Donbas, where Ukraine needs a draw in order to win. Putin certainly seems to understand how desperate his situation is, and his many moves have produced silent cries of dismay in many heads. His invasion of the Crimea and the Donbas has certainly worked, but at what cost? And while Russia is never quite teetering on the edge of victory, Ukraine doesn’t seem to be in any kind of trouble.
I had written an article last summer about Putin and the war with Ukraine in which I described his predicament as resembling Zugzwang—a chess term denoting a condition in which any move a player makes worsens his position. My point was that Putin had boxed himself in by making the policy equivalent of several awful chess moves. Think of his Crimean invasion as a Rook for pawn sacrifice that did nothing to promote Russia’s interests. Think of the Donbas invasion as a Queen for pawn sacrifice that positively harmed Russia’s position. At the rate Putin is going, his side of the chess board will soon consist only of the King, who, to mix metaphors, will be shown to be quite naked.
What do smart chess players do when they know they’re losing? Well, they resign and ask for a rematch. And if they do get to play again, they avoid the mistakes that got them into trouble the first time. For Putin that would mean ending the bloodshed and rethinking the whole point of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A smart Putin would conclude that there are infinitely better, easier, cheaper, and less destructive ways of promoting pro-Russian tendencies in Ukraine than violence, war, and threats of nuclear Armageddon.
In contrast, a stupid Putin would lose his cool, smash the chess board, send the pieces flying—and start a massive war, as almost everyone expects him to do. With what result? Thousands of Russians and Ukrainians will die unnecessary deaths. And they will continue to do so until the Kremlin’s geopolitical tyro realizes that chess is best played with brains and not brawn.
