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Sibling rivalry is also a factor. William Zaszczurynski, who at 17 is already manager of the Chicago Chess Club, took up the game because his elder brother was playing it: "I couldn't beat him in wrestling, but with a little hard work I could get the better of him in chess." And among the relatively few American women who play chess (in Russia, where sex roles tend to be more elastic than in the U.S., considerably more women play), male-female rivalry emerges. Says Natalie Broughton, a Chicago suburban housewife: "My favorite gambit against male opponents is Sitzfleisch. If you sit long enough, staring and pondering, you don't have to have a fast mind. The other person will become so annoyed and tired that he finally slips."
"Psyching out" the opponent is at least as old as the 16th century Spanish cleric Ruy Lopez de Sigura, who advocated placing the chessboard so that it would reflect light into the opponent's eyes. Smoke blowing is probably almost as old. Finger drumming on the table is a despicable ploy, and as a distracting gambit it is forbidden in formal play. So are humming and singing. But there are subtler, quieter ways of psyching. Many players have been accused of trying to hypnotize opponents. Former World Champion Mikhail Tal has been credited with a "laserlike gaze," and Bobby Fischer with a "strange magnetic influence"—long before the ludicrous Russian charge last week that the Americans had installed brain-boggling electronics in Reykjavik.
Chess has equally noteworthy positive assets, which are not always realized. It is virtually the only game that is just as stimulating when played without money stakes as with them. It is truly egalitarian in that social status or wealth or brawn can confer no advantage. Neither can a high IQ. In fact, a New Jersey psychiatrist-chess player, Dr. Henry A. Davidson, has applied the theory of the idiot savant to chess and concludes that it would be possible for a blockhead to excel in the game, but adds tersely: "He usually doesn't."
Manhattan's Dr. Ariel Mengarini, a nonanalytic psychiatrist, asserts that the typical amateur chess player has had a formal education and has a job that does not come up to his intellectual capabilities. He needs the kind of mental workout that he gets in chess. Equally important, to Mengarini, is the struggle. "But the beauty of chess," he says, "is that the rules are clear-cut. If you win, no one can take away your victory. In life, most of your wins are not clear-cut. If you've lost, there's nothing to do but shake hands with your opponent. This is most refreshing compared with most human relationships, including the world of business and sexual relationships."