DARK SQUARES

Mastering the game—and more.

Author Rensch, international chess master, chess broadcaster, and chess commentator reminds readers that chess is a worldwide obsession—not unlike soccer. It’s also a complex passion that requires intense study. Readers awaiting the delights of the Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit (which duly appear) will not regret the wait, as Rensch begins with his childhood. He was raised in a religious cult. Although it lacked lurid qualities, its members lived under oppressive leaders. When in 1995 a group of boys interested in chess won local contests, the cult leader decided that chess fit perfectly with his teachings and aggressively encouraged it. Within a few years, the team, with Rensch the most successful member, was winning national contests and making headlines. Rensch was separated from his parents (a feature of the cult), and his isolated adolescence was dominated not just by chess but by alcohol and drugs. Rensch detours regularly to deliver a history of chess and the contemporary game largely controlled (i.e., financed) by the USSR until the 1990s, when even celebrity grandmasters barely earned travel expenses. Then came computers, the internet, and more media attention, which produced bigger prizes, plus the rise of cell phones, which facilitated cheating. Readers will sympathize with the author’s struggles but likely perk up when in 2008 he encounters two entrepreneurs operating an early internet chess site whose knowledge of serious competitive chess remained at the amateur level. He persuaded them to add features, programs, competitions, and the technology that ultimately promoted chess.com to its dominant position. During these years, the author writes of victories in his personal life, too, overcoming marital problems and escaping the influence of the cult.

A chess professional’s winning memoir.