Classic Audiobook Collection - The 64-Square Madhouse by Fritz Leiber ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

The 64-Square Madhouse by Fritz Leiber audiobook. Genre: scifi At an international Grand Master chess tournament, a newcomer arrives that does not eat, sleep, or feel nerves: a humming, ozone-scented machine built to play chess at the highest level. Reporter Sandra Lea Grayling has come to cover the event, expecting colorful egos and quiet battles across the board. Instead, she finds herself at the center of a contest that feels like a preview of the future. As the machine is paired against celebrated human masters, Sandra learns the brutal etiquette of tournament play, the private superstitions and rivalries of the competitors, and the subtle psychological warfare that can matter as much as any opening book. The machine calculates with relentless speed, yet it is not invincible, and each game raises unsettling questions: What, exactly, is genius - inspiration, experience, intuition, or raw computation? And what happens when a thinking tool begins to change under pressure, adapting to the tricks and feints of the people who want to prove it can never truly understand? Fritz Leiber turns the 64 squares into a tense arena where pride, obsession, and technology collide. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:21:21) Chapter 02 (00:38:48) Chapter 03 (01:01:51) Chapter 04 (01:20:15) Chapter 05 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

V-64 Square Madhouse by Fritz-Liber Part 1 Silently so is not to shock anyone with illusions about well-dressed young women. Sandra Lee Grayling cursed the day she had persuaded the Chicago Space Mirror that there would be all sorts of human interest stories to be picked up at the first international Grand Master Chess Tournament in which an electronic computing machine was entered. Not that there weren't enough humans around. It was the interest that was in doubt.

The large hall was crammed with energetic, dark-suited men, of whom a disproportionately large number were bald, war-glasses, were faintly untidy, and indefinably shabby, had Slavic or Scandinavian features, and talked foreign languages. They yacked interminably. The only ones who didn't were scurrying individuals with the eager zombie look of officials. Chess sets were everywhere, big ones on tables, still bigger diagram-type electric ones on walls,

small pekin sets dragged from side pockets and manipulated rapidly as part of the conversational ritual, and still smaller folding sets in which the pieces were the tiny magnetized discs used for playing in free-fall. There were signs featuring largely mysterious. combinations of letters. F-I-D-E, W-B-M, U-S-C-F, U-S-S-S-S-R, and U-N-E-S-C-O. Sandra felt fairly sure about the last three. The many clocks, bedside table-size, would have struck a familiar note except that they

had little red flags and wheels sprinkled over their faces. and they were all in pairs two clocks to a case that siamese twin clocks should be essential to a chess tournament struck sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance her last assignment had been to interview the pilot pair riding the first american manned chircombe luna satellite and the five alternate pairs who hadn't made the flight this tournament hall seemed to sandra much further out of the This tournament hall seemed to Sandra much further out of the world. Overheard scraps of conversation in reasonably intelligible English were not particularly helpful. Samples. They say the machine has been programmed to play nothing but pure Barzac system and Indian defenses, and the dragon formation if anyone pushes the king pawn.

Ha, in that case! The Russians have come with tin-trunk-funk-farmes. of prepared variations, and they'll gang up on the machine at adjournments. What can one New Jersey computer do against four Russian grandmasters?" I heard the Russians have been programmed, with hypnotic cramming and somnobrieving, Vot Binnick had a nervous breakdown. Why the machine hasn't even a hop-turner or an intercollegiate one. It'll over its head be playing.

Yes, but maybe like Kappa at San Sebastian or Morphy or Willie Angler at New York. The Russians will look like Potsers. Have you studied the scores of the match between Moonbase and Chircombeira? Not worth the trouble. The play was feeble, barely expert rating. Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about the game of chess, a point that she had slid over in conferring with the powers of the space-mirror, but that now had begun to weigh on her.

How wonderful it would be, she dreamed, to walk out this minute find a quiet bar and get pie-eyed in an evil ladylike way. Perhaps mademoiselle would like a drink? Here darn tootin she would," Sandra replied in a rush, and then looked down apprehensively at the person who had read her thoughts. It was a small, sprightly, elderly man, who looked like a somewhat thinned down, Peter Lorry. There was that same impression of the happy Slavic elf.

What was left of his white hair was cut very short, making a silvery nap. His pince-nez had quite thick lenses. But in sharp contrast to the somberly-clad men around them, he was wearing a pearl-gray suit of almost exactly the same shade as Sandra's, a circumstance that created for her the illusion that they were fellow conspirators. Hey, wait a minute, she protested just the same.

He had already taken her arm and was piloting her toward the nearest flight of low, wide stairs. How did you know I wanted a drink? I could see that mademoiselle was having difficulty swallowing, he replied, keeping them moving. Pardon me for feasting my eyes on your lovely throat." I didn't suppose they'd serve drinks here." "'But of course!' They were already mounting the stairs. "'What would chess be without coffee or schnapps?'

"'Okay, lean on,' Sandra said. "'You're the doctor.' "'Doctor?' he smiled widely. "'You know I like being called that.' "'Then the name is yours as long as you want to. it, Doc?" Meanwhile, the happy little man was edging them into the first of a small cluster of tables, where a dark-suited, jabbering trio was just rising.

He snapped his fingers and hissed through his teeth. A white-apened waiter materialized. "'For myself, black coffee,' he said. "'For mademoiselle, Rhine-wine, and Sulzer? That'd go fine,' Sandra leaned back. Confidentially, Doc, I was having trouble swallowing. Well, just about everything here. He nodded.

You were not the first to be shocked and horrified by chess, he assured her. It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game for lunatics, or else it creates them. But what brings a sane and beautiful young lady to this 64-square-mad house? Sandra briefly told him her story and her predicament. by the time they were served doc had absorbed the one and assessed the other you have one great advantage he told her you know nothing whatsoever of chess so you will be able to write about it understandably for your readers He swallowed half his demitoss and smacked his lips. "'As for the machine, you do know, I suppose, that it is not a humanoid metal robot

walking about clanking and squeaking like a late medieval knight in armor?' "'Yes, Doc, but Sandra found difficulty in phrasing the question. "'Wait,' he lifted a finger. "'I think I know what you're going to ask. You want to know why, if the machine works at all, it doesn't work perfectly, so that it always wins and then there is no contest, right?" Sandra grinned and nodded. Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as comforting as the bubbly, mildly astringent mixture

she was sipping. He removed his pince-nez, besieged the bridge of his nose and replaced them. If you had," he said, a billion computers all as fast as the machine, it would take them all the time there ever will be in the universe just to play through all the possible games of chess, not to mention the time needed to classify those games into branching families of wins for white, wins for black, and draws, and the additional time required to trace out the chains of key moves leading all ways to wins. So the machine can't play chess like God.

What the machine can do is examine all the likely lines of play for about eight moves ahead, that is, four moves each for white and black, and then decide which is the best move on the basis of capturing enemy pieces, working toward checkmate, establishing a powerful central position, and so on. That sounds like the way a man would play a game. Sandra observed. Look ahead a little way and try to make a plan. You know, like getting out trumps in bridge or setting up a finesse."

"'Exactly!' Doc beamed at her approvingly. The machine is like a man. A rather peculiar and not exactly pleasant man. A man who always abides by sound principles, who is utterly incapable of flights of genius, who never makes a mistake. You see, you are finding human interest already, even in the machine. Sandra nodded.

Does a human chess player, a grandmaster, I mean, ever look eight moves ahead in a game? Most assuredly he does. In crucial situations, say, where there's a chance of winning at once by trapping the enemy king. He examines many more moves. ahead than that, thirty or forty even. The machine is probably programmed to recognize such situations and do something of the same sort, though we can't be sure from the information world business machines has released. But in most chess positions the

possibilities are so very nearly unlimited that even a grandmaster can only look a very few moves ahead and must rely on his judgment and experience. and artistry. The equivalent of those in the machine is the directions fed into it before it plays a game." You mean the programming? Indeed, yes. The programming is the crux of the problem of the chess-playing computer. The first practical model, reported by Bernstein and Roberts of IBM in 1958, and which

looked four moves ahead, was programmed so that it had a good game. greedy, worried tendency to grab at enemy pieces and to retreat its own whenever they were attacked. It had a personality like that of a certain kind of chess-playing dub, a dull-brained wood-pisher afraid to take the slightest risk of losing material, but a dub who could almost always beat an utter novice. The WBM machine here in the hall operates about a million times. as fast. Don't ask me how I'm no physicist, but it depends on the new transistors and something

they call hypervelocity, which in turn depends on keeping parts of the machine at a temperature near absolute zero. However, the result is that the machine can see eight moves ahead and is capable of being programmed much more craftily. A million times as fast as the first machine, you say, Doc, and yet it only sees twice as many moves ahead?" Sandra objected. There is a geometrical progression involved there," he told her with a smile. Believe me, eight moves ahead is a lot of moves when you remember that the machine is errorlessly examining every one of thousands of variations. Flesh and blood chess masters have lost games by blunders they could have avoided by looking

only one or two moves ahead. The machine will make no such oversights. Once again you see, you have the human factor, in this case working for the machine. "'Savilly, I have been looking all place for you!' A stocky, bull-faced man with a great bristling shock of black, gray-flecked hair had halted abruptly by their table. He bent over Doc and began to whisper explosively in a guttural foreign tongue. Sandra's gaze traveled beyond the balustrade. Now that she could look down at it,

the central hall seemed less confusedly crowded. In the middle toward the far end were five small tables, spaced rather widely apart, and with a chessboard and men at one of the Siamese clocks set out on each. To either side of the hall were tiers of temporary seats, about half of them occupied. there were at least as many more people still wondering about. On the far wall was a big electric scoreboard,

and also above the corresponding tables, five large, dully glassy chessboards, the white squares in light gray, the black squares in dark. One of the five wall chestboards was considerably larger than the other four, the one above the machine. Sandra looked with quickening interest, at the console of the machine, a bank of keys in some half-dozen panels of rows and rows of tiny tell-tale lights all dark at the moment.

A thick red velvet cord on little brass standards ran around the machine at a distance of about ten feet. Inside the cord were only a few gray smocked men. Two of them had just laid a black cable to the nearest chest table, and were attaching it to the Siamese clock. Sandra tried to think of a being who always checked everything, but only within limits beyond which his thoughts never ventured, and who never made a mistake. Miss Grayling, may I present to you Igor Johndorf? She turned back quickly with a smile and a nod. I should tell you, Igor, Doc continued, that Miss Grayling represents a large and influential

Midwestern newspaper. Perhaps you have a message for her readers." The shock-headed man's eyes flashed. I most certainly do. At that moment, the waiter arrived with a second coffee and wine and seltzer. Jandorf seized Doc's new Demetauce, drained it, set it back on the tray with a flourish, and drew himself up. Tell your readers, Miss Grayling, he proclaimed,

fiercely arching his eyebrows at her, and actually slapping his chest. That I, Igor Jandorf, will defeat the machine by the living force of my human personality. Hmm. Already I have offered to play it an informal game blindfolded. I who have played fifty blindfold games simultaneously, its owners refuse me. I have challenged it also to a few games of rolandfold. rapid transit, and offer no true Grandmaster would dare ignore. Again they refuse me.

I predict that the machine will play like a great oaf, at least against me. Repeat, I, Igor Jandorf, by the living force of my human personality, will defeat the machine. Do you have that? You can remember it? "'Oh, yes,' Sandra assured him, "'but there are some other questions I want very much to ask you, Mr. Jandorf.' "'I am sorry, Miss Grayling, but I must clear my mind now.

In ten minutes they start the clocks.' While Sandra arranged for an interview with Jandorf after the day's playing session, Doc reordered his coffee. "'One expected of Jandorf,' he explained to Sandra, with a philosophic shrug when the shock-headed man was gone. "'At least he didn't take your wine and seltzer, or did he? One tip I have for you. Don't call a chessmaster Mr.

Call him, master. They eat it up.' "'Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I haven't offended Miss Master Johndorf so that he doesn't.' "'Don't worry about that.' Wild horses couldn't keep John Dorff away from a press interview. You know his rapid transit challenge was cunning. That's a minor variety of chess where each player gets only ten seconds to make a move,

which I don't suppose would give the machine time to look three moves ahead. Chess players would say that the machine has a very slow sight of the board. This tournament is being played at the usual international rate of fifteen moves, an hour, and— Is that why they've got all those crazy clocks?" Sandra interrupted. Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his moves.

When a player makes a move, he presses a button that shuts his clock off and turns the opponents on. If a player uses too much time, he loses as surely as if he were checkmated. Now, since the machine will almost certainly be programmed to take an each other, he amount of time on successive moves, a rate of 15 moves an hour means it will have four minutes they move, and it will need every second of them. Incidentally, it was typical Jandorf bravado to make a point of a blindfolded challenge, just as if the machine weren't playing blindfold itself.

Or is the machine blindfold? How do you think of it? Gosh, I don't know. Say, Doc, is it really true that Master Jandorf has played fifty games at once blindfolded? I can't believe that. Of course not, Doc assured her. It was only 49, and he lost two of those and drew five. Jandorf always exaggerates.

It's in his blood. He's one of the Russians, isn't he? Sandra asked. Igor? Doc chuckled. Not exactly, he said gently. He is originally a pole, and now he has Argentine citizenship.

You have a program, don't you? Sandra started to hunt through her pocketbook, but just then two lists of names lit up on the big electric scoreboard. The Players William Engler, USA. Bella Grabo, Hungary, Yvon Jal, USSR, Igor Jondorff, Argentina, Dr. S. Krocator, France, Vlasili Lysmof, USSR, The Machine, USA, programmed by Simon Great, Maxim Shirek, USSR, Moses Shirefsky, USA,

Mikhail Watt-Binnick, USSR, Tournament Director, Dr. Jan van der Hoof, First Round Parings, Shirefsky versus Serik, Jahl v. Angler, Jondorf v. Wattbinnick, Leibbeth versus Krakitar, Grabo v. Machine. End of Part 1. Part 2 of the 64 Square Methouse by Fritz Liber. this librivox recording is in the public domain part two pribes doc they all sound like they were russians sandra said after a bit except this willie angler oh he's the boy wonder isn't he doc nodded not such a boy any longer though he's well speak of the devil's children miss grayling i have the honor of presenting to you the only grandmaster ever to have been ex chess champion of the United States, while still technically a minor.

Master William Augustus Engler. A tall, sharply dressed young man with a hatchet face, pressed the old man back into his chair. Oh, are you savvy, old boy, oh boy, he demanded, still chasing the girls I see? Please, Willie, get off me. Can't take it, huh? Angler straightened up somewhat. Hey, waiter, where's that chocolate malt?

I don't want it next year? About that X, though, I was swindle-savvy. I was robbed. Willie, Doc said with some asperity, Miss Grayling is a journalist. She would like to have a statement from you as to how you will play against the machine. Angler grinned and shook his head sadly. Poor old machine, he said. I don't know why they take so much trouble polishing up that pile of tin, just so that I can give it a hit in the head.

I got a hatful of moves. It'll burn out all its tubes trying to answer. And if it gets too fresh, how about you and me giving its low-temperature section the hot-foot savvy? The money WBM's putting up is okay, though. The first prize will just fit the big hole in my bank account. I know you haven't the time now, Master Angler, Sandra said rapidly, but if after the playing session you could grant me— Sorry, babe, Angler broke in with a way.

wave of dismissal. I'm dated up for two months in advance. Waiter, I'm over here, not there." And he went charging off. Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled. Chessmasters aren't exactly humble people, are they? she said. Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. You must excuse them, though, he said.

They really get so little recognition or recompense. This tournament is an issue. exception, and it takes a great deal of ego to play greatly. I suppose so. So World Business Machines is responsible for this tournament? Correct. Their advertising department is interested in the prestige. They want to score a point over their great rival.

But if the machine plays badly, it will be a black eye for them, Sandra pointed out. True, Doc agreed thoughtfully. WBM must feel very sure. It's the prize money they've put up, of course. That's brought the world's greatest players here. Otherwise, half of them would be holding off in the best temperamental artist style. For chess players, the prize money is fabulous. $35,000 with $15,000 for first place.

And all expenses paid for all players. There's never been anything like it. Soviet Russia is the only country that has ever supported and rewarded her best chess players at all adequately. I think the Russian players are here because UNESCO and Fide, that's Federation Internationale, the International Cheshk, the International Chess Organization, are also backing the tournament. And perhaps because the Kremlin is hungry for a little prestige now that its space program is sagging. But if a Russian doesn't take first place, it will be a black eye for them. Doc frowned. True, in a sense, they must feel very

sure. Here they are now. Four men were crossing the center of the hall, which was clearing, toward the tables at the other end. Doubtless they just happened to be going two by two in close formation, but it gave Sandra the feeling of a phalanx. The first two are Lysmoth and Vodbenik, Doc told her. It isn't often that you see the current champion of the world, Bodbenik, and an ex-champion arm in arm. There are two two. other persons in the tournament who have held that honor, Jahl and Vanderhoff, the director, way back. Will whoever wins this tournament become champion? Oh, no, that's decided by two-player matches, a very long business after elimination tournaments between leading contenders. This tournament

is a round-robin. Each player plays one game with every other player, that means nine rounds. Anyway, there are an awful lot of Russians in the tournament, Sandra said, consulting her program. Four out of five have USSR after them. And Bella Grabo, Hungary, that's the satellite. And Sharifsky and Krakatower are Russian-sounding names. The proportion of Soviet-to-American entries in the tournament represents pretty fairly the general difference in playing strength between the two countries. Doc said judiciously,

Chessmastery moves from land to land with the years. Way back it was the Mosulums and the Hindus and Persians. Then Italy and Spain. A little over a hundred years ago it was France and England. Then Germany, Austria, and the New World. Now it's Russia, including, of course, the Russians who have run away from Russia. But don't think there aren't a lot of good Anglo-Saxon types who are masters of the first water.

In fact, there are a lot of them here. around us, though perhaps you don't think so. It's just that if you play a lot of chess, you get to looking Russian. Once it probably made you look Italian. Do you see that short, bald-headed man? You mean the one facing the machine and talking to John Dorff? Yes, now that's one with a lot of human interest. Moses Sherevsky.

Been champion of the United States many times. A very strict Orthodox Jew can't play chess on Friday. are on Saturdays before sundown." He chuckled. Why, there's even a story going around, that one rabbi told Sherewski it would be unlawful for him to play against the machine because it is technically a golem,

the Clay Frankenstein's monster of Hebrew legend. Sandra asked, What about Grabo and Cracketower? Doc gave a short, scornful laugh. Hercatower! Don't pay any attention to him. A senile has been. It's a sense.

scandal he's been allowed to play in this tournament. He must have pulled all sorts of strings, told them that his lifelong services to chess had won him the honor and that they had to have a member of the so-called old guard. Maybe he even got down on his knees and cried, and all the time his eyes on that expense money and the last-place consolation prize. Yet dreaming schizophrenically of beating them all. Please, don't get me started on dirty old Cracketower. Take it easy, Doc.

He sounds like he would make an interesting article. Can you point him out to me? You can tell him by his long white beard with coffee stains. I don't see it anywhere, though perhaps he shaved it off for the occasion. It would be like that antique womanizer to develop senile delusions of youthfulness. And Grabo? Sanra pressed, suppressing a scepting a sceptive. smile at the intensity of Doc's animosity. Doc's eyes grew thoughtful. Ah, about Bella Grabo,

why are three out of four Hungarians named Bella? I will tell you only this, that he is a very brilliant player, and that the machine is very lucky to have drawn him as its first opponent. He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the scoreboard again. This Simon Great, who's now is programming the machine, he's a famous physicist, I suppose. By no means. That was their trouble with some of the early chess-playing machines. They were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a psychologist, who at one time was a leading contender for the world's

chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him for the programming job. Let me tell you—no, better yet. Doc shot to his feet, stretched an arm on high, and called out sharply. Simon! A man, some four tables away, waved back, and a moment later came over. What is it, Sevilly? he asked. There's hardly any time, you know.

The newcomer was of middle height, compact of figure and feature, with graying hair cut short and combed sharply back. Doc spoke his piece for Sandra. Simon Great smiled Finley. Sorry, he said, but I am making no predictions, and we are giving out no advanced information on the programming of the machine. As you know, I have had to fight the players' committee tooth and nail on all sorts of points about that, and they have won most of them.

I am not permitted to reprogram the machine at adjournments, only between games. I did insist on that and get it. and if the machine breaks down during a game its clock keeps running on it. My men are permitted to make repairs if they can work fast enough. That makes it very tough on you, Sandra put in. The machine isn't allowed any weaknesses. Great, nodded soberly. And now I must go.

They've almost finished the countdown, as one of my technicians keeps on calling it. Very pleased to have met you, Miss Grayling. I'll check with our PR man on that interview. Be seeing you, Savvy. The tiers of seats were filled now, and the central space almost clear. Officials were shewing off a few knots of lingers. Several of the grandmasters, including all four Russians, were seated at their tables. Press and company cameras were flashing.

The four smaller wallboards lit up with the pieces in the opening position, white for white and red for black. Simon Great stepped over the red velvet cord and more flash bulbs went off. you know doc sandra said i'm a dog to suggest this but what if this whole thing were a big fake what if simon great were really playing the machine's moves there would surely be some way for his electricians to rig dock laughed happily and so loudly that some people at the adjurning tables frowned miss grayling that is a wonderful idea i will probably steal it for a short story i still managed to write and play a few in England. No, I do not think that is at all likely. WBM would never risk such a fraud.

Brate is completely out of practice for actual tournament play, though not for chess thinking. The difference in style between a computer and a man would be evident to any expert. Great's own style is remembered and would be recognized, though, come to think of it, his style was often described as being machine-like. For a moment Doc's eyes became thoughtful. Then he smiled again. But no, the idea is impossible. Vanderhoff as Tournament Director has played two or three games with the machine to assure

himself that it operates legitimately and has Grandmaster's skill. Did the machine beat him? Sandra asked. Doc shrugged. The scores weren't released. It was all very hush-hush. But about your idea, Miss Grayling. Did you ever read about Muzzi?

Zell's famous chess-playing automaton of the 19th century. That one, too, was supposed to work by machinery, cogs and gears, not electricity. But actually it had a man hidden inside it. Your Edgar Poe exposed the fraud in a famous article. In my story, I think the chess robot will break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser, and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up and swing the deal.

Only the millionaire's daughter, who is really a better player than either of them, yes, yes, Ambrose Beers II wrote a story about a chess-playing robot of the clickety-clank kind, who murdered his creator, crushing him like an iron grizzly bear when the man won a game from him. Tell me, Miss Grayling, do you find yourself imagining this machine putting out angry tendrils to strangle its opponents? or beaming rays of death and hypnotism at them? I can imagine.

While Doc chatted happily on about chess-playing robots and chess stories, Sandra found herself thinking about him. A writer of some sort, evidently, and a terrific chess buff. Perhaps he was an actual medical doctor. She'd read something about two or three coming over with the Russian squad, but Doc certainly didn't sound like a Soviet citizen. He was older than she'd first assumed. She could see now that she was listening to him less and looking at him more.

Tired, too. Only his dark-circled eyes shone with unquenchable youth. A useful old guy, whoever he was. An hour ago she'd been sure she was going to muff this assignment completely, and now she had it laid out cold. For the umpteenth time in her career, Sandra shied away from the game. guilty thought that she wasn't a writer at all or even a reporter. She just used dime-a-dozen female attractiveness to rope a susceptible man, young, old American Russian, and pick his brain.

She realized suddenly that the whole hall had become very quiet. Doc was the only person still talking, and people were again looking at them disapprovingly. All five wallboards were lit up, and the changed position of a few pieces showed that. that opening moves had been made on four of them, including the machines. The central space between the tiers of seats was completely clear now, except for one man, hurrying across it in their direction with a rapid yet quiet, almost tip-toe walk that seemed to mark all the officials. Like mortician's assistance, she thought, he rapidly mounted the stairs and halted at the

top to look around searchingly. His gaze like it on their table. His eyebrows went up, and he made a beeline for Doc. Sandra wondered if she should warn him that he was about to be shushed. The official laid a hand on Doc's shoulder. Sir, he said agitatedly. Do you realize they've started your clock, Dr. Cracketower? Sandra became aware that Doc was grinning at her.

Yes, it's true enough, Miss Grayling, he said. I trust you will pardon the deception, though it was hardly one even tantal. Every word I told you about dirty old Cracketower is literally true, except the long white beard. He never wore a beard after he was thirty-five. That part was it out and outlaw. Yes, yes, I will be along in a minute. Do not worry. The spectators will get their money's worth out of me.

And WBM did not with its expense account buy my soul. That belongs to the young lady here." Doc Rose lifted. her hand and kissed it. Thank you, mademoiselle, for a charming interlude. I hope it will be repeated. Incidentally, I should say that, besides, stop pulling at me, man, there can't be five minutes on my clock yet.

That besides being dirty old cracketower, Grandmaster Emeritus, I am also the special correspondent of the London Times. It is always pleasant to chat with a colleague. Please do not hesitate to use in your article any of the ideas I tossed out, if you find them worthy. I sent in my own dispatch two hours ago. Yes, yes, I come. Au revoir, mademoiselle.

He was at the bottom of the stairs when Sandra jumped up and hurried to the balustrade. Hey, Doc, she called. He turned. Good luck, she shouted and waved. He kissed his hand to her and went on. People glared at her then, and a horrified official came hurried. Cundra made big frightened eyes at him, but she couldn't quite hide her grin. End of Part 2. Part 3 of the 64 square madhouse by Fritzlabor.

This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Part 3. Seats flesh, which roughly means endurance, sitting flesh or buttock meat, is the quality needed above all others by tournament chess players and their audiences. After Sandra had watched the games, the players' faces rather, she had a really good pair of zoomer glasses. For a half hour or so, she had gone to her hotel room, written her first article, interview with the famous Dr. Cracketower, sent it in and then come back to the hall to see how the games had turned out.

They were still going on, all five of them. The press section was full, but two boys and a girl of high school age obligingly made room for Sandra on the top tier of seats, and she tuned in on their whispered conversations. The jargon was recognizably related to that which she'd gotten a dose of on the floor, but gamier. Players did not sacrifice pawns. They sacked them. No one was ever defeated, only busted. Pieces weren't lost, but blown. The Rui Lopez was the dirty old Ruei, and incidentally, a certain set of opening moves

named after a long-departed Spanish churchman, she now discovered from Dave Bill and Judy, whose sympathetic help she had won by frequent loans of her zoomer glasses. The four-hour time control point, two hours and thirty moves for each player, had been passed while she was sending in her article she learned, and they were well on their way toward the next control point, an hour more in 15 moves for each player, after which unfinished games would be adjourned and continued at a special morning session. Sherewski had had to make 15 moves in two minutes after taking an hour earlier on just one move. But that was nothing out of the ordinary, Dave had assured her in the same breath. Sherewski was always letting himself get

into fantastic time pressure and then wiggling out of it brilliantly. He was apparently. He was apparently headed for a win over Syrac. Score one for the USA over the USSR, Sandra thought proudly. Vot Benick had Jandorf practically in Zugzwang, his pieces all tied up, Bill explained, and the Argentinan would be busted shortly. Through the glasses, Sandra could see Janof's thick chest rise and fall as he glared murderously at the board in front of him. By contrast, Vatbitnik looked like a man lost in reverie.

Dr. Cracketower had lost a pawn to Leesmoth, but was hanging on grimly. However, Dave would not give a plugged nickel for his chances against the former Whirls champion because these old ones always weakened in the sixth hour. You forget the biological miracle of Dr. Lasker? Bill and Judy chanted as one. Shut up, Dave warned them. An official glared angrily from the floor and shook a finger. Much later, Sandra discovered that Dr. Emmanuel Lasker was a philosopher-mathematician who, after holding the world's championship for 26 years, had won a very strong tournament, New York, 1994, at the age of 56, and later almost won another Moscow, 1935, at the age of 67.

Sandra studied Doc's face carefully through her glasses. He looked terribly tired now, almost a death's head. Something tightened in her chest and she looked away quickly. The Angler Jal and Grasbo machine games were still ding-dong contests, Dave told her. If anything, Grabo had a slight advantage. The machine was on the move, meaning that Grabo had just made a move and was waiting the automaton's reply. The Hungarian was about the Morrow. most restless waiter Sandra could imagine. He twisted his long legs constantly and writhed his

shoulders in about every five seconds. He ran his hands back through his unkempt tassel of hair. Once he yawned self-consciously, straightened himself and sat very compactly, but almost immediately he was writhing again. The machine had its own mannerisms, if you could call them that. Its dim, unobstrusive tell-tale lights were winking on and off in a fairly rapid random pattern. Sandra got the impression that from time to time, Grabo's eyes were trying to follow their blinking like a man-washing fireflies. Simon Great sat impassively behind a bare table next to the machine. His five gray-smocked technicians grouped around him. A flush-faced, tall, distinguished-looking elderly gentleman was standing by the machine.

console. Dave told Sandra it was Dr. Vanderhoff, the tournament director, one-time champion of the world. Another old putzer-like Cricketer, but was sense enough to know when he's licked, Bill characterized harshly. Youth are unvankwishable youth, Judy chanted happily by herself. Flashing like a meteor across the chest firmament, Morphy angler Judy Kaplan, shut up. They really will throw us out. Dave warned her, and then explained in whispers to Sandra that Vendorhoff and his assistants had the nervous-making job of feeding into the machine the moves made by its opponent.

So everyone will know it's on the level, I guess, he added. It means the machine loses a few seconds every move, between the time Grabo punches the clock and the time Vanderhoff gets the move fed into the machine. Sandra nodded. The players were making it as hard on the machine, as possible, she decided with a small rush of sympathy. Suddenly, there was a tiny movement of the gadget attached from the machine to the clocks on Grabo's table, and a faint click, but Grabo almost leapt out of his skin.

Simultaneously, a red castle-topped piece, one of the machine's rooks, Sandra was informed, moved four square sideways on the big electric board above the machine. An official beside Dr. van der Hof went over to Grabo's board in carefully move the corresponding piece. Grabo seemed about to make some complaint, then apparently thought better of it, and plunged into brooding cogitation over the board, elbows on the table, both hands holding his head, and fiercely massaging his scalp. The machine let loose with an unusually rapid flurry of blinking.

Grabo straightened up, seemed again about to make a complaint, then once more to repress the impulse. Finally he moved a piece and punched his clock. Dr. Vanderhoff immediately flipped four levers on the machine's console, and Grabo's move appeared on the electric board. Grabo sprang up, went over to the red velvet cord, and motioned agitatedly to Vanderhoff. There was a short conference, inaudible at the distance, during which Grabo waved his arms and Vanderhoff grew more flushed.

Finally, the latter went over to Simon Great and said something, apparently with some hesitancy, But Grades smiled oblongingly, sprang to his feet, and in turn spoke to his technicians, who immediately fetched and unfolded several large screens and set them in front of the machine, masking lights. Blindfolding it, Sandra found herself thinking. Dave chuckled. That's already happened once while you were out, he told Sandra. I guess seeing the lights blinking makes Scrabbo nervous.

But then not seeing them makes them nervous. Just watch. The machine has its own mysterious powwowers, Judy chanted. That's what you think, Bill told her. Did you know that Willie Angler has hired Evil Eye Bixel out of Brooklyn to put the whammy on the machine? It's a fact. Powwowers unknown to mere mortals of flesh and blood. Shut up, Dave hissed.

Now you've done it. Here comes old Eagle Eye. Look, I don't know you two. I'm with this lady here. Bella Grabo was suffering acute tortures. He had a winning attack. He knew it. The machine was counter-attacking, but unstrategically, desperately, in the style of a Frank

Marshal complicating the issue and hoping for a swindle. All Grabo had to do, he knew, was keep his head and not blunder, not throw away a queen, say, as he had to old Vanderhoff at Brussels, or overlook a maiden, too, as he had against Cherovsky at Tel Aviv. The memory of those unutterably black moments and a dozen more like them returned to haunt him. Never if he lived a thousand years would he be free of them. For the tenth time in the last two minutes he glanced at his clock. He had fifteen minutes in which to make five moves. He wasn't in time pressure. He must remember that. He mustn't make a move an impulse, he mustn't let his treacherous hands leap out without waiting for instructions from its

guiding brain. First prize in this tournament meant incredible wealth. Transportation money and hotel builds for more than a score of future tournaments. But more than that, it was one more chance to blazon before the world, his true superiority, rather than the fading reputation of it. Bella Grabo, brilliant but erratic. Perhaps. His last chance. When in the name of heaven was the machine going to make its next move? Surely it had already taken more than four minutes. But a glance at its clock showed him that hardly half that time had gone by.

He decided he had made a mistake in asking again for the screens. It was easier to watch those damned lights blink than have them blink in his imagination. Oh, if chess could only be played in intergalactic sense, space and the black privacy of one's thoughts. But there had to be the physical presence of the opponent with his possibly deliberate unnerving mannerisms, Lasker and his cigar, Copa Blanca and his red necktie, Nimsowich and his nervous contortions, very like Bella Grabo's, though the latter did not see it that way. And now this ghastly, flashing, humming, stinking, button-banging metal monster

Actually, he told himself he was being asked to play two opponents, the machine and Simon Great, a sort of consultation team. It wasn't fair. The machine hammered its button and rammed its queen across the electric board. In Grabo's imagination it was like an explosion. Grabo held onto his nerves with an effort and plunged into a maze of calculations. he came to, like a man who had been asleep, to realize that he was wondering whether the lights were still blinking behind the screens while he was making his move.

Did the machine really analyze at such times? Or were the lights just an empty trick? He forced his mind back to the problems of the game, decided on his move, checked the board twice for any violent move he might have missed, noted on his clock that he'd taken five minutes, the board again very rapidly, and then put out his hand and made his move, with the fiercely suspicious air of a boss compelled to send an extremely unreliable underling on an all-important errand. Then he punched his clock, sprang to his feet, and once more waved for Vanderhoff.

Thirty seconds later, the tournament director, very red-faced now, with saying in a low voice almost pleadingly. But Bella, I cannot keep asking them to change the screens. Already they have been up twice and down once to please you. Moving them disturbs the other players, and surely isn't good for your own peace of mind. Oh, Bella, my dear Bella, Vanderhoff broke off. Grabo knew he had been going to say something improper,

but from the heart such as, for God's sake, don't blow this game out of nervousness. that you have a win in sight. And this sympathy somehow made the Hungarian furious. I have other complaints which I will make formally after the game, he said harshly, quivering with rage. It is a disgrace the way that mechanism punches the time button. It will crack the case.

The machine never stops humming, and it stinks of ozone and hot metal as if it were about to explode. It cannot explode, Bella. "'Please. No, but it threatens to. And you know a threat is always more effective than an actual attack. As for the screens, they must be taken down at once. I demand it. Very well, Bella. Very well it will be done. Compose yourself.' Grabo did not at once return to his table. He could not have endured to sit still for the moment, but paced along the line of tables, snatching looks at the other games in progress.

When he looked back at the big electric board, he saw that the machine had made a move, although he hadn't heard it punched the clock. He rushed back and studied the board without sitting down. Why, the machine had made a stupid move, he saw with a rush of exultation. At that moment the last screen being folded started to fall over, but one of the gray smocked men caught it deftly. Grable flinched, and his hand darted out and moved a piece. He heard someone gasp.

Vanderhoff. It got very quiet. The four soft clicks of the move being fed into the machine were like the beat of a muffled drum. There was a buzzing in Grabo's ears. He looked down at the board in horror. The machine blinked. Blanked once more and then, although barely twenty seconds had elapsed,

moved a rook. On the glassy gray margin above the machine's electric board, large red words flamed on. Check and mate in three. Up in the stands, Dave squeezed Sandra's arm. He's done it. He's let himself be swindled. You mean the machine has beaten Grabo? Sandra asked.

What else? Can you be sure, just like that? Of course. Wait a second. Yes, I'm sure. Made it in three like a potser, Bill confirmed. The poor old boob, Judy sighed. Down on the floor, Bella Grabo sagged.

The assistant director moved toward him quickly, but then the Hungarian straightened himself a little. I resign, he said softly. The red words at the top of the board were wiped out and briefly replaced in white by, thank you for a good game. And then a third statement, also in white, flashed on for a few seconds. You had bad luck.

Bella Grabo clenched his fists and bit his teeth. Even the machine was being sorry for him. He stiffly walked out of the hall. It was a long, long walk. Ajournment time neared. Serak, the exchange down, but with considerable time on his clock, sealed his forty-sixth move against sherewski and handed the envelope to van der hoff it would be open when the game was resumed at the morning session dr cracketaur studied the position on his board and then quietly tipped over his king he sat there for a moment as if he hadn't the strength to rise then he shook himself a little smiled got up clasped hands briefly with lismoff and wandered over to watch the angler-jaw game

Jandorf had resigned his game to But Binnick some minutes ago, rather more surly. After a while, angler sealed a move, handed it to Vanderhoff with a grin, just as the little red flag dropped on his clock, indicating he'd used every second of his time. Up in the stands, Sandra worked her shoulders to get a kink out of her back. She'd noticed several newsmen hurrying off report in the machine's first win. She was thankful that her job was limited to special articles. "'Chess is a pretty intense game,' she remarked to Dave. He nodded.

"'It's a killer. I don't expect to live beyond forty myself.' "'Thirty,' Bill said. "'Twenty-five is enough time to be a meteor,' said Judy. Sandra thought to herself, "'the unbeat generation.' Next day, Sherevsky played the machine to a dead level ending. Simon Great offered a draw for the machine, over an unsuccessful interfering protest from Jandorf,

that this constituted making a move for the machine, but Sherefsky refused and sealed his move. He wants to have it prove to him that the machine can play in games. Dave commented to Sandra up in the stands. I don't blame him. At the beginning of today's session, Sandra had noticed that Bill and Judy were following each game in a very new looking book they shared jealously between them. Won't look new for long, Sandra had thought. That's the Bible they got there, Dave had explained.

M.C.O. Modern chess openings. It lists all the best open moves in chess. Thousands and thousands of variations. That is, what masters think are the best moves. The moves that have won in the past, really. We chipped in together to buy the latest edition, the 13th, just hot off the past. press. He had finished proudly. Now, with the machine Sherefsky ending the center of interest,

the kids were consulting another book, one with grimy dog-eared pages. That's the New Testament, basic chess endings, Dave said when he noticed her looking. There's so much you must know in endings that it's amazing the machine can play them at all. I guess as the pieces get fewer, it starts to look deeper. Sandra nodded. She was feeling virtuous. She had got her interview with Jan Dorf, and then this morning one with Grabo. How it feels to have a machine, I'll thank you. The latter had made her think of herself as a real vulture of the press, circling over the doomed.

The Hungarian had seemed in a positively suicidal depression. One newspaper article made much of the machine's psychological tactics, hinting that the blinking lights were designed to hypnotize opponents. The general press coverage was somewhat startling. A game that in America normally rated only a fine-print column in the back section of a very few Sunday newspapers was now getting boxes on the front page. The defeat of a man by a machine seemed everywhere to awaken nervous feelings of insecurity like the launching of the first spotnik.

Sandra had rather hesitantly sought out Dr. Cracketower during the close of the morning session of play, still feeling a little guilty from her interview with Grabo. But Doc had seemed happy to see her, and quite recovered from last night's defeat, though when she had addressed him as Master Cracketower, he had winced and said, Please, not that. Another session of coffee and wine in seltzer had resulted in her getting an introduction to her first Soviet grandmaster, Serak, would prove to be unexpectedly charming. He had just managed to draw his game with.

with Sherevsky, to the great amazement of the cabitzers, Sandra learned, and was most obliging about arranging for an interview. Not to be outdone in gallantry, Doc had insisted on escorting Sandra to her seat in the stands at the price of once more losing a couple of minutes on his clock. As a result, her stock went up considerably with Dave, Bill, and Judy. Thereafter, they treated anything she had to say with almost annoying deference, Bill, especially, probably in penance for his thoughtless cracks at Doc. Sandra later came to suspect that the kids had privately decided that she was Dr. Cracketower's

mistress, probably a new one because she was so scandalously ignorant of chess. She did not disillusion them. Doc lost again in the second round, Tojall. In the third round, Leesmof defeated the machine in 27 moves. There was a flaring of flash bulbs, a rush of newsmen to the phones, jabbering of the stands, and much comment and analysis that was way over Sandra's head, except she got the impression that Leesmof had done something tricky. The general emotional reaction in America, as reflected in the newspapers, was not too happy.

One read between the lines that for the machine to beat a man was bad, but for a Russian to be an American machine was worse. A widely red sport column, two football coaches and several rural politicians, announced that chess was a morbid game played only by weirdies. Despite these thick-chested he-man statements, the elusive mood of insecurity deepened. Besides the excitement of the Lees-Moff win, a squabble had arisen in connection with the machines, still unfinished in-game with Sherewski, which had been. continued through one morning session and was now headed for another.

Finally, there were rumors that World Business Machines was planning to replace Simon Great with a nationally famous physicist. End of Part 3. Part 4 of the 64 Square Med House by Fritzlabor. This Libre-Vox recording is in the public domain. Part 4 Sandra begged Doc to try to explain it all to her, in kindergarten language. She was feeling uncertain of herself again and quite subdued

after being completely rebuffed in her efforts to get an interview with Lismoff, who had fled her as if she were a threat to his Soviet virtue. Doc, on the other hand, was quite vivacious, cheered by his third-round draw with Jandorf. Most willing, my dear, he said. Have you ever noticed that kindergarten language can be far honester than the adult tongues? Fewer fictions. Well, several of us hashed over the Leesmov game until three o'clock this morning.

Leesmov wouldn't, though. Neither would have been, Nick, or Jal. You see, I have my communication problems with the Russians, too. We finally decided that Leesmof had managed to guess with complete accuracy, both the depth at which the machine is analyzing in the opening and middle game, ten moves ahead instead of eight, we think, a prodigious achievement, and also the main value scale in terms of which the machine selects its move. Having that information, Lees-Mov managed to play into a combination which would give the machine a maximum plus value in its value scale, when of Lees-Maw's

queen it was, after ten moves, but a checkmate for Lees-Mov on his second move after the first ten. A human chessmaster would have seen a trap like that, but the machine could not, because Lees-Moff was maneuvering in an area that did not exist for the machine's perfect but limited mind. Of course the machine changed its tactics after the first three moves of the ten had been played. It could see the checkmate then, but by that time it was too late for it to avert a disastrous loss of material. It was tricky of Lees-Moth, but completely fair. After all, we'll all be watching for the opportunity to play the same trick on the machine.

Lees-Moth was the first of us to realize fully that we are not playing against a metal monster, but against a certain kind of programming. If there are any weaknesses we can spot in that programming, we can win, very much in the same way that we can again and again defeat a flesh-y. and blood player, when we discover that he consistently attacks without having an advantage in position, or is regularly overcautious about launching a counterattack when he himself was attacked without justification. Sandra nodded eagerly.

"'So from now on your chances of beating the machine should keep improving, shouldn't they? I mean, as you find out more and more about the programming.' Doc smiled. "'You forget,' he said. gently, that Simon Great can change the programming before each new game. Now I see why he fought so hard for that point. Oh, say, Doc, what's this about the Sherewski end game? You are picking up the language, aren't you? he observed.

Sherevsky got a little angry when he discovered that Great had the machine program to analyze steadily on the next move after an adjournment until the game was resumed. next morning. Sherevsky questioned whether it was fair for the machine to think all night while its opponent had to get some rest. Vanderhoff decided for the machine, though Sherefsky may carry the protest to F-I-D-E. Baha. I think Great wants us to get heated up over such minor matters, just as he is happy and, oh,

so obliging, when we complain about how the machine blinks or hums or smells. It keeps our minds off the main business of trying to outguess his programming. Incidentally, that is one thing we decided last night. Sherevsky, Willie Angler, Jandorf, Sherek, and myself, that we are all going to have to learn to play the machine without letting it get on our nerves and without asking to be protected from it. As Willie puts it, So suppose it sounds like a boiler factory even.

Okay, you can't. think in a boiler factory. Myself, I am not so sure of that, but his spirit is right. Sandra felt herself perking up as a new article began to shape itself in her mind. She said, And what about WBM replacing Simon Great? Again, Doc smiled. I think, my dear, that you can safely dismiss that as just a rumor.

I think that Simon Great has just begun to fight. round four saw the machine spring the first of its surprises it had finally forced a draw against sherefsky in the morning session ending the long second round game and now was matched against vat bennick the machine opened pawn to king four vaude bennick replied pawn to king three the french defense benny's favorite dave muttered as they settled back for the machine's customary four minute wait Instead, the machine moved at once and punched its clock. Sandra, studying Vot Binnick, through her glasses, decided that the rushing Grandmaster looked just a trifle startled. Then he made his move. Once again the machine responded instantly.

There was a flurry of comment from the stands, and a scurrying about of officials to shush it. Meanwhile, the machine continued to make its moves at better than rapid transit speed, although Vatbnik soon began to take rather more on his. The upshot was that the machine made eleven moves before it started to take time to think at all. Sandra clamored so excitedly today for an explanation that she had two officials waving at her angrily. As soon as he dared, Dave whispered,

Brate must have banked on Vatbenick playing the French almost always does, and fed all the variations of the French into the machine's memory from MCO and maybe some other books. So long as Vatt Benick stuck to a known variation of the French, why the machine could play from memory without analyzing at all. Then when a strange move came along, one that wasn't in his memory, only on the twelfth move yet,

the machine went back to analyzing, only now it's taking longer and going deeper because it's got more time, six minutes a move about. The only thing I wonder is why Great didn't have the machine do it in the first three games. It seemed so obvious. Sandra ticketed that in her mind as a question for Doc. She slipped off to her room to write her, Don't let a robot get your goat article,

drawing heavily on Doc's observations, and got back to the stance twenty minutes before the second-time control point. It was becoming a regular routine. Vot Benick was a night down, almost. certainly busted, Dave explained. It got terrifically complicated while you were gone, he said. A real Vodbenick position. Only the machine outbenticked him, Bill finished.

Judy hummed Beethoven's funeral marched for the death of a hero. Nevertheless, Vatbenek did not resign. The machine sealed a move. Its board blacked out, and Vanderhoff, with one of his assistants, standing beside him to witness, privately resided. the move off a small indicator on the console. Tomorrow he would feed the move back into the machine when play was resumed at the morning session.

Doc sealed a move, too, although he was two pawns down in his game against Scrabbo, and looked tired to death. "'They don't give up easily, do they?' Sandra observed to Dave. "'They must really love the game. Or do they hate it?' "'When you get to psychology, it's all beyond me,' Dave replied. something else.

Sandra smiled. Thank you, Dave, she said. I will. Come the morning session, Vot Benick played on for a dozen moves, then resigned. A little later Doc managed to draw his game with Grabo by perpetual check. He caught sight of Sandra coming down from the stands and waved to her, then made the motions of drinking. Now he looks almost like a boy, Sandra thought, as she joined.

him. "'Say, Doc,' she asked when they had secured a table. Why is a rookworth more than a bishop?' He darted a suspicious glance at her. "'That is not your kind of question,' he said sternly. "'Exactly what have you been up to?' Sandra confessed that she had asked Dave to teach her how to play chess. "'I knew those children would corrupt you,' Doc said somberly.

"'Look, my dear, if you learn to play chess, you won't be able to write your clever little articles about it. Besides, as I warned you the first day, chess is a madness. Women are ordinarily immune, but that doesn't justify you taking chances with your sanity. But I've kind of gotten interested watching the tournament, Sandra objected. At least I'd like to know how the pieces move. Stop, Doc commanded. You're already in danger. Direct your mind somewhere else. Ask me a sensible, down-to-earth journalist's question, something completely irrational. Okay, why didn't Simon Great have the machine set to play the openings fast in the first three games?

Ha! I think Great plays Lasker chess and his programming. He hides his strength and tries to win no more easily than he has to, so he will have resources in reserve. The machine loses to Lysmoth and immediately slith. starts playing more strongly. The psychological impression made on the other players by such tactics is formidable. But the machine isn't ahead yet? No, of course not. After four rounds, Lees-Moff is leading the tournament with three and a half to one-half,

meaning three-and-a-half in the win column and one-half in the loss column. How do you half-win a game of chess? Or have to lose one, Sandra interrupted. By drawing a game playing to a tie. Lees-Moff's three and a half to one-half is notational shorthand for three wins and a draw, understand? My dear, I don't usually have to explain things to you in such detail. I just didn't want you to think I was learning too much about chess. Oh, well, to get on with the score after four rounds, Angler and Vutt Binnick both have three to one,

while the machine is bracketed at two and a half to one and a half with Jal. But the machine has created an impression of strength, as if it were all set to come from behind with a rush. He shook his head. At the moment, my dear, he said, I feel very pessimistic about the chances of neurons against relays in this tournament. Relays don't panic and fag. But the oddest thing—yes, Sandra prompted. Well, the oddest thing is that the machine doesn't play like a machine at all. It uses dynamic strategy, the kind we sometimes call Russian, complicating each position as much

as possible in creating maximum tension. But that, too, is a matter of the programming. Doc's foreboding was fulfilled as round followed hard-fought round. In the next five days, there was a weekend recess. The machine successfully smashed Jandorf, Serik, and Jal, and after seven rounds was out in front by a full point. Jandorf, evidently impressed by the machine's flawless opening play against Vodibnick, chose an inferior line in the Rui Lopez to get the machine out of the books.

Perhaps he hoped that the machine would go on blindly making book moves, but the machine did not oblige. He'd immediately slowed his play, thought hard, and annihilated the Argentinian in 25 moves. Doc comment. The wild bull of the pompus tried to use the living force of his human personality to pull a fast one and swindle the machine, only the machine didn't swindle. Against a child, the machine used a new wrinkle. It used a variable amount of time on moves, apparently, according to how difficult it judged the position to be. When Serak got a poor pawn position, the machine simplified the game relentlessly, suddenly discarding its hitherto Russian strategy.

It plays like anything but a machine, Doc commented. We know the reason all too well, Simon Great. But doing something about it is something else again. Great is hitting at our individual weaknesses wonderfully well. Though I think I could play brilliant psychological chess myself if I had a machine to do the detail work, Doc sounded a bit wistful. The audience grew in size and in expansiveness of wardrobe, though most of the cafe society types made their visits fleeting ones.

Additional stands were erected. A hard liquor bar was put in and then taken out. The problem of keeping reasonable order and quiet became an unending one for Vanderhoff, who had to ask for more hushers. The number of scientists and computer men, Navy Army, and Space Force, uniforms were in more evidence. Dave and Bill turned up one morning with a three-dimensional chess set of transparent plastic and staggered Sandra by assuring her that most bright

young space scientists were moderately adept at this 512 square game. Sandra heard that WBM had snagged a big order from the War Department. She also heard that a syndicate man had turned up with a book on the tournament, taking bets from the more heavily heel types, and that a detective was circulating about trying to spot him. The newspapers kept up their front page reporting, most of the writers personalizing the machine heavily and rather too cutely. Several of the papers started regular chess columns and how to play chess features. There was a flurry of pictures of movie starlets and such sitting at chess boards. Hollywood revealed plans for two chess movies. They

They made her a black pawn and the monster from King Rook Square. Chess' novelties and costume jewelry appeared. The United States Chess Federation proudly reported a phenomenal rise in membership. Sandra learned enough chess to be able to blunder through a game with Dave without attempting more than one illegal move in five to avoid the scholar's mate most of the time and to be able to checkmate with two rooks, though not with one. Judy had asked her, Is he pleased that you're learning chess?

Sandra had replied, No, he thinks it is a madness. The kids had all whooped at that, and Dave had said, How right he is. Sandra was scraping the bottom of the barrel for topics for her articles, but then it occurred to her to write about the kids, which worked out nicely, and that led to a humorous article,

Chess is for brains about her own efforts to learn the game, and for the inth time in her career she thought of herself as practically a columnist and was accordingly elated. After his two draws, Doc lost three games in a row and still had the machine to face, and then Sherevsky. His one-to-six score gave him undisputed possession of last place. He grew very depressed. He still made a point of squiring her about before the playing sessions,

but she had to make most of the conversation. His rare flashes of humor were rather macabre. They have dirty old cracketower locked in the cellar, he muttered just before the start of the next of the last round, and now they send the robot to destroy him. Just the same, Doc, Sandra told him. Good luck. Doc shook his head.

Against a man, luck might help. But against a machine? It's not the machine you're playing, but the programming, remember? Yes, but it's the machine that doesn't make the mistake. And the mistake is what I need most of all today, somebody else's. Doc must have looked very dispirited and tired when he left Sandra in the stands, for Judy, Davin, Bill had not arrived yet, asked in a confidential, womanly sort of voice.

What do you do for him when he's so unhappy? Oh, I'm especially passionate, Sandra heard herself answer. Is that good for him? Chudy demanded doubtfully. Sh, Sandra said, somewhat aghast at her irresponsibility, and wondering if she were getting tournament nerves. Shh, they're starting the clocks. End of part four.

Part five of the six. 64 square madhouse by Fritz-Liber. This Libri-Vox recording is in the public domain. Part 5. Cracker Tower had lost two pawns when the first time control point arrived and was intending to resign on his 31st move when the machine broke down. Three of its pieces moved on the electric board at once. Then the board went dark, and all the lights on the console went out except five,

which started winking like angry red eyes. The gray smocked men around Simon Great sprang silently into action, filing around back of the console. It was the first work anyone had seen them do except move screens around and fetch each other coughing. Vanderhoff hovered anxiously. Some flashbulbs went off. Vanderhoff shook his fist at the photographers.

Simon Great did nothing. The machine's clock ticked on. Doc watched for a while and then fell asleep. When Vanderhoff jogged him awake, the machine had just made its next move, but the repair job had taken fifty minutes. As a result, the machine had to make fifteen moves in ten minutes. At forty seconds a move it played like a dub, whose general lack of skill was complicated by a touch of insanity.

On his forty-third move, Doc shrugged his shoulders apologetically, and an ounce mate in four. There were more flashes. Vanderhoff shook his fist again. The machine flashed. You played brilliantly. Congratulations. Afterwards, Doc said sourly to Sandra.

And that was one big lie. A child could have beat the machine with that time advantage. Oh, what an ironic glory the gods reserved for Cracketower's dotage. To vanquage a broken-down computer. Only one good thing about it, that it didn't happen while it was playing one of the Russians, or someone would surely have whispered sabotage,

and that is something of which they do not accuse dirty old cracketower because they are sure he has not got the brains, even to think to sprinkle a little magnetic oxide powder in the machine's memory box. Bah! Just the same. He seemed considerably more cheerful. Sandra said guilelessly, Winning a game means nothing to you chess players, does it, unless you really do it by your own brilliancy.

Doc looks solemn for a moment, then he started to chuckle. You are getting altogether too smart, Miss Sandra Lee. Grayling, he said. Yes, yes, a chess player is happy to win in any barely legitimate way he can by an earthquake if necessary or his opponent sickening before he does from the bubonic plague. So, I confess it to you, I was very happy to chalk up my utterly undeserved win over the luckless machine. Which incidentally makes it anybody's tournament again, doesn't it, Doc? Not exactly. Doc gave a wry little head shake. We can't expect another fluke.

After all, the machine has functioned perfectly seven games out of eight, and you can bet the WBM men will be checking it all. night, especially since it has no adjourned games to work on. Tomorrow it will play Willie Angler, but judging from the way it beat Watt Bidnick and Jal, it should have a definite edge on Willie. If it beats him, then only Vot Bidnick has a chance for a tie, and to do that he must defeat Leesmov, which will be most difficult. Well, Sandra said, don't you think that Leesmof might just kind of let himself be beaten?

to make sure a Russian gets first place, or at least ties for it? Doc shook his head emphatically. There are many things a man, even a chessmaster, will do, to serve his state. But party loyalty doesn't go that deep. Look, here is the standing of the players after eight rounds. He handed Sandra a penciled list. One round to go. Player, machine, wins five and a half, losses two and a half.

Watt-Bidnik, wins five and a half, losses two and a half. Angler, wins five, losses three. Jowl, wins four and a half, losses three and a half. Lysmof, wins four and a half, losses three and a half. Sarek, wins four and a half, losses three and a half. Shirefsky, wins four, losses four. Jandorf, wins two and a half, losses five and a half. Grabo wins two, losses six

Cracketower wins two, losses six. Last round pairings Machine versus Angler, Vatvinnik versus Leismov, Jal v. Surik, Sherevsky versus Cracketower, Jandolph versus Grabo. After studying the list for a while, Sandra said,

Hey, even Angler could come out first, couldn't he? If he beat the machine and Vodbidnik lost to Lysmof, could could yes but i'm afraid that's hoping for too much borrowing another breakdown to tell the truth dear the machine is simply too good for all of us if it were only a little faster and these technological improvements always come it would outclass us completely we are at that fleeting moment of balance when genius is almost good enough to equal mechanism it makes me feel sad but proud too in a morbid to think that I am in at the death of Grand Master Chess. Oh, I suppose the game will always be played, but it won't ever be quite the same. He blew out a breath and shrugged his shoulders. As for Willie, he's a good one, and he'll give the machine a long hard fight.

You can depend on it. He might conceivably even draw. He touched Sandra's arm. Cheer up, my dear, he said. You should remind yourself that a victory for the machine is still a victory for the USA. Doc's prediction about a long hard fight was decidedly not fulfilled. Having white, the machine opened pawn to King IV, and Angler went into the Sicilian defense. For the first twelve moves on each side, both adversaries pushed their pieces and tap their

clocks at such lightning speed, Vanderhoff feeding in Angler's moves swiftly, that up in the stands Bill and Judy were still flipping pages madly in their hunt for the right column in MCO. The machine made its 13 move, still at blitz tempo. Bishop takes pawn, check and mate in three. Willie announced very loudly, made the move, banged his clock, and sat back. There was a collective gasp and gabble from the stands. Dave squeezed Sandra's arm hard. Then, for once, forgetting that he was Dr. Caution,

He demanded loudly of Bill and Judy, have you two idiots found that column yet? The machine's 13th move is a boner. Pending down the reference with a fingernail, Judy cried, Yes. Here it is on page 161 in footnote E to B, Dave. That 13th move for White is in the book. But Black replies, Knight to Queen, too, not Bishop takes pawn, check.

And three moves later, the book. gives white a plus value. What the heck? It can't be, Bill asserted. But it is. Check for yourself. That boner is in the book. Shut up everybody, Dave ordered,

clapping his hands to his face. When he dropped them a moment later, his eyes gleamed. I got it now? Angler figured they were using the latest edition of MCO to program the machine on openings. He found it.

an editorial error, and then he deliberately played the machine into that variation. Dave practically shouted his last words. But that attracted no attention as at that moment the whole hall was the noisiest it had been throughout the tournament. It simmered down somewhat as the machine flashed a move. Angler replied instantly. The machine replied almost as soon as Angla's move was fed into it. Angler moved again, his move was fed into the machine, and the machine flashed.

I am checkmated. Congratulations. Next morning, Sandra heard Dave's guess confirmed by both Angler and great. Doc had spotted them having coffee and a malt together, and he and Sandra joined them. Doc was jubilant, having just drawn his adjourned game with Sherewski, which meant since Jandorf had beaten Gros, that he was in undisputed possession of Ninth Place. They were all waiting for the finish of the Vat-Bidnick-Lismov game, which would decide the final standings of the leaders. Willie Angler was complacent,

and Simon Great was serene and at last a little more talkative. You know, Willie, the psychologist said, I was afraid that one of you boys would figure out something like that. That was the chief reason I didn't have the machine used the programmed openings, until Lees-Mov's win forced me to. I couldn't check every opening line in MCO and the archives and Chek-Mati? There wasn't time. As it was, we had a dozen typists and proofreaders busy for weeks

preparing that part of the programming and making sure it was accurate as far as following the books went. Tell the truth now, Willie. How many friends did you have hunting for flaws in the latest edition of MCO? Willie grinned. Your unlucky 13th. Well, that's my secret. Though I've always said that anyone joining the Willie Angler fan club

ought to expect to have to pay some day for the privilege. They're sharp, those little guys, and I worked their tails off. Simon Great laughed and said to Sandra, Your young friend Dave was pretty sharp himself, to deduce what had happened so quickly. Willie, you ought to have him in the Bleaker Street Irregulars. Sandra said, I get the impression he's planning to start a club of his own.

Anglers snorted. That's the trouble with my little guys. They're all waiting to topple me. Simon Great said, Well, so long as Willie is passing up, Dave, I want to talk to him. It takes real courage and a youngster to question authority. How should he get in touch with you, Sandra asked. Well, Great told her, Willie studied them frowningly.

"'Sye, are you planning to stick to this chess programming racket?' he demanded. Simon Great did not answer the question. "'You try telling me something, Willie,' he said. "'Have you been approached the last couple of days by IBM?' "'You mean asking me to take over your job?' I said IBM, Willie. "'Oh, Willie's grin became a tight one. I'm not talking.' There was a flurry of sound and movement around the playing

tables, Willie sprang up. Lees-Movs agreed to a draw, he informed him a moment later. The gangster. Gangster? Because he put you in equal first place with Votbenik? Both of you ahead of the machine? Great inquired gently. Ah, he could have beat Betty, giving me so first, a Russian gangster.

Doc shook a finger. Lees-Mov could also have lost to Vodbidnik, Willie. putting you in second place. Don't think evil thoughts. So long, pals. As Angler clattered down the stairs, Simon Great signed the waiter for more coffee, lit a fresh cigarette,

took a deep drag and leaned back. You know, he said, it's a great relief not to have to impersonate the hyper-confident programmer for a while. Being a psychologist has spoiled me for that sort of thing. I'm not as good as I once was

at beating people over the head. with my ego. You didn't do too badly, Doc said. Thanks. Actually, WBM is very much pleased with the machine's performance. The machine's flaws made it seem more real and more newsworthy, especially how it functioned when the going got tough. Those repairs the boys made under time pressure in your games,

Civilly will help sell WBM computers or I miss my guess. In fact, nobody could have watched the tournament for long without realizing there were nine smart, rugged men out there ready to kill that computer if they could. The machine passed a real test, and then the whole deal dramatizes what computers are and what they can and can't do. And not just at the popular level. The WBM Research Boys are learning a lot about computer and programming theory by studying how the machine and its programmers behave under tournament stress. It's a kind of test, unlike that, provided by any other computer work.

Just this morning, for instance, one of our big mathematicians told me that he is beginning to think that the theory of games does apply to chess because you can bluff and counter-bluff with your programming, and I'm learning about human psychology. Doc chuckled. Such as that even human thinking is just a thing. matter of how you program your own mind, that were all like the machine to that extent? That's one of the big points, Savilly, yes. Doc smiled at Sandra. You wrote a nice little news

story, dear, about how man conquered the machine by a palpitating nose and won a victory for international amity. Now the story starts to go deeper. A lot of things go deeper, Sandra replied, looking at him evenly. Much deeper than even, than even you. you ever expected the start. The big electric scoreboard lit up. Final standing. Player, angler, wins six, losses three. Futt Binick, wins six, losses three.

Jahl, wins five and a half, losses three and a half. Machine, wins five and a half, losses three and a half. Leesmoff wins five, losses four. Cerick, wins four and a half, losses four and a half. a half. Sherefsky wins four and a half, losses four and a half. Jandorf wins three and a half, losses five and a half. Cracketar wins two and a half, losses six and a half.

Rabbo wins two, losses seven. It was a good tournament, Doc said, and the machine has proven itself a grandmaster. It must make you feel good, Simon, after being out of tournament chess for 20 years. The psychologist nodded. Will you go back to psychology now? Sandra asked him. Simon Great smiled.

I can answer that question honestly, Miss Grayling, because the news is due for release. No. WBM is pressing for entry of the machine in the inter-zonal candidates' tournament. They want to crack at the world's championship. Doc raised his eyebrows. That's news indeed. But, look, Simon, with the knowledge you've gained in this tournament. won't you be able to make the machine almost a sure winner in every game?

I don't know. Players like Angler and Leesmof may find some more flaws in the functioning and dream up some new strategums. Besides, there's another solution to the problems raised by having a single computer entered in a Grand Master tournament. Doc sat up straight. You mean having more programmer computer teams than just one? Exactly.

The Russians are very. bound to give their best players' computers, considering the prestige the game has in Russia. And I wasn't asking Willie that question about IBM just on a hunch. Chess tournaments are a wonderful way to test rival computers and show them off to the public, just like cross-country races were for the early automobiles. The future Grandmaster will inevitably be a programmer computer team, a man-machine's symbiotic partnership, probably with more freedom each way than I was allowed in this tournament. I mean the man taking over the play in some positions, the machine and others.

You're making my head swim, Sandra said. Mine is in the same storm-tossed ocean, Doc assured her. Diamond that will be very fine for the master who can get themselves computers, either from their governments or from hiring out to big firms. Or in other ways. Jandorf, I am sure, will be able to enter some Argentinian millionaire in a computer for him, while I—oh, I am too old. Still, when I start to think about it.

But what about the Bella Grabos? Incidentally, did you know that Grabo is contesting Jandorff's win? Claims Jandorf discussed the position with Cerick. I think they exchanged about two words. Simon shrugged. The Bella Grubbos will have to continue. to fight their own battles, if necessary, satisfying themselves with the lesser tournaments. Believe me, Savilly, from now on, Grand Master Chess without one or more computers entered,

Will Lack Sauce. Dr. Cracketaur shook his head and said, Thinking gets more expensive every year. From the floor came the harsh voice of Igor Jondorff and the shrill one of Bella Grabo, raised in anger. Three words came through. clearly. I challenge you. Sandra said,

well, there's something you can't build into a machine, ego. Oh, I don't know about that, said Simon Great. End of part five. End of the 64 square madhouse by Fritz Labr.