Grandmaster Read Online Free PDF

opening where you’ll get a solid position after ten moves, and they’ll soon be off the book and forced to think for themselves. Suddenly that giant advantage they have—of hundreds of hours studying opening theory and traps—will be gone. They’ll have to come up with their own original moves, which means you’ll be meeting evenly on the field of mind combat—and you’ll have a legitimate chance.”
    “The tournament starts tomorrow night,” I told him. I glanced at my watch. “Twenty-one hours and counting. There’s no time for me to start learning new openings.”
    Dad hesitated a long beat, and then he began to set up the pieces again, but this time he didn’t do it slowly. His hands moved so fast that the pawns and knights and bishops became a black-and-white blur. He lifted his palms and they were all in place, as if he had conjured them. “Okay, Daniel,” he said, “pay close attention. This is where we start.”

 
    6
     
    “Don’t forget underwear,” my mother said as I finished tossing clothes into a duffel bag.
    “I’m not planning on wearing any,” I told her. “Underwear’s unlucky. I play better without it.”
    She looked at me. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “I packed plenty of clean underwear, Mom,” I promised her. “And if I run out, I’m sure they sell it near our hotel. They probably sell socks, too, somewhere in Manhattan.”
    She closed the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Take care of your father.”
    “Take care of him how?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “He never has trouble sleeping, but he was up for hours last night, twisting and turning. Then, after midnight, he got up and tiptoed out of the bedroom.”
    “Midnight snack?”
    She shook her head. “I followed him.”
    “You sneak.”
    “Spying is part of my job as a wife and mother.”
    “Where did he go?”
    “The study,” she said. “He switched on my computer.”
    “Your laptop? I wonder why.”
    “I bet because it’s newer,” she said, “so it’s the only one that has a chess application.”
    “You saw him playing the computer?”
    “Yes,” she admitted. “I peeked in the door and he was sitting at the desk, his hands folded, his eyes burning at the screen. Daniel, I’ve never seen him look like that.”
    “Like what?” I asked.
    “Like he wanted to strangle someone.”
    “The computer must have been beating him,” I guessed. “I think you can set it right up to master level, and maybe even to grandmaster strength. The new programs are really powerful. No one in my club can beat them.”
    She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell who was winning. But he was talking to it. Insulting it. Calling it names. Gizmo. Dolt. Screwhead.”
    “Screwhead?” I repeated with a smile. “Really?”
    “It’s not funny. He was threatening it. I’ve never heard your father ever threaten anyone, and…”
    Dad’s voice drifted in from the living room. “Daniel, are you packed? We’ve got to hit the road.”
    “Just getting clean underwear,” I shouted back. I could see how concerned Mom was. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “He’s just a very competitive chess player.”
    She put her hand on my arm. “I am worried. I thought it would be good for you two to share an activity. But there’s something going on here that I don’t understand and I don’t like. He’s not a young man, your father, and he has high blood pressure.”
    “Not anymore,” I said. “He got it down and under control.”
    “He got it down with pills,” she said. “I want you to watch him and—”
    Dad opened the door. “What are you two up to?”
    “I was just wishing my baby good luck,” Mom told him, and kissed me on the cheek. “Don’t forget to call. As many times a day as you like. Kate and I want to hear all the exciting news.”
    “Actually, I couldn’t care less about the chess mess,” Kate called out from the living room. “But the salient point—do you like that vocabulary word,