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Play It Ben: There's No Check Mate
by John Martin

Author's Note: [Published in the Mercury, Hobart, under the pseudonym Norman J. Hit (simply an anagram of my name; I was working for an opposition newspaper full time) in a column called Chess Nuts on May 27, 1989. The cartoon was the Mercury's, not mine.]

When Ben Johnson finally comes to grips with his disgraced exit from the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, he might want to make a fresh start in a new sport. The bulky Canadian may never live down having to return his gold medal after his sensational victory in the 100-metre sprint. After all, despite his protests, he did test positive for steroids. But the good news for Ben is that there is a sport called chess that doesn’t give a hoot about the use of steroids, or any other drug for that matter. If Ben is brave enough to inject himself with chemical substances that make his biceps bulge, his testicles shrink and his boobs grow, then we're brave enough to let him come play with us.

He'll be happy to know that chess players aren't required to give urine samples after games. Drugs, however, have figured in the game over the years - with mixed results. Former world champion Mikhail Tal once had to play in a tournament despite having a bad dose of influenza. To buck him up, his Soviet trainers decided to inject him with vitamin C. Trouble is, the nurse accidentally injected him with a powerful tranquilliser called Nembutal. Tal began dozing off in the middle of the game, his head drooping over the board so that his nose nearly touched the pieces. Needless to say, he lost the game.

During the world championship in the Philippines in 1978, challenger Viktor Korchnoi accused champion Anatoly Karpov of being aided by drugs allegedly contained in glasses of yoghurt which were served to him regularly during games. Korchnoi, who by this time had defected from the USSR, said that Karpov's minders kept the spoon and glass so that there was no chance of the contents being analysed. "There was a large man - we called him a gorilla - whose only task was to give Karpov his yoghurt," Korchnoi said. When Korchnoi eventually lost the match, he claimed: "The result was a great victory for Soviet chemistry."

As early as the 10th century, chess players have used pain-killing drugs to get themselves through particularly arduous games. An Arabic historian, al-Masudi, reported in 905AD: "When the Indians play at chess, they wager stuffs and precious stones. But it sometimes happens that a player will wager one of his limbs. For this they set beside the players a small cooper vessel over a wood fire, in which is boiled a reddish ointment peculiar to the country, which has the property of healing wounds and staunching the flow of blood. If the man who wagered one of his fingers losses, he cuts off the finger with a dagger and then plunges his hand in the ointment and cauterises the wound. Then he returns to the game. If the luck is against him, he sacrifices another finger, and sometimes a man who continues to lose will cut off all his fingers, his hand, his forearm, his elbow and other parts of his body."

At this point, it was probably physically impossible to give a urine sample even if officials wanted one. Think about it, Ben. Come and play chess.

[In seeking John Martin's permission to publish this wonderful piece at Goddesschess, we suggested he do a follow-up article, following "Ben Chessplayer as a Second Career"'s progress since FIDE has now adopted the IOC drug-testing standards for chessplayers!]