This is how I saw in 2025:
I was studying problems in the art of "Ablenkung" ("distraction") in a good old East German chessbook that was published in East Berlin back in 1987.
Do not let the Northern Irish drying-up cloth or the Spanish sparkling wine "distract" you from the chess book and the wooden chess set.
Wooden East German Travel Chess Set
I bought the "Travel Chess Set" in Gamley's toy shop in York, England, circa 1987. The wooden chess set, like the book, was made in East Germany and features an inlaid board, turned wooden men, and a two-way draw system for storing the men. Yup, you push one draw out, and the other one slides out in the opposite direction - a super cool feature - and all for £4.99.
My First Eventful Summer As An English Language Teacher
1987 was the year that I started teaching "English as a Foreign Language." I was on my second short-term contract at an English Language School that happened to be just a 15 minute cycle ride from my house. It was the summer course and an 18 year old German girl joined the school for a six week course and, in short, we hooked up and went on a camping holiday in Wales after my contract was over. It turned out that she could play chess and that her father was a keen club chess player in Munich.
"Our" Chess Set
I can't remember if I bought the chess set after meeting her, or before. Either way, I took it with me wherever I went and she and I played a lot of games on that board.
Here's a closer look at the fine quality of East German craftsmanship that I picked up for less than five quid in a long-gone toy shop in York back in the day:
Yeah, playing chess with a West-German girlfriend on an East-German board in England, Wales, and then in Germany as well when I flew to Munich in time for "Sylvester" (New Year's Eve) 1988 was certainly a lot of fun.
A Gift From Her Father
I briefly met her father while in Munich, and later in 1988 he gifted me the East German chess book, "Zauberwelt der Komination" by the Soviet chess master, Jakow Neistadt. I think the idea was to help me improve my German as well as my "majesty in the battlefield" as my eloquent girlfriend put it, in which case, I am afraid that father and daughter were to be disappointed since I only got a few pages into the book - I still have the dessicated pages of German chess notes that I wrote as I struggled my way through both the German and the chess!
And now, an astonishing 37 years later...
On New Year's Eve I was going to use a bigger chess set to study the problems, but then it occurred to me that it might be more convenient to use the neglected East German chess set. Suddenly, I found the experience of using that East German chess set for the first time in many years, together with the East German chess book incredibly nostalgic.
At the same time, I noticed that there are 357 "Aufgaben" (Exercises) in the book in addition to the example problems that each chapter leads with, so I thought it would be a nice challenge to go through all the problems in 2025. If I can average one completed problem a day I should be able to finish the book before the year is out...
So far, I've done 12 problems with varying degrees of success, so I'm well ahead with this challenge so far this year!
Hopefully, as I go through the book and work out the problems on my good old chess board (because now it seems that the book and board are wedded together in this project), both my chess and my German will improve while I tip my hat to the memory of my long-lost girlfriend and her father, and honour the memory the late Soviet chess master, Jakow Neistadt.
Wish me luck!
Cheers!
David Hurley
#PubChessBluffer
#InspiredFocus
P. S. To find out more about "Ablenkung" - one of the concepts that Neistadt teaches in the book - see yesterday's blog post:
@hirohurl/the-art-of-ablenkung-in-chess-how-portisch-missed-a-trick-in-monaco
And this one from last month:
@hirohurl/two-examples-of-ablenkung-distraction-deflection-in-chess
Oh, and this one too:
@hirohurl/chess-and-the-art-of-distraction
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