Sometimes, because of events in other parts of the board, pawns are left on their own against the enemy King. When this happens, knowing one single rule will be enough to decide the game.

We continue with our plundering of Wisconsin chess history by reaching back into the longest-published of all the local chess periodicals, Badger Chess, for this interview with Arpad Elo, conducted by Dave Brimble

Some people seem to think I’m lost in nostalgia. There’s a genuine resurgence of chess going on in the schools around here. Hundreds of kids are playing, so obviously I’m just looking at the past through rose-colored glasses and refusing to acknowledge that the chess scene has been rebuilt. I’m sure there’s even some who think the only reason I haven’t come around to this conclusion is that I’m not in control of the current chess scene. It’s not my achievement, therefore I don’t want to acknowledge it.

So, for those cynics I’d like to present some numbers from a Milwaukee Recreation Department document. It’s undated, but from external evidence I’d place it in the late 1950’s. It summarizes participation in the first 23 years of the Milwaukee chess program.

Since I’m now retired, I think I should probably dump some of my experiences here. Perhaps some of you can learn from my mistakes and improve on my results as an organizer. I’d like to think I did a pretty good job, but I made mistakes and failed to solve some problems at all.

So let me talk a bit about the problems draws cause an organizer. Not the hard-fought earned draws; they’re no problem at all. But I mean the “tactical draws,” the short ones players make because of tournament standings, when they take a draw with their main competition for the event in a dozen moves or so. They’re part of the game, like playing “safe” in billiards they keep a player from damaging their own chances while at the same time blocking an opponent’s advance. I’ve said before that from a player’s perspective, these draws absolutely make sense.

But from an organizer’s perspective, they’re trouble. For two reasons.

Bobby Fischer is dead.There's a lot that could be said at this point, both good and bad. There's the brash young kid who wanted to be the youngest world champion ever. There's the bitter old man, spewing invective at everyone.

People will tell stories. And, in the end, we'll all remember what we choose to remember.