Why the Heart Must Go Wrong

The image above (cropped) was page 10 of the Leidse Courant of March 8, 1977, in referring to the Candidates Quarterfinal match for the World Chess Championship between the Brazilian Henrique Mecking (pictured above) and the Soviet Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky, held in Lucerne, Switzerland, from February 26 to April 2, 1977. The news is of some interest to Italy too, as after only three games Mecking fired his second Sergio Mariotti! “The brazilian seems to have recovered quite well after the nerve breakdown he suffered last weekend. The problems with his second Sergio Mariotti, who was fired by Mecking because of difference of vision, seem to have come to an end. The most likely successor to Mariotti is said to be the young Swiss Werner Hug, who was World Junior Chess Champion in 1971”, the report reads. Mecking and Mariotti knew each other when they participated in the Manila Interzonal in 1976, which was won by the Brazilian. Mariotti showed his shining chess only in the second half of the Interzonal, but it was enough for Mecking to ask him to act as his second in his upcoming match with Polugaevsky. Yet it was impossible to imagine two men more different in character. The spokespeople of the Federazione Scacchistica Italiana said that Mariotti’s unfortunate first half was due to jet lag and exacerbated by his difficulty in acclimatization. They probably felt some embarrassment in saying that he had kicked off the second assigned (by them) to assist him, International Master Alvise Zichichi, in favour of a not rated player, Mr. Lorenzo Argenton, who indeed was a friend of his, and incidentally a very strong chess player, too. Then, the legend wants, Mariotti played the first half of the Interzonal rigorously accompanied (and warmly encouraged) by a new girlfriend he had picked up in the slums of Manila. Perhaps as a compensation, he played a fantastic second half with a string of famous scalps to his name. In the early 1980s it was always a sublime pleasure to listen to his tales when he used to come from Rome to Florence just for one night at a time, if only to play one thousand blitz games with his long time friend Mr. Alessandro Parenti. Mariotti was a histrionic storyteller, and sometimes speaking about the chess VIPs (as well as the Florentine celebrities such as Vincenzo Castaldi and Clarice Benini), he liked to exaggerate a little, always in the most positive light. But the night when he told us of Mecking, I remember him still upset about his brief experience. “He plays too fearfully, he blamed me for not being passive and defensive like him!”, the Italian Fury growled. After firing Mariotti, Mecking actually called Werner Hug, and then, once he had fired Hug too, he finally turned to his old friend Juan Manuel Bellón López, another attacking player. Always that night I’m sure I heard a strong player of the Florence Chess Academy in via dei Pucci whispering, “Poor Mecking... first, Mariotti; then Bellón... all fireworks, but not a solid line”.