I Gor

I remember first meeting Igor Ivanov. He lived over the hill on the east side in a sun exposed house that made it seem that you were almost in the country side. Maybe the Caucasus, Walden pond or possibly New Jersey.
With great nervousness I approached this man attached to a deep history. While not famous like the Rolling Stones he was famous in my mind. Beating Anatoly Karpov puts you on the all time great list of any rational chess player.

I have known many chessplayers and they can be quite a surly lot. Heck, I can be surly. So what would the first meeting be like? In my youth I had walked up to the great Shamkovich and asked for an autograph. He waved his hand, "Get away from me" screamed the gesture. My idol and author of one of the great books on combination denied me a memento. Well, alright, it was right before his game and I was destroying his focus. (I was later to do this to Nick Defirmian WHILE he was playing. Man, he was angry. Whats wrong with these guys? Is their craft more important than my needling nuisances?)

As soon as I walked through the door it was clear that this guy was NOT uptight! He could make you feel at home even if his house was on fire. From that day onward I NEVER had a negative moment with him, he was just to free of a spirit to have problems with nonsense. And I test people with nonsense all the time.

This was one guy who just LOVED chess. He was seldom without a chess book that he was working on. I knew that Lev Alburt had written that he didn't enjoy chess, that it was a job to him. Never had I met a person in my life that was so passionate about the game as Ivanov.

Sometimes while we were talking about the game he would say "Don't you just love this game?" He meant it. I told him I was too stupid to love the game that much but if I could play like him it would be a reasonable goal.

Igor would set you up quite well because he was mostly about enjoying life. One time I set up a position on the chess board in the back yard. I said defiantly "Solve this one! A quality chess titan played it." He studied hard and after a fair amount of work went over the variations in great detail. He asked "Who did this, it is an impressive combination".
"Yeah," I said, "the guy that did that under tournament conditions did quite a job! IT WAS YOU!"
"Har har har har" he guffawed when he figured out that he had been tricked with the help of a copy of the Informant Encyclopedia of Combinations.

He was to move to Southern Utah and I only saw him occasionally. Every time he would make me feel like it was a special event when we met. Then a chess party would usually ensue with the other guests and such. The last time I saw him he cajoled Vince Bazemore to sing my song "Stuck in Arizona". I think it amused him because I mailed him a copy when he was indeed "stuck in Arizona."

It was sad to have heard about his decline from friends but I doubt he was fretting about things. His personality was to seek out what was fun despite other difficult details. It was good that they showed his picture in the Salt Lake Tribune along with a sizeable article. It would have made him laugh.