Love is in the Chair

According to Wikipedia, the word chair originates from the early 13th-century English word chaere, derived from Old French chaiere ("chair, seat, throne") and Latin cathedra ("seat"). A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person, consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat, and a backrest to support the occupant, thereby reducing the weight on other parts of the body. A chair may or may not have armrests.

Wood, leather, textiles, stone, metal, steel, aluminum, or even a synthetic mix of these—what material would you choose?

Chair design considers intended usage, ergonomics (comfort for the user), and non-ergonomic functional requirements such as size, stacking ability, folding ability, weight, durability, stain resistance, and artistic decoration.

The chess world has seen numerous remarkable examples of chairs. Let’s journey through a little cultural chair history with some of the game's masterminds: Steinitz, Chigorin, Alekhine, and Euwe to Fischer, Petrosian, Spassky, Korchnoi, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Carlsen, Caruana, Nepomniachtchi, and Ding Liren. Please, take a seat and enjoy!

Same chairs, similar clothes, similar beards - Mikhail Chigorin (left) and Wilhelm Steinitz, two of the greatest influencers of modern chess, are shown playing in the 1880s. Take note of the clock and the romantic chess table! | Photo: Undated, photographer unknown.

Steinitz, considered the first official World Champion, reigned from 1886 (after defeating his archrival Johannes Zukertort) until 1894, when he lost to Emanuel Lasker. Steinitz and Chigorin competed for the title twice, in 1889 and 1892, both times in Havana, Cuba.

Same chairs with armrests and a restaurant table with a chessboard -
Max Euwe (left) faces Alexander Alekhine in 1937 | Photo: geheugen.delpher.nl

Different chairs: Decadent but democratic West vs. orthodox communist East -
A handshake between Fischer and Petrosian (sitting) at the Challenger’s Final in Buenos Aires in 1971. | Photo: Via Twitter (X) of Grandmaster Zenón Franco Ocampos (1956–2024).

Different chairs at the start of the World Championship match in Reykjavik, 1972 - The photo shows Boris Spassky and arbiter Lothar Schmid, who starts the clock at the beginning of the second game, which Fischer did not play and lost by default. | Photo source: ChessBase. Boris soon demanded a chair similar to Fischer's. (See Bobby Fischer und sein Drehstuhl | Perlen vom Bodensee)

Lousy chairs for two of the greatest players ever, Korchnoi and Spassky, Candidate's Final in 1977/78 in Belgrade. Spassky, who at that time was living mostly in France, played under the Soviet flag, Korchnoi, who was officially stateless, was given no flag. | Photo source: Streatham & Brixton Chess Blogspot

The match had a curious course: After ten games, Korchnoi led 7.5 to 2.5 points (five wins, and five draws, no loss), but then lost four games in a row. But in the end Spassky lost clearly by minus three, despite these four wins.

1977/78 is also related with "Love Is in the Air", an evergreen dance and disco song by Australian pop singer John Paul Young from late 1977, released as the lead single from Young's studio album "Love Is in the Air".

The song became a worldwide hit in 1978. The title of this pictorial report refers to that song:

Love is in the air, everywhere I look around
Love is in the air, every sight and every sound
And I don't know if I'm being foolish
Don't know if I'm being wise
But it's something that I must believe in
And it's there when I look in your eyes

The match Karpov vs Korchnoi at Baguio City in the Philippines in 1978 was one of those instances where reality is stranger than fiction | Photo: A screenshot from "Closing Gambit", a Canadian chess film from 2018 by Alan Byron, Screenbound

Same stools: Karpov vs. Kasparov in 1984 | Photo: Anonymous / AP

24 years earlier Botvinnik and Tal battled for the crown in similar fashion.

The 1984/1985 match between Anatoly Karpov and his challenger Garry Kasparov in Moscow brought a series of 17 draws in a row! Incredible! Karpov took an early 4-0 lead but then failed to make decisive progress. Six wins were necessary to gain the title, draws did not count.

This match lasted from September 10, 1984 to February 8, 1985. It was aborted after 48 games, just after Kasparov had won game 47 and game 48. Karpov kept his title but a new match, limited to 24 games, was scheduled to take place later that year.

The second match was also played in Moscow and lasted from 3 September to 9 November. Kasparov won 13 to 11 and at the age of 22 he became the youngest World Champion of all time.

Indian Gukesh Dommaraju (born in May 2006), also known as Gukesh D, won the Candidates Tournament in Toronto, Canada, in April 2024, thereby earning the right to challenge World Champion Ding Liren from China for the title. This victory made Gukesh the youngest player ever to win the Candidates Tournament.

Now Gukesh has a chance to become the youngest undisputed World Chess Champion at the age of 18 if he wins the his World Championship match against Ding Liren in Singapore.

Note: Ruslan Ponomariov was younger than Garry Kasparov and Gukesh when he won the FIDE World Championship knock-out 2001/02, and became FIDE World Champion in January 2002 by beating his fellow Ukrainian countryman Ivanchuk in the final by a score of 4½-2½, but this was a FIDE tournament and not the classical World Championship match. However, Ponomariov (born in October 1983) became FIDE World Champion at the age of 18 and three months.

Different chairs: Did Garry choose the wrong seat? In 2000 Kasparov lost against Kramnik in London without winning a single game. In the middle of the photo you see the arbiter Andrzej Filipowicz. | Photo: Ben Bartels via Europe Échecs Twitter (X)

Recently, Uvencio Blanco Hernández interviewed the Polish polymath, who was born in 1938: An interview with Andrzej Filipowicz, a Polish chess polymath | ChessBase

Same chairs: Magnus Carlsen defends his title against Fabiano Caruana in London in 2018 |  Photo: Wikipedia

This was the first time in the history of the world championships that all 12 classical games ended in a draw. However, Caruana lost the tiebreak 0-3.

Is there a hidden algorithm? Different chairs again: Ding vs. Nepomniachtchi in Astana, Kazakhstan in 2023. The Chinese player took the ultimate crown (the reigning World Champion Carlsen did not want to defend his title). But winning the title led to a crisis for Ding Liren. | Photo: Stev Bonhage, FIDE

The current chair situation, some material advantage for Gukesh | Photo: FIDE / Eng Chin An

Warning: Don’t swing in your chair!

Polish grandmaster Pawel Teclaf shows you why. In December 2021, he came to media fame thanks to a video taken at the World Blitz Championship. In that game, Teclaf played against Tigran L. Petroisan, and after blundering and walking into a mating net he lost balance and fell off his chair. Afterwards, he became known as «the chair boy»: Funny Chess Player Falls Off The Chair #pawelteclaf (youtube.com)

• Inspiration for this article:

Richtig sitzen, eine Wissenschaft | Perlen vom Bodensee from 2021 by Conrad Schormann, creator and driving force of the german Chess Blog “Perlen vom Bodensee”, a free online Publication with news and interesting insights from the game we love.