Is BLACK OK?
Straightforward Answers to Shaky Questions

Andras Adorjan

Are You prejudiced in any way, dear reader? Of course You are! Don't be ashamed 
of it - who isn't? Who isn't shackled by dogmas, beliefs, wrong reflexes, routine? 
Those who deny it are liars or saints. But, as saints make the tiniest minority 
in the world, we, sinful humans would rather be honest to ourselves and each 
other. There's no point in blaming one another; although we are so various, still 
we are so similar in our imperfection: frail mortals. Shall we then accept our 
limits with resignation, and despair of our pretensions to change, to make things 
change, to make things better? No way! Why, there's nothing as sure on earth as 
change! It's up to us if we become merely spectators of what's going on, or active 
participants, moulders, controllers of 'the way of the world'.  "Oh no! Here comes 
the usual rubbish about world redemption and the meaning of life" guesses the reader 
who has already had quite a few disappointments, and lost faith in empty phrases 
and flowers of rhetoric. However, lies are not the faults of words, but of those 
who distort and misuse them. Or is there a single word, a single noble, holy ideal, 
in whose name no villainy has ever been committed? So shall we stop believing in 
anything, shall we banish our most beautiful words? Only over my dead body! Regardless 
of all this: YES, to redeem the world, YES, to continue the work of Creation, YES, 
to fight against superstition, darkness, ready-made panels substituting for thought, 
YES, to seek truth, this can be our only goal. We can't be satisfied with anything 
less than that. Sounds pretty pathetic, doesn't it, buddy? Think what You please, 
gentle reader, but do believe me that You are also shaping what is going to be 
reality tomorrow. Creation didn't end on the sixth day, everybody can make his 
contribution at his own place.  We, chess-players of the Globe, seek truth on 
the board. Evolution requires respect for eternal values and unbiased, matter-of-fact 
observation of actual phenomena. Alas for the one who can't get rid of the clog 
of prejudice, the whirl of worthless fashion!  It's my destiny to make my contribution 
to the quest for chess truth by fighting 'apartheid', that is, the prejudice in 
connection with the colours of the pieces. It is this 'BLACK Is OK' spirit that 
guides me and my friends when we set off our magazine, edit other publications, 
organize tournaments, courses. In order to have real blessing on our work, though, 
we need Your benevolent, but critical attention. Please join us, after all:

GENS UNA SUMUS

András Adorján 

The Way It All Started
(The Story of 'BLACK Is OK')

1985 was a very BLACK year, and not 'OK' at all. My mother died. Those who have 
already had a trauma like this know more or less what I lived through; for others 
I should say something about this kind of experience. Because it's totally different 
to hear about an earthquake or a flood killing 10000 people. This is all the same 
just a number, a momentary heartache, maybe with some feeling of relief - we are 
ashamed of it, but it's true - saying "Thank God it did not happen here, with 
them reading about it over there." There is a classic epitaph from a Hungarian 
cemetery in Transylvania (now part of Rumania) : "You are reading:/ 'Here I lie'/I 
wish You were lying/and I could read this line." So when death gathers its crops 
on a large scale, but at a safe distance, it is - what a regretful fact! - more 
or less OK. We are all like Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich: we can accept death in general; 
it's more difficult to accept the death of someone close to us; and our own death 
we can't even imagine! Now, if death takes its toll in our immediate environment - 
it can be our relative or friend, or just someone of the same generation, that is, 
of relatively younger age - it shakes us deeply. And it's not only that we cry for 
the deceased, as we know from Hemingway that, hearing the bell toll, you should 
never ask for whom it tolls. It tolls for you. It's preceded by the statement 
that it's me who loses something with every death. That's why you should never 
ask for whom the bell tolls.  We mourn for the one we loved. We mourn with pity, 
guilt, sorrow, and, pitying the deceased, we pity ourselves as well. We mourn for 
our own mortality, our momentary loneliness, and, first of all - at least in such 
moments - we think of what our existence is all about. Can there be anything good 
in losing someone you loved? Isn't it a morbid thought?  Well, let me tell you just 
one thing. I managed to say to my mother on her deathbed: "You're doing good to 
us even at the moment of your death. You're reminding us to keep together, and 
to leave as little debt as possible". She, poor soul, still taught in a primary school 
a couple of months before her death (at the age of 70), in rather bad health. She 
couldn't live without that.  So what did I get together with this blow of fortune? 
Something I could make use of. Experiencing this way the finiteness of existence, 
I thought about the meaning of us being here. That is, what are we supposed to do? 
Then I thought I'd found the answer several times. For example I figured we should 
merit the oxygen we breathe in and transform into carbon-dioxide during our presence 
on earth; and that we must leave something lasting, something living on after our death. 
That was the time when I started to think of building up a 'life-work', and seemed to 
have found writing as the right course of activity to follow. I had written a lot before 
that anyway, from my early childhood on - chess articles, analyses, prose and poetry, 
occasionally lyrics or music. I am extremely extroverted, as a psychologist would put 
it - my desire for self-expression is enormous. So I didn't have to force myself to take 
pen in hand. What I wanted to write was something original, sort of a series which has 
something in common, some kind of 'meaningful harmony', but still, each piece can be 
taken for a whole, with an essence of its own. I didn't get too far. Then I took to 
jotting down the theoretical subjects in which I'd ever had a new idea (some of them 
had already been tried in practice, I even had followers in some cases) on slips of paper. 
When I had a list of 18-20 variations, I started to look for what is unmistakably common 
in them. And then came the moment when I suddenly realized that there are maybe 2 or 3 
among them on white's side. Then I recalled that I liked playing with BLACK (or at least 
I wasn't afraid of it) already at the age of twenty (or maybe even much earlier; being 
a middle-aged man of 42, I rather watch my next step than recall memories with no particular 
reason) and what a great number of tournaments I had where I held most of my victories with 
BLACK, and so on. Today - being perhaps not only older but wiser as well - I can't help 
thinking that it was not me seeking and finally finding my task - no, it happened just the 
other way round. I was probably predestined to do it, it was my destiny, all I had to do 
was to listen to the message. 'It took me a little long, oh long, but the voice of my master 
was strong!' - as the poet would say.  So I started. I started, as it is mentioned already 
in the preface to the book including a collection of my articles, with the Keres-attack, 
followed by the others in quick succession. These articles were published in practically 
every country of the world with a chess magazine. The reception was encouraging, not bad 
for a start.  After labelling the whole thing 'BLACK Is OK' and this way committing myself 
to something much more than just a well-sounding witticism. It was (and is) something I did 
and do believe in, and my belief is getting deeper and deeper, if it's possible at all. In 
the beginning, however, even my best friends looked at this thesis with - how to say it - 
condescending cheerfulness. Not that anybody told me anything nasty - but it was in the air, 
and I could smell it. Well, after all, they didn't disturb me playing, and I 'built my sand-castle'. 
And, as time went on, the army of sceptics lessened, seeing my things published in various chess 
magazines from India to Singapore, from the USA to the (passed-away) USSR, all the countries 
of Europe, Australia, not to mention Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica. I would go on with pleasure, 
but here the important thing is not what makes me pleased. It is that the people (judging by the 
reception) appreciated the results of the cruelly concrete analyses (sqeezed off from the brains 
and hearts of myself and my beloved friends and gifted seconds in a humble effort to 'right the 
unrightable wrong'), and, on top of that, they even found it entertaining. The other thing is that, 
while at the beginning the whole idea sounded as heretic as - maybe the comparison is a bit 
pretentious - Martin Luther's theses nailed to the gate, nowadays there are probably very few 
people who reject it from the very first that it is quite tolerable to play with BLACK. I even 
received two letters whose writers went even further, one of them saying that there is a limited 
number of'good moves' for each player in the starting position, and if someone runs out of these, 
he can only make things worse with every furter move. Now, as white starts the game, he will have 
to make the first 'bad move'. Therefore, with both players making the best moves possible, BLACK 
must winÁ This letter came from Germany a long time ago.  My other penfriend claimed that, although 
white can choose between 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4 etc., and determining the character of the game to a 
certain extent, but once he has moved, say, e4, BLACK can also choose from a great variety of answers, 
influencing the position at least as strongly as white. He also said that the disadvantage of starting 
is not unfamiliar in some board games, e.g. in nine-men's morris.  What I am saying is, though, not 
more than 'BLACK is OK'. I will probably repeat it on my deathbed, like Goethe, who wanted - on the 
contrary - more light. Or another 'fellow-heretic', who claimed that "The Earth is moving just the 
same". To cut a long story short, I don't think I could deny it in the torture chamber, unless someone 
convinced me it isn't true. So what is set off with this magazine is a scientific experiment, as it 
is all very nice that in my own practice playing with BLACK was rather a bliss than a burden, that my 
results support my thesis, and that my ideas have found followers among the top players of the world 
(from th three great K's to Timman, Seirawan, Belyavsky etc., to mention just a few). But it is still 
rather like someone vaccinating himself with BLACK pox, then with the serum he has invented, and 
surviving. It doesn't prove that the vaccine can be used expansively, only that this particular guy 
didn't die. In clinical practice it takes 5-10 years to legalize a drug, to prove it isn't toxic, to 
rule out all harmful side effects etc. Now we can similarly get thousands of games by organizing subject 
tournaments, getting and see how my ideas stand the test of serious tournament practice. The statistics 
of these tournaments concerning wins and losses with BLACK and white is also interesting. 
Finally, let me tell you that the ultimate goal of the experiment is not to confirm my thesis, and 
definitely not 'by all means'. It is to discover the truth. If, summing up the results after 5-10 years, 
we realize that BLACK is not OK at all, or just a little bit OK, well - it will be a disappointment for 
me personally that my hypothesis is wrong, and in fact it's just me and a couple of other fellows who are 
able to apply this 'left-handed' tactics. But my personal disappointment - which I do not expect, I think 
I can tell it to you without any false modesty - would also do great service to chess science, as a failed 
hypothesis takes us closer to truth, too. In order to disprove a false hypothesis you have to dig into the 
topic so deeply that the result can be quite close to the level of perfection man is able to reach. So the 
strongest motivation of this work is curiosity. Curiosity that keeps asking somewhere inside "What's going 
to come out of it?" Is it possible to achieve some revolutionary - or at least a little - change in the 
mentality of players and theoreticians? Or will everything remain the same, allowing white to get a devastating 
8-1 record at a match for the world championship in 1986? Well, if someone tells me this is normal, I can't 
help thinking there is something wrong with him. All in all, it may also turn out that all this is nothing 
but my private hobbyhorse. But let me tell you an anecdote: a woman went to see a psychiatrist and said: 
"Doctor, my husband is getting so funny." "Why, tell me about it, perhaps I can help you." "The poor fellow 
thinks he is a hen." "A hen? Well, this is a serious case." the doctor wrinkled his forehead. " And how long 
has he had it?" "For 4 or 5 years." "4 or 5 years? And you are coming here only now? I could have probably 
helped you easier in the starting stage." "Well, you know, Doctor, we are not really well-off. To tell the 
truth, the money for the eggs came in handy" So my thesis might be totally refuted in the future, waiting 
in a dusty storehouse for a teacher who can tell the amused students about what nonsense the people
took into their heads - a couple of millennia ago. But I have some kind of daydream, that is, something coming 
to my mind from time to time as a joke. It's kind of a vision: some centuries from today triangle-headed 
creatures with wooden legs and green bodies from outer space appear on Earth. These creatures, who are much more 
civilized than us, and, what is more, still alive, as opposed to the human race, get down to studying the records 
of the history of our culture. Among other things, they come across my book called 'BLACK Is OK', and, as they 
can play chess (a galaxy where intelligent beings can't play chess is quite a dump, isn't it?), they have a 
look at it. A little bit later they say with a heavy sigh: "What a pity! This poor devil was the only one who 
knew it. It's a shame he wasn't important enough to be listened to!" Well, dear readers, time is to decide 
which of these possibilities will be fulfilled, and how we will know about it. As for me, I will keep 'laying 
eggs' like the hero of our anecdote. As long as I can achieve successes as a player and as a theoretician, let 
me keep believing in it, too. In return, I promise that I am not going to push anyone to take my side. I will 
use only concrete facts, data of experiments, statistics, that is, objective factors which can help us get 
closer to the absolute 'chess-truth'.  It's usually said about artists that they're tolerated by the rest of 
mankind, and saved from Hell owing to their works only. If this BLACK Is OK dream is fulfilled, I can perhaps 
hope to get a place in Purgatory.

Andras Adorjan