faced with playing 17 games in 7
days against such formidable
opposition, the boys from
Memphis (not “boys,” exactly: B.B.
Rosa B. Jefferson, sister of
was about 38 years old, Scrivener
Bradford B. Jefferson, deserves 32) “lost” it. In fact, B.B. did just
her own biography. Intelligent,
that. He scored only one point in
witty, and an excellent writer,
the first three rounds. “Mr.
Rosa was not only Music editor
Jeffersonʼs play has been without
of the Memphis Commercial
energy,” said the Chicago Tribune.
Appeal, but also wrote the chess That diagnosis might have been
column from 1903 to 1934. She right on, as we speculate below.
Rosa B. Jefferson
could also play a little. We know
that in simuls she beat Pillsbury
and Marshall, reportedly beat
Maroczy, and drew World
Champion Emanuel Lasker. But
what is not known is that she
apparently also beat Lasker in a
one-game stakes match! At 4:00
p.m. on December 3, 1902,
three hours before Lasker’s
evening simul was to begin, she
and Lasker met heads-up. Rosa
referred to her “backers” and
claimed that she challenged him.
The game was adjourned and
never finished, but according to
Lasker’s Chess Magazine, “Miss
Jefferson had the advantage and
the judges awarded the game to
her.”
According to Rosa’s account of
the match, “Perhaps he
accepted my challenge — and,
by the by, how my friends did
laugh at me for throwing down
the glove to the great man —
just to take me down for my
audacity and put me in the
corner, as it were. But what he
may have considered as ‘pink
tea’ performance turned out to
be, for him, three hours of
strenuous life.”
B.B.ʼs first two games were
adjourned, looking like a draw and
a loss, when he sat down on the
second day to play, as fate would
have it, his good friend Bob
Scrivener. He had taught Bob how
to play in 1904-1905, and Bob
would become a kind of acolyte.
“He is extremely modest and
prefers to extol the ability of his
fellow townsman, Jefferson, rather
than his own,” reported the
Chicago Tribune. But whatever the
situation might have been with
underestimating his erstwhile
pupil, a debilitating bug, or loss of
nerve, B.B. could expect no
quarter from his friend, fellow
clubber, and townsman. At move
30, Scrivener announced mate in
four.
Then – suddenly – things turned.
In the afternoon session of the
second day, just a few hours after
being slammed with “Mate in 4!,”
B.B. won. Then he won again. And
he kept winning. In fact, in the next
14 games after Scrivener
embarrassed him, B.B. won 12,
lost 1, and drew 1: 12.5 points out
of 14. Mystery? Maybe.
Sometimes things are simpler than
they seem. In college once a
student answered a professorʼs
question with what he thought was
a very well-thought-out, complex,
involved, clever analysis.
Internally, he was smiling all over
himself for being so smart. The
professor said, “Son, youʼre
reaching for the depths and
drowning on the surface.” Occamʼs
Razor.
There might be a very simple
explanation for what happened to
B.B. after the game with Scrivener.
Itʼs interesting to speculate that
perhaps it was psychological
shock. B.B.ʼs student, whom he
taught how to play, rewards him by
killing the king. How neatly
Freudian. That must be what
shook him out of his malaise, or
torpor, or sui-mate.
The Turn
History is so often a mystery. Why
in the world things turn out as they
do is at times beyond our ken. We
can only imagine B.B.ʼs state of
mind at this point. He ended up
drawing those first two adjourned
games, and then in the very next
round he lost spectacularly to his
friend and former pupil. After three
rounds, he was 1 - 2. It was a
disaster in the making. He came
all the way to Chicago for this?
But thereʼs a much simpler way to
look at the situation that explains it
very well: B.B. was ill and didnʼt
play like himself. Then he was
healthy and did play like himself.
And when he did that, he was one
very tough guy to beat. The theory
that he had a “bug” or some such
seems even more likely given the
fact that Dave Cummings, his
compatriot, was not able to play at
all because of a “slight
indisposition.”
3