Errare humanum est
Close the door to all the mistakes, and the truth cannot enter
R. Tagore
Every person has a tendency to make mistakes, but persistence in error is peculiar only to a fool
Cicero
I only made a mistake once when I thought I was wrong
Nn
I will start with the curiosity told by A. Matsukevich in chess review No. 2 of 2011:
“It was in Germany. At the world chess championship among seniors, that is, grandmasters over 60 years old. Party M. Taimanov – M. Usachiy 1.d4 Kf6 2.c4 e6 3.Kf3 Cb4 + 4.Cd2, and now, attention! Having outlined the usual in this position 4 … Fe7, Black mechanically played 4 … Cre7 ?? Amazed Taimanov even wondered if they would catch him in some kind of phantosmagory super trap? I peered once again: everything is as usual. And he played 5.Сb4 +. The barbel took on the king and calmly was about to beat them on b4. And only then I realized what I had done and gave up. The funniest thing about this game is that this error occurred at the London Olympics of 1927. In the party L. Palau and S. Calibar. True, Calibar nevertheless took the elephant king to b4. The well-known grandmaster Geza Maroci approached a friendly laughter and, completing the situation, he moved the white queen to b3 and checkmate the next move. ”
It is terrible to think what would happen if people stopped making mistakes. S. Tartakover jokingly argued, “The existence of chess is justified only by the existence of errors.” Is it possible to rephrase and say the same thing about life if many philosophers and chess players draw parallels and compare life with chess.
“Error refers to truth, like a dream to awakening. Awakening from a mistake, a person turns to the truth with a new force, ”Goethe believed. The deep philosophical thought inherent in this statement is directly related to chess. The struggle in the party inevitably gives rise to many mistakes. The reasons are different (physical and emotional state, athletic form, as well as a lot of seemingly extraneous factors, such as restless sleep or even bad weather).
It’s just amazing when you look at the games of grandmasters (not to mention the “simple” players) how the strong chess player makes elementary mistakes at the board, and the average amateur has always been tempted by the opportunity to savor the sins of the “powerful people of this world”, but this is another topic.
For example, the leader of modern chess is Magnus Carlsen. He is prescribed the following formula, the so-called “science of winning” according to Carlsen: “I will make 50 error-free moves, if you, too, are ok. draw. The catch is that people cannot play (as well as live) unmistakably. Magnus is almost a computer, it rarely drops below a certain bar. He sits to himself, threw a fishing rod and waits for him to bite. He is patient. But when he bites, he won’t miss it – another terrible computer quality. He is neither Tal nor Kasparov, he does not win, rather, the rivals lose. But the last two tournaments in London and Stavanger have shown that he is not a computer, he’s also losing his nerves in important games.
Yes, unfortunately, there are a lot of mistakes and accidents in human life. V. Chumakoff in the article “Accident as an unidentified God pattern describes many erroneous dramatic sinister and simply ridiculous coincidences. Here is a wonderful story about the writer E. Petrov:
Writer Evgeny Petrov has been collecting envelopes all his life … from his own letters! He did it like this – he sent a letter to some country. Everything, except the name of the state, he invented – the city, street, house number, the name of the addressee, so after a month and a half, the envelope returned to Petrov, decorated with multi-colored foreign stamps “Destination is incorrect.”
In April 1939, the writer decided to disturb the New Zealand Post Office. He came up with a city called Hydebirdville, Raytbeach Street, Building 7, and the addressee of Meryl Ojin Waseley. In the letter, Petrov wrote in English: “Dear Merill! Accept my sincere condolences on the death of Uncle Pete. Be strong, old man. Forgive me for not writing for a long time. I hope that Ingrid is all right. Kiss my daughter from me. She, probably already quite big. Your Eugene. ”
August came and he waited … for a reply letter. At first, Petrov decided that someone had made fun of him in his own spirit. On the envelope it was written: “New Zealand, Hydebirdville, Reytbich, 7, Merill Ojin Wazley.” And all this was confirmed by the blue stamp “New Zealand, Hydebirdville post.” The text of the letter read: “Dear Eugene! Thank you for your condolences. Uncle Pete’s absurd death knocked us out of the track for six months. I hope you will forgive the delay in writing. Ingrid and I often remember the two days that you were with us. Gloria is very big and in the fall will go to grade 2. She still keeps the bear that you brought her from Russia. ” Petrov never traveled to New Zealand, and therefore he was all the more amazed to see a man in a photograph of a strong build who was hugging … him, Petrov! On the back of the picture was written: “October 9, 1938.” Then the writer almost did not feel bad – because it was on that day that he was hospitalized in an unconscious state.
