Matching minds with a grandmaster. The Monitor's sports editor and 29 other brave souls recently went eyeball to eyeball with a legend of the chess world in a simultaneous competition. There were some surprises...

``All Soviet players are sorry that the American genius no longer plays,'' he said.

THE BATTLE

Finally, the lecture was over, and the moment we had all been waiting for was at hand. Tal began his tour, moving rapidly from board to board. He began my game and almost all others, as I had expected, by moving his king's pawn, so I was able to play the variation I had prepared.

For 10 moves, my game followed a 1969 contest I had noticed the night before in which Tal had lost to the great Danish grandmaster Bent Larsen. But on his 11th move, the former champion varied from that earlier contest and I was on my own. A couple of moves later, I made a small mistake - and one mistake is all you get against a player like Tal. He swooped in for the kill, and it quickly became apparent that I was doomed. I could have played on, as several others persisted in doing despite similarly hopeless positions, but I did what one is supposed to do when facing the inevitable and resigned.

It was only the 15th move, and I was the first player to lay down his king. The embarrassment and humiliation of it all did have one redeeming aspect, however, for my quick demise enabled me to spend the rest of the evening watching the real excitement a few boards away, where 12-year-old Bobby Seltzer was giving the grandmaster all he could handle.

THE VICTORY

This game, interestingly, followed for quite some time the exact moves (with a couple of transpositions) of Tal's first game against Fischer, a 1959 contest which ended in a draw. Young Seltzer, who relies primarily on his own natural ability and had not ``booked up'' for the game, was unaware of this fact until afterward. Tal may or may not have remembered the Fischer contest, but in any event, on Move 14 he varied from his previous play and launched a dubious attack in which he sacrificed his queen for material of almost equal value, but not quite.

Perhaps the veteran grandmaster expected to shake up his young opponent and dazzle him in the ensuing complications. Undoubtedly, he did not realize that the youngster sitting across from him was not just your average 12-year-old, but the reigning national elementary champion and a competitor who had already achieved the level of candidate master. Indeed, Bobby was undoubtedly one of the strongest players in that room - as Tal now began to find out.

Each time he came around to Seltzer's board, he found himself spending more and more time studying in vain for some way to whip up an attack - or later, as his position began to deteriorate, to at least salvage a draw.

Most youngsters - indeed, players of any age - finding themselves on the verge of beating a superstar like Tal would be likely to crack and start making little mistakes that let the grandmaster get back into the game. But Bobby made relentlessly strong moves, and there was just nothing Tal could do about it. At his 40th move and facing certain defeat, Tal took his king off the board in a gracious gesture of submission as the room exploded with applause for his young conqueror.

THE SECRET

Tal's overall score was 26 wins, 2 draws, and 2 losses - but the big one, of course, was the game with young Seltzer. And how did Bobby explain his coolness and poise during that last hectic hour? How did he keep his wits about him with dozens of onlookers crowded around his board, and with the prospect of such a momentous victory hanging on every move?

``To tell you the truth,'' he said, ``I was concentrating so hard on the position that I forgot I was playing a grandmaster.''

No wonder I lost - I did it the other way around! I was so aware I was playing the great Mikhail Tal that I forgot to pay attention to my position.

I have a feeling, though, that in my case it wouldn't have made much difference!

Larry Eldridge has been a tournament chess player for 30 years and maintains a Class A rating. He is also an active chess teacher, organizer, and writer.

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