Emanuel, Emmanuel and the $6M Man
Submitted by
on Sun, 06/15/2008 at 2:02pm.
When you're good at something, and you know that you're good, it does wonders for your self-confidence. Sometimes it might be better not to make a song and dance about it.
Some years ago I interviewed a man named Emmanuel Margolin on my community radio program. Margolin, a flamboyant, self-made millionaire, is an extraordinary man who seems to do everything well. Among his other accomplishments he built a mansion—it was almost a castle—in Sydney's far west. A tourist attraction, it featured a private zoo and picnic facilities. For his own personal use he also installed a squash court.
Lee Majors, who had the role of Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man, once stayed at Notre Dame. He saw the squash court and asked, “Do you play?”
“Oh! Yes,” Margolin said. “I've trained with the Australian squash team.”
Then, while telling me the story, he pulled a face and said, “You should never boast until you know who you're talking to.” He said that Majors had thrashed him.
All of which brings us to chess and another Emanuel.
When world champion Emanuel Lasker was en route to the great New York Tournament of 1924 he saw a man on the ship puzzling over a chess problem. He stopped to watch.
“Do you play?” asked the man.
“A little,” said Lasker. So the man challenged him to a game.
The man was a friendly soul and, taking Lasker's words at face value, he offered queen odds. “If you win we'll put the queen back and take off a rook, then a bishop, and so on until we find a level that works for us.”
Lasker thought that was fair and sat down. He managed to lose two games without looking too obvious.
After the second loss he said, “Playing without the queen obviously gives you an advantage because your king has more room to manoeuvre. I'd like to play without the queen this time.”
The man protested but, at Lasker's insistence, the game began.
He must have been totally mystified when Lasker won—but what a story he'd have had to tell when he learned who he had been playing!