BOOK REVIEW by Carl Portman
June 28th 2020
Sultan Khan:
The Indian Servant Who Became Chess Champion
of the British Empire
NEW IN CHESS
2020
1st edition (softcover, 384 pages)
Author: Daniel King
Caveat
I am aware that there has been some publicity involving comments from the
granddaughter of Mir Sultan Khan about some of the information in the book. I
am not qualified to comment, nor is it in the scope of this book review to do
so. The reader can access the post made by Dr
Atiyab
Sultan who is the granddaughter of Sultan Khan, here and form their own views.
https://www.chess.com/blog/atiyabsultan/sultan-khan-by-daniel-king-a-granddaughters-review
This is simply my
account as a chess player and writer after reading the book.
What is this book about?
Sultan Khan was ‘An Indian servant who
became chess champion of the British Empire’ as it says in the title. If in
any event he was not a servant, he certainly seemed to have a master whilst he
was abroad. Someone who told him where to be, when to play, where to appear and
what to do etc. This is GM Daniel King’s account of an astonishing journey from
the Punjab to the capital of the British Empire and much further afield for one
unassuming Indian ‘servant’ to Colonel Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan who was rich
and influential. Among other milestones, Sir Umar served on the Western Front
in 1914-1915, and was attached to the 18th King George's Own Lancers and later
the 19th King George V's Own Lancers, becoming their Colonel in 1930. Khan was
also an honorary aide-de-camp to both King George V and King Edward VIII. He
was fiercely loyal to the British Empire.
Sultan Khan (one of ten brothers) played
chess at the age of nine and entered Sir Umar’s household in 1926 (after
knocking on his door looking for work) where Sir Umar later realised that he
could ‘utilise’ Sultan Khan’s chess skills to shop window the ‘martial races
who he represents’ as he put it himself.
They travelled to London in 1929 where
Sultan Khan shook the foundations of the chess world and became British Champion
on three occasions, in 1929, 1932 and 1933. At one point he was one of the top
ten players in the world, although he was never awarded an IM or Grandmaster
title by FIDE retrospectively, as several other players have been. For reasons that
the reader of the book will learn, Sultan Khan returned to his homeland
afterwards where he gave up chess and melted into obscurity. Thoughts of Morphy
and Fischer come to mind in this respect.
This is clearly a story about the rise
and fall of a phenomenon, but it also illustrates that there is a price to pay
for success. Khan left his homeland to live in a strange (and cold) country and
had to deal with all of the cultural challenges that such a move presents. He
was often ill, with bad colds and even malarial episodes but this did not
prevent him from competing and it seems he never used illness as an excuse. The
pressure on the man to perform, and the expectation upon his slim shoulders
from the well-heeled Sir Umar and his associates must surely have influenced
his approach to his games. It must have been terribly stifling.
The book presents much more in terms
of characters, games and history. For example, I was left with a deep
impression about his games against Capablanca and Alekhine. Also, what really
was his relationship (if any) with ‘Miss Fatima’ and what was he doing playing
chess with a former con-man and prisoner in the United States? There are some quotes to savour, such as
Capablanca talking about his game with Winter in Hastings 1930/31 saying ‘I
never had such a shock in my life as when I saw that fat black queen standing
there by itself. As it was offered me, I could of course do nothing but take
it’.
Contents
There are five ‘parts’ to the book,
each with sub-sections.
Part 1 – India
Part 2 – England
Part 3 – Europe
Part 4 – Fall and Rise
Part 5 – The Endgame
After this there is an epilogue,
acknowledgements, endnotes, bibliography and an index of names. I would like to have seen an index of chess openings included as it
is useful to see at a glance how many times certain openings were played back
in those days.
What does the
official Blurb say?
‘For the first time, here
is the full story of how Khan, a Muslim outsider, was received in Europe, of
his successes in the chess world and his return to obscurity after his
departure for India in 1933’.
Does the book
achieve its aim?
For me, yes. It illustrates Sultan
Khan’s success in the British chess world and beyond with supporting games,
reports and tables.
Concluding
notes
I learned a great deal about Sultan
Khan but especially about his style of chess. The man beat Capablanca after all. I never
actually knew that.
I have no idea how author Daniel King
would want the reader to feel after reading this book but personally I feel sadness
for Sultan Khan. Was he just a puppet to Sir Umar? Were his talents abused and
manipulated or was he genuinely loved and did he actually feel loved?
When I finished the last page, I
wished for one thing – that the man would suddenly appear before my eyes so
that I could ask him how the world was through his eyes. I can find no
interviews with him although he surely gave some. Was he lonely in Europe? Was
chess the only real happiness he had in life? How did he feel when he was
playing chess? Did he feel like a ‘servant’ to Sir Umar? What did he think of
Britain? Who was his favourite player? How did he think he got so good at
chess? How would he like to be remembered?
In this sense, King has done a
marvellous job. He leaves the reader with questions, and plenty of them. The chess games are very educational. I particularly
enjoyed being able to witness Sultan Khan’s chess style mature over time. It
grew like a seedling from the frankly naïve to the more experienced and
confident style.
I was really very surprised to learn
about Sultan Khan’s attitude at the board. This quiet, unassuming and humble
man rejected the notion of draws and he played the game to win. He turned down
draw offers from top players such as Euwe and even when he went on to lose, I
got the feeling that he never regretted his approach to the game. We should all
applaud that.
Like all of us chess players, he was
able to express himself at the board without any interference (from Sir Umar or
anyone else) and he was very creative in his own way. Look at this position
from the game R.P Mitchell -Sultan Khan (Surrey-Middlesex 1932) which I
could not find in the ChessBase database.
Khan has just essayed 20…h3 and he went
on to win the game. As stated in the book, this is hypermodern chess, advancing
the pawns on the flanks. People just didn’t play this way in 1932. Look at
those Black pawns – he is just having fun.
Why did he play such combative chess? Perhaps
he took the attitude of Tipu Sultan, the fabled ruler of the kingdom of Mysore
to the chessboard. His approach was never to surrender saying ‘The day of a
lion is better than a thousand of a jackal.’
(Carl
- I rather like Jackals actually – I think they are a very clever and
resourceful and hugely underrated but that’s beside the point.)
His openings in the early days were suspect
and predictable. The reader can clearly observe this for themselves. However,
his endgame was a different matter altogether. Here, he really shone and even
Alekhine remarked on it. The man would
fight on for hour after hour even with other games and adjournments still to
play later that day!
He was never ‘truly British’ of course
and some chess commentators couldn’t find it in themselves to talk him up even
when he won the Championship but he was and is a legitimate holder of the title
and as a Britain, I feel proud to know that his name is etched into our chess history.
I have very mixed feelings about
Sultan Khan being used as a pawn in a higher political game by Sir Umar but
there we are. I feel that in some ways the whole affair was unseemly but would
Sultan Khan have wanted it any other way? To what effect was he a willing
participant? Was he ever coerced? I don’t know! Did chess just make him truly
happy amongst all the noise and interference from the world around him? We
don’t know.
There are some very nice photographs sprinkled
here and there which complement the text. I particularly like a photograph of Khan
v Alekhine at the board with Maroczy and Menchik next to them at the Sunday
Referee tournament of 1932. It was snapped just before the start of the first
around and the players are all engaged in chat – yet I note that Alekhine’s
pawn is already on a3. He couldn’t have moved yet. Maybe he was yet to adjust
his pieces. I was also struck by a photograph I have never seen before of Capablanca
and Euwe sitting chatting.
GM Daniel King has brought Sultan Khan
to life. By writing this book in his own way he has put the Indian’s memory front
and centre into the spotlight. It worked for me. This is clearly a labour of
love and respect for a man who shone briefly in the chess community before disappearing
into the shadows.
Viswanathan Anand in his foreword to the
book says that ‘Coming from a modest background he (Sultan Khan) took on the
greatest in the world and proved he could match them’.
There’s the story, right there.
Even with the points made by Sultan
Khan’s granddaughter, my own personal feelings after reading the book is
that chess players of all levels interested in the man, his games or chess
history in general would enjoy and benefit from reading it. Capablanca called
Sultan Khan a genius – on that basis alone you should be playing through his
games in this book and enjoying King’s annotations.
Mir Sultan Khan – 1903-1966
Who is the
author?
English Grandmaster Daniel King is one
of the most well-known and prolific chess commentators, authors, journalists
and players of our time.
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