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satisfied. "Thou didst play at thy level, consistency. In a conventional game, the victory would have
been thine."
Mach breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had been almost more concerned about the demon's critique
than about the game itself.
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r r
"But on the morrow, it be huffdraw," Icebeard reminded him sternly. "That be a new game, rovot."
Mach's nervousness clamped down again. That was indeed a new game! There would be no draw this
time.
The demon turned to Fleta. "Filly, whate'er thou didst do yester, do it twice tonight, to put him in
readiness for the morrow."
Now Fleta quailed. She had done her ultimate yesterday! She could not hope to match it, let alone
exceed it.
But she tried.
Mach had White again. This time he started conservatively, with pawn to king four, and played
conservatively, trying first to avoid any error that his nonrobot flesh might be heir to, and second to pick
up any slight advantage he could. He understood, in retrospect, why Bane had overlooked the winning
play in the first game; he was in the robot body, and imagination was hard for that to come by. But he
would not overlook it again; he would have been reprogrammed to be alert for anything similar.
Unfortunately, it was Bane who picked up the small advantage. As they ground into the endgame, Bane
was ahead by one point, but his position was stronger than that indicated and, for the huffdraw variant,
stronger yet.
Huffdraw was a device that had come into play in the last few centuries, because too many tournaments
were being stymied by frequent draws. Planetary championship matches had dragged on interminably,
draw after draw, as each player settled for even rather than risking worse for the sake of better. This was
hard on the players, and worse for the audience. Chess was in danger of fading as a competitive sport
because of it. Huffdraw changed that radically. The term was borrowed from checkers, and the effect
was roughly similar, but the execution differed significantly. There were several applications, depending
on the type of draw that threatened. But the basic element was the removal of "dead" pieces: those that
hadn't moved in some time. If that failed, then pieces started to be added back in, until there were
enough in action to force a decision.
They came to a draw by perpetual check: Mach prevented Bane from winning by checking his king
continually, forcing him to protect the king rather than closing in on Mach's. Bane used his pole to block
each check, but Mach simply moved to a new position for check. This repetitive motion caused the
board to assume the same configuration for a third time, by definition a draw.
At that point all chessmen of either color that had not moved during the game were to be huffed, or
removed from the board as if taken. There were none, so the huff proceeded to those who had been
longest without moving, as traced by the Game Computer in Proton, without regard to color. This
proceeded until either the position was freed, or it proved to be impossible to free it in this manner. In
this case, it was freed but it left Mach in a weaker position than before.
Play resumed, but he was in trouble. Bane's small advantage in pieces was looming more formidably.
Mach saw a chance to play for another draw but saw also that the resultant huffing would make him
yet more vulnerable. Only if he could achieve a draw whose breakup would benefit him could he afford
to take it. He used his pole increasingly, which meant he was moving his other pieces less often, and that
made them vulnerable to huffing. If he could only get Bane to neglect his pieces
But he could not. Bane had evidently drilled in this, and was playing with machinelike conservatism. He
made no errors, simply letting his advantage operate.
Mach tried a desperate strategy that he knew was flawed, hoping that Bane's machine mind would not
perceive the flaw. But the effort failed, and Mach's position became hopeless.
He had to resign. He had lost the game, and the first match.
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