My name is Bob Berman. I remember very well when my friendship with Steve really began. I started trying to earn a living down in the Hall of Justice in 1973 or 1974, and I became acquainted with Steve as just one of the wonderful cast of characters that worked down there. But we weren't especially friendly. In 1975 I took a job at the public defender's office, and one afternoon that year I was at my desk, which was just one of many desks in this large ugly room. And Steve walked in. He was obviously done with whatever he had to do that day and was just looking for someone to have a talk with. So we started talking and at one point he innocently said, "Do you play chess?" I said "Well, as a matter of fact I do."
That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Within a week we had started a routine, because everything with Steve ends up as a routine. On Wednesday nights I would go to Steve's apartment; he and Jean would normally have an early dinner; I'd show up after their dinner, and Steve and I would play chess. For hours. Probably for about four hours. And we would play a lot of games, because we would agree the week before what opening we were going to play. So we weren't just playing chess, we were of course learning: learning the openings and learning the variations. And this won't be surprising for me to tell you that Steve was a much better chess player than I was. I don't know if he had a superior intuitive grasp of the game, but he had two very important advantages. One, he was smarter than I was, and when you play chess, there's not a lot of luck involved, so if you are smarter than your opponent then you're going to do well. The other advantage, which was more amazing to me, is he had this incredible memory of chess games we had played - as the years went on, chess games we had played years ago, and positions we were in. Steve would never make the same mistake twice. I would fall into the same stupid opening traps over and over again -- "Oh, I'm in fried liver," you can imagine what being in fried liver is. We would be in the middle of a game, maybe twenty moves in, and I would make a move, and Steve would say, "No Bob, a couple of years ago you tried that move." And he never complained; that's all he'd say; but what he was saying was, "It didn't work two years ago, it's not going to work now."
I rarely -- and we played for forty years, played a lot in those early years, when I moved away from San Francisco we didn't play as often but we still played -- and I rarely beat Steve at chess. That's not to say I always lost; we played to a lot of draws. For Steve a draw I think was just a draw; for me it was a tremendous victory. But if I had to estimate how many times Steve beat me, as opposed to me beating Steve, I would say a conservative estimate is that Steve beat me at least two thousand times more than I beat Steve. And when you're playing a competitive game and you're losing two thousand times more often than your opponent, you have to be able to do this without letting it bother you. And it was okay, I kind of expected it, and for the first twenty years it didn't really bother me. And then twenty years ago Jane and I got together. And every day after I had played chess with Steve the night before, Jane would say, "Oh Bob, how did you do at chess last night?" Well except on those rare occasions when I actually did well, I would mumble, "I did fine." I hated that question.
Well, as the years went on, our lives changed, sometimes tragically, sometimes just in the way things change, but our friendship only grew. When Jean died, Steve and I would start going out to dinner on Wednesday nights; we'd go for an early dinner, and then we'd go back to his apartment and play a couple games of chess. We took turns choosing the restaurants. I could choose any restaurant I wanted, but Steve was a meat-and-potatoes man, he didn't want anything exotic or anything new. So my choice was somewhat limited. I chose a lot of Italian restaurants. When it was Steve's turn, he would usually choose the Pacific Cafe. I think he was very fond of their butter. And at some point, let's say just about the dinners, I still loved playing chess, but chess is a very quiet sport, you don't really talk to people. But at these dinners we would talk. And as you've heard from other people, Steve loved theater, and he loved movies; so do I, and we would talk about those things, we'd talk about books, and we'd talk about science, and the conversations were wonderful, I just had to be careful never to make an overgeneralization, or I would be suddenly attacked. But I learned that, and those dinners were really fun.
After a while we started going to plays together once in a while in San Francisco, and Berkeley, and that added to our friendship. And then a number of years ago, Steve started coming up to Ashland every year, with Jane and with me, and we'd go to seven, eight plays. The three of us we'd all have seats together, we'd go out to dinner a number of times during that week. That was a great experience and just added to our friendship. It seems like everything we did added to our friendship. And I'm going to miss Steve very much. He was a very important friend to me and a wonderful man.
But Jane, in answer to your question, how did I do at chess with Steve? ... I did great.
That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Within a week we had started a routine, because everything with Steve ends up as a routine. On Wednesday nights I would go to Steve's apartment; he and Jean would normally have an early dinner; I'd show up after their dinner, and Steve and I would play chess. For hours. Probably for about four hours. And we would play a lot of games, because we would agree the week before what opening we were going to play. So we weren't just playing chess, we were of course learning: learning the openings and learning the variations. And this won't be surprising for me to tell you that Steve was a much better chess player than I was. I don't know if he had a superior intuitive grasp of the game, but he had two very important advantages. One, he was smarter than I was, and when you play chess, there's not a lot of luck involved, so if you are smarter than your opponent then you're going to do well. The other advantage, which was more amazing to me, is he had this incredible memory of chess games we had played - as the years went on, chess games we had played years ago, and positions we were in. Steve would never make the same mistake twice. I would fall into the same stupid opening traps over and over again -- "Oh, I'm in fried liver," you can imagine what being in fried liver is. We would be in the middle of a game, maybe twenty moves in, and I would make a move, and Steve would say, "No Bob, a couple of years ago you tried that move." And he never complained; that's all he'd say; but what he was saying was, "It didn't work two years ago, it's not going to work now."
I rarely -- and we played for forty years, played a lot in those early years, when I moved away from San Francisco we didn't play as often but we still played -- and I rarely beat Steve at chess. That's not to say I always lost; we played to a lot of draws. For Steve a draw I think was just a draw; for me it was a tremendous victory. But if I had to estimate how many times Steve beat me, as opposed to me beating Steve, I would say a conservative estimate is that Steve beat me at least two thousand times more than I beat Steve. And when you're playing a competitive game and you're losing two thousand times more often than your opponent, you have to be able to do this without letting it bother you. And it was okay, I kind of expected it, and for the first twenty years it didn't really bother me. And then twenty years ago Jane and I got together. And every day after I had played chess with Steve the night before, Jane would say, "Oh Bob, how did you do at chess last night?" Well except on those rare occasions when I actually did well, I would mumble, "I did fine." I hated that question.
Well, as the years went on, our lives changed, sometimes tragically, sometimes just in the way things change, but our friendship only grew. When Jean died, Steve and I would start going out to dinner on Wednesday nights; we'd go for an early dinner, and then we'd go back to his apartment and play a couple games of chess. We took turns choosing the restaurants. I could choose any restaurant I wanted, but Steve was a meat-and-potatoes man, he didn't want anything exotic or anything new. So my choice was somewhat limited. I chose a lot of Italian restaurants. When it was Steve's turn, he would usually choose the Pacific Cafe. I think he was very fond of their butter. And at some point, let's say just about the dinners, I still loved playing chess, but chess is a very quiet sport, you don't really talk to people. But at these dinners we would talk. And as you've heard from other people, Steve loved theater, and he loved movies; so do I, and we would talk about those things, we'd talk about books, and we'd talk about science, and the conversations were wonderful, I just had to be careful never to make an overgeneralization, or I would be suddenly attacked. But I learned that, and those dinners were really fun.
After a while we started going to plays together once in a while in San Francisco, and Berkeley, and that added to our friendship. And then a number of years ago, Steve started coming up to Ashland every year, with Jane and with me, and we'd go to seven, eight plays. The three of us we'd all have seats together, we'd go out to dinner a number of times during that week. That was a great experience and just added to our friendship. It seems like everything we did added to our friendship. And I'm going to miss Steve very much. He was a very important friend to me and a wonderful man.
But Jane, in answer to your question, how did I do at chess with Steve? ... I did great.
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