Mequinho had his last chance at chess at Copacabana Palace – 08/13/2023 – Sport

A furious man entered an apartment on the fifth floor of the Copacabana Palace, pinned Mequinho against the wall and shouted: “Get dressed or I’ll break your face! You’ll stay in the championship by force!”

It was the early afternoon of September 25, 1979, a Tuesday. Henrique Costa Mecking, known as Mequinho, the greatest Brazilian chess player of all time, had just left the tournament, and Paulo Amílcar Brião, passionate about chess, couldn’t accept it.

The appeals, however, were futile; the only Brazilian grandmaster (a kind of black belt in chess) was adamant.

Mequinho’s withdrawal represented a huge setback for the competition, which only happened in Brazil because of him and had its venue handpicked: the now centenary Copacabana Palace, which, although decadent in the 1970s, remained a symbol of luxury and grandeur. .

The Brazilian Chess Confederation (CBX) had committed itself because it was not just any tournament. It was an Interzonal, at the time the biggest championship in the sport, played every three years by the best on the planet and penultimate stage in the race for the world title.

It was the last time the country held a competition of this size in chess, but not the first. In 1973, Petrópolis (RJ) hosted Interzonal and saw Mequinho be champion.

Three years later, in Manila (Philippines), the chess player born in Santa Cruz do Sul (RS) repeated the feat. On both occasions, however, he lost to a Soviet in the next stage of the world cycle and did not reach his biggest goal.

What many imagined was that, in 1979, the home star would win another Interzonal with the support of the fans. In theory, at the age of 27, he had enough experience to break through the Soviet blockade on his way to the top of the international podium.

Just over a thousand people followed the first day of the tournament. At the time, employees reported that the Copa had not been so busy for years.

Mequinho debuted on a Sunday against Borislav Ivkov, from Yugoslavia (today Serbia); to the audience’s disappointment, he conceded a quick draw, in 17 moves – clashes between elite chess players usually have at least twice that amount.

The next match, on Monday, was longer. Mequinho and Jan Smejkal, from Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), made 40 moves each and consumed a total of five hours, when the rules at the time allowed a break in the game to resume it one or more days later.

Only that never happened.

At the end of Tuesday morning, Jorge João de Lemos, declaring himself the official doctor of Interzonal (which was true) and private doctor of Mequinho (which was a lie), signed a certificate in which he said:

“I forbid him to continue playing in the said tournament, since it has proved harmful to the health of the illustrious chess player”.

In a press conference that same day, Mequinho was sincere: “I already knew I couldn’t go on”, he declared. “I only decided to compete in this Interzonal because I had great support from the directors and sponsors.”

Before Interzonal in the Cup, Mequinho had played for the last time in January 1978, in Holland, in one of the worst performances of his early career.

Feeling weak and fatigued, he flew from Holland to the Methodist Hospital in Houston (USA), where he was admitted from February 7th to 10th. He left there with a diagnosis of probable myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disease that has extreme tiredness as one of its main symptoms.

When he returned to Brazil, Mequinho told the news to very few people. He preferred not to mention the illness to the press, nor did he cite it as a justification for turning down invitations to tournaments.

At the same time, he began attending prayer groups of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. According to what he told some newspapers shortly before the Interzonal, he managed to be cured of myasthenia gravis thanks to a miracle by Jesus Christ in May 1979.

In the chess world, almost nobody bought the story – including the doctor Jorge João de Lemos, who said he did not believe in miracles or in Mequinho’s illness.

“It is undeniable that Mequinho left the tournament much more for emotional exhaustion, for a psychological reason, than for a physical cause or for any somatic problem”, he said at the press conference.

Without the controversy having been undone, Mequinho moved away from the boards at the height of his career, shortly after reaching third in the world ranking. He only returned to play frequently in the 21st century, after an attempted comeback in the early 1990s.

Halfway through, he graduated in theology in 1992 and wanted to be a priest, but without success. Today, aged 71, he still plays chess, dedicates his greatest efforts to religion and claims to be the prophet of the apocalypse.

Journalist Uirá Machado is writing Mequinho’s biography for the publisher Toda.