Channeling / spiritualistic communications

A Chess Game From Beyond the Grave
by Marinus Jan Marijs

Jeffrey Mishlove Ph.D. gives the following story::
“The Maróczy/Korchnoi chess match. Géza Maróczy was the second-best chess player in the world in 1905. Victor Korchnoi was the second-ranked chess player in the world in 1980, but later became the world’s senior chess champion. Through the auspices of a spirit medium, they played a remarkable chess game lasting from 1987 until 1993.
Korchnoi was alive during this period; and Maróczy was dead, having died in 1951.

Géza Maróczy

Wolfgang Eisenbeiss was a Swiss economist with an interest in psychical research. In 1985, he had the idea that evidence for survival would be enhanced if a deceased chess master would manifest through a medium and play chess with a living grandmaster.
He was able to persuade Korchnoi to take part. Eisenbeiss was an amateur chess player who was familiar with Robert Rollans, a medium who practiced automatic writing. Rollans wasn’t a chess player. However, Eisenbeiss instructed him sufficiently to understand the standard notations for chess moves. He also
gave Rollins a list of deceased grandmasters, with the request to find one who would cooperate with this experiment.

On June 15, 1985, Géza Maróczy, communicating in Hungarian (and later in German) confirmed his willingness to play the match. Maróczy established his identity through his skill and style as a chess player, playing chess at the grandmaster level. Maróczy’s spirit also supplied detailed and obscure information about his life when he was alive. Such chess skill is impossible to replicate, even by somebody who has studied chess extensively.

Some information provided appeared at first to be inaccurate. Only later was it discovered to be correct. ,
Neuropsychiatrist Vernon Neppe (himself an avid chess player) elaborates on the questions posed to Maróczy as well as details, making the correct information initially seem incorrect. For example, the discarnate Maróczy didn’t name the Italian chess master

(198 Vernon Neppe, “A Detailed Analysis of an Important Chess Game: Revisiting ‘Maróczy versus
Korchnoi.” Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research. Vol. 71(3), July 2007, 129-147).
Robert Rollans, the medium, never sought payment for his services. Eisenbeiss kept the matter quiet and didn’t publish his research for a decade after the chess match was completed. Nevertheless, the Swiss press learned about the game around 1990 and, thereafter, began following developments carefully. In the middle of the game, Korchnoi commented on how well Maróczy was playing. At that point, Korchnoi (who eventually won) wasn’t sure he could win.
In 2006, para-psychologist Russell Targ asked his brother-in-law Bobby Fischer, a grandmaster himself and one of the greatest players in chess history, to examine the moves. Fischer appraised Maróczy’s game at the grandmaster level. This feedback convinced Targ the chess match was the best available evidence for survival.200

Vernon Neppe analyzed Maróczy’s unique
playing style, which he was able to verify. It was an unmistakable expression of Maróczy’s personality. Neppe confirmed that this style couldn’t have been replicated by the chess-playing computers available when the game was played. He elaborates on these points in the next video.201

199 Vernon Neppe, “The Chess Game From Beyond the Grave.” New Thinking Allowed video (recorded on April 15, 2016).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1S6y1-Pz_w

Moróczy, for example, played an inferior move at the game’s opening. However, it would have been a good move in 1905. The counter-play to that move wasn’t known until
after Maróczy’s death.”

Wolfgang Eisenbeiss and Dieter Hassler, “An Assessment of Ostensible Communications with a Deceased Grandmaster as Evidence for Survival.” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Vol. 70(2), April 2006, 65-97.
 
200 Russell Targ, personal communication.
201 Neppe, op. cit.,
 
The Game:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1486372

This Game has been analysed by several people
Here is a summary:

This case involves the demonstration of a skill, and this at a level very few people in the world possess.

Chess game with a deceased grandmaster

The remarkable story of a chess game played between a living and a deceased grandmaster began in 1985, when chess enthusiast Dr Wolfgang Eisenbeiss decided to initiate a chess match between living and deceased grandmasters. He contacted musician, composer, and amateur medium Robert Rollans, who always offered his services as a medium free of charge. Eisenbeiss had known Rollans for 8 years, and trusted his assertion that he did not know how to play chess.
Eisenbeiss was able to persuade the world-famous chess champion Victor Korchnoi, then ranked third in the world, to participate. Korchnoi was described in Chessbase (April 4, 2002) as “unquestionably one of the great chess players of all time.” Eisenbeiss then gave Rollans a list of deceased grandmasters and asked him to find one willing to play. On June 15 1985 a communicator claiming to be deceased Hungarian grandmaster Geza Maroczy agreed to play. Maroczy was ranked third in the world in 1900 and was known for his remarkably-strong endgame.
For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to “the communicator identifying himself as Maroczy” as simply Maroczy. The entire game was played with Eisenbeiss as an intermediary, relaying the moves back and forth between Korchnoi and Rollans. At no time did Korchnoi and Rollans have direct contact, except for a handshake on a TV show in September 1992, four and a half months before the end of the game.
At the twenty-seventh move, Korchnoi commented on the quality of his opponent’s play:

During the opening phase Maroczy showed weakness. His play is old-fashioned.
But I must confess that my last moves have not been too convincing. I am not sure I will win. He has compensated the faults of the opening by a strong end- game. In the end-game the ability of a player shows up and my opponent plays very well.
The game continued, always with Eisenbeiss as an intermediary, until 1993, when Maroczy resigned at move forty-eight. The long duration was due to Korchnoi’s frequent travels (in the days before widespread email) and to Rollans’ illness (Rollans died just nineteen days after Maroczy resigned).
The full match went as follows:
1. e4 e6 19. Qe4 Qxe4+ 37. Rf5+ Kxg4
2. d4 d5 20. fxe4 f6 38. h6 b3
3. Nc3 Bb4 21. Rad1 e5 39. h7 Ra8
4. e5 c5 22. Rd3 Kf7 40. cxb3 Rh8
5. a3 Bxc3+ 23. Rg3 Rg6 42. Rg6+ Kf4
6. bxc3 Ne7 24. Rhg1 Rag8 43. Rf6+ Kg3
7. Qg4 cxd4 25. a4 Rxg3 44. Rf1 Rh2
8. Qxg7 Rg8 26. fxg3 b6 45. Rd1 Kf3
9. Qxh7 Qc7 27. h4 a6 46. Rf1+ Rf2
10. Kd1 dxc3 28. g4 b5 47. Rfx2+ Kxf2
11. Nf3 Nbc6 29. axb5 axb5 0-1
12. Bb5 Bd7 30. Kd3 Kg6 Maroczy resigns
13. Bxc6 Bxc6 31. Rf1 Rh8
14. Bg5 d4 32. Rh1 Rh7 (48. b4 c2
15. Bxe7 Kxe7 33. Ke2 Ra7 49. Kxc2 Ke2
16. Qh4+ Ke8 34. Kd3 Ra2 50. b5 d3+
17. Ke2 Bxf3+ 35. Rf1 b4 51. Kc3 d2
18. gxf3 Qxe5+ 36. h5+ Kg5 52. b6 d1=Q)§§§
Former South African chess champion Vernon Neppe reanalysed this case in 2007, with the aid of a chess-playing computer program. He wanted to answer these three questions:
1. At what level did Maroczy play this chess game?
2. Could a chess computer reproduce this game?
3. Was the Maroczy style something a computer could replicate?
Regarding level of play, Neppe concluded that “Maroczy played at least at the Master level, and debatably, at a rusty, grandmaster level.”Neppe’s only criticism of Maroczy’s play was his weak opening, which both he and Korchnoi found old-fashioned. Other than that, “Maroczy, in my opinion, plays perfect chess.”
Moves 48-52 show how the game would have played out and provide the reason Maroczy resigned at move 47.

Neppe then tried to answer the question as to whether a computer could have simulated Maroczy’s game. He set the program Sigma Chess 6.0 to respond to Korchnoi’s moves, and compared the computer’s choices with those of Maroczy.
Maroczy played human-type moves, and the computer simulation played computer-type moves correcting what it thought were inferior moves (e.g. in moves 23 and 24) despite their illogicality. Maroczy clearly played the endgame far better than the computer.
Neppe noted that the old-fashioned opening style of Maroczy’s game also makes it unlikely that a computer was used to hoax the game. Comparing the style of Maroczy’s game with the style of a computer’s game, Neppe wrote: Maroczy played in a style reminiscent of the early twentieth century, and demonstrated the endgame expertise he was famous for. … In any event, the differences in style between an accomplished chess player and even the most remarkable computer hardware and software are profound.
Considering the possibility of fraud with the use of a computer, Neppe concluded: “it is my opinion that a chess computer could not reproduce this game as of the 1980s.
Nor is it likely that it could replicate Maroczy’s play even today because of the stylistic elements.
In other words, during the period of the game, computer technology – both software and hardware – were simply not advanced enough to give a chess grandmaster a challenging game. Also, it is exceedingly unlikely that the software would be programed to use an old-fashioned opening. Finally, software cannot, even today, simulate a human style of play, and certainly cannot simulate the unique style of an accomplished player such as Geza Maroczy.
And as I added in my own review of this case,
The supposition that an elderly, frequently ill man with an impeccable reputation for honesty secretly conspired with a living chess master over seven years and eight months in order to mimic the chess ability and style of a deceased grandmaster for no apparent purpose or gain can be safely rejected by all but the
most dogmatic skeptics.
But there is even more to the case than demonstrated high-level chess skills.
Maroczy, through Rollans, was asked eighty-one questions about the obscure life of Geza Maroczy; he answered seventy-nine (97.5%) correctly (two remained unsolved). The accuracy rate for the most difficult questions to verify was thirty-one out of thirty-one, one hundred percent correct.
Chess player Tim McGrew of Michigan University has written “Barring a conceptual breakthrough,
computer chess is and will remain detectably inhuman.” (“The Simulation of Expertise: Deeper Blue”)

Romi(h)
When Eisenbeiss questioned Maroczy about the life of Geza Maroczy, he at one point received a very unexpected answer. He asked Maroczy if he had ever known a player named Romi. Maroczy in reply mocked Eisenbeiss for not knowing the correct
spelling, which Maroczy gave as “Romih.” Eisenbeiss had no idea that name could be spelled that way. Maroczy’s answer was:
I am sorry to say that I never knew a chess player named Romi. But I think you are wrong with the name. I had a friend in my youth, who defeated me when I was young, but he was called Romih – with an ‘h’ at the end. In 1930 at the tournament of San Remo – who is also present? My old friend Romih coming from Italy also participated in that tournament. I suspect that you were thinking about the same person but gave the name incorrectly.
Which was the correct spelling? An historian was hired to find answers to the most obscure questions, and found both spellings in the literature. Finally, a copy of the official book from the San Remo tournament of 1930 was found, with the spelling as “Romih.” It turns out that after the 1930 tournament Romih moved to Italy and then dropped the “h”.
Eisenbeiss and Hassler concluded:
Because Maroczy claimed to know Romih from his youth, it is logical that he would have known the original spelling of Romih’s name and would not have replaced it with the later Italianization. Eisenbeiss/Rollans were their ignorant about the correct spelling.

The Vera Menchik Club
The August 4 1988 edition of the Swiss chess magazine Schachwoche held a readers’ competion, asking them: Who was the Austrian founder of the Vera Menchik Club? Menchik was the first female world champion, and the club’s members were those whom she had beaten. Eisenbeiss asked Maroczy the same question on August 8 1988. Maroczy confessed that he was uncertain and speculated on various names. He also describes the club as “a silly joke to which he paid no attention.” On August 11 Maroczy considers Albert Becker as a possibility, but in the end rejects Becker. The solution was published in the same magazine on August 18 1988:

Albert Becker.
On August 21 1988 Maroczy is again asked for the founder’s name.
However:
He still does not name Becker as the founder of the club, as might be expected under the Super-ESP hypothesis; once the solution was published it should be possible for the medium to access the information, either clairvoyantly, or telepathically from the minds of the magazine’s readers. But instead of correcting his wrong answer Maroczy quite unprompted comes up with a different story which evidently demanded his attention much more than the ‘silly joke’.
Eisenbeis and Hassler concluded: In our example Maroczy’s rationale for forgetting the name of a man whom he would have considered to be merely indulging a pointless joke but then relating an unprompted story about a woman whose beauty had impressed him is plausible.

The 1924 New York Tournament
A similar incident occurred when Maroczy was discussing a tournament in which he performed badly (by his standards). He discusses a “thrilling game” which he (correctly) says ended in a draw, but does not reveal his final ranking, admitting “it is true for me that I am not able to remember everything, most of all whenever winning eluded me.”
Research revealed that Maroczy finished sixth in the tournament
If Rollans were trying to engineer a story with verifiable facts as evidence of survival, he could have inserted Maroczy’s final ranking, a checkable fact. Clearly, elsewhere the Maroczy transcripts contain innumerable such verifiable facts. …
we know Maroczy to have been very ambitious and it is thus entirely in character that he would omit reporting failures or mediocre tournament rankings. Yet for Rollans, whose main objective was to provide convincing evidence to support the survival hypothesis, it would make no sense to censor information concerning Maroczy’s failures.

What is so impressive about this case is the demonstration of a high-level skill (knowing how) combined with near-perfect accuracy in answers to questions about an obscure life in the early twentieth century (knowing that), and all presented in the style and from the perspective of a deceased grand master.
Neppe describes the difficulty of using any form of ESP to explain the chess-playing skill attributed to Maroczy: Far more so, chess-playing skill requires a further profound leap when applying the super-ESP hypothesis – delving into a Master’s (or several Master’s) unconscious mind(s) is insufficient; their active repeated cogitation 47 times (as 47 moves) over many years plus the medium obtaining it all by automatic writing.
… the responses would require active intervention. In other words, much more than mere perception is required: also required is the active thinking of the mind of at least one chess-master, living or departed. As we have seen, Super-ESP utterly fails to explain not just one but four features of this remarkable case.
Demonstration of high-level skills known to be possessed by a deceased communicator, and not possessed by the medium, is even more difficult to explain via any form of extra-sensory perception than the convincing impersonation of someone the medium has never met. This is because studies show that top-level performers always require many years of hard practice before achieving excellence

Here is the argument in point form:
1. We have seen that the best evidence from mediumship not only involves a rapid display of highly-complex information, but also indications of the personalities, acquired skills, and unique mental characteristics distinctive of the minds of certain individuals who once lived on Earth.
2. We have no independent evidence that mere perception – extra-sensory or otherwise – can reproduce these three features.
3. The only source we know of that can instantly produce these features are the minds of individuals known to possess these personalities, acquired skills, and unique mental characteristics.
4. It is rational to prefer an argument that does explain the evidence over one that does not.
5. Hence, the most rational inference is the survival of said minds, and the continuing exercise of their capacities.