Master of Merrills - Conversations with Markus Schaub

Markus Schaub needs very little introduction in the world of Mills or Nine Men's Morris. The most successful player of all time, record holder for winning 13 tournaments in a row, the player to boast an unbeaten streak lasting over 14 months and the first person ever to celebrate a hundred first places. Grandmaster since 1992 and the first non Englishman to win the World title in 1995, put him at the very top of the Mill tree. 

Master of Merrills - is a book that has been 2 years in the making. Here on this blog I will be serialising once a month the conversations we have had about his life and the game. This introduction will be purposefully short on biographical matters as over the next few chapters you will get an in-depth insight into the man who spent years of his life perfecting his game. We will discuss, preparation, strategy, health, mental attitude and a host of other wonderful stories that will bring to life the long career in Mills that he had. 

Later on in the book we will also look at his second passion, music for which we both have a deep understanding and connection. We look at his work bringing recognition to the jazz musician and Band leader Red Nichols as well as some compositions that he has put together over this time. 

As for me, anyone reading this blog will have a good idea of who I am. It is already clear that I am a middling player at best, but I have a great passion for the game (and abstract games in general) and play everyday now for several years. Markus has been my teacher for all this time, and along with the painful loses we have shared some nice tournament wins, even if they are on the easier side of the game online. I can safely say he is a great teacher, wonderful gentleman to discuss the game with and I am perfectly placed and qualified to pass on to you here the life of Markus within the game of Mills. 

Chapter 1 - Tournament play and preparation

Can you give us a picture of your thought process during a game? 

What do you do before making a move?

 

Generally I am not thinking a great deal, if anything at all. When I was actively playing, I had more than 90% of the moves and approaches to the game in my head. 

So you learnt everything by heart?

 

Yes. This practice requires that you learn all moves by heart during training and practicing. This way you don't have to think for a long time. 

You save time, especially when chess clocks were introduced at the end of the 1990s. From that time on, the game was taken seriously, even by chess players who had otherwise laughed at us Mill players. 

We also had the stricter GM norms than those of FIDE. To get MM (IM equivalent) a player had to be qualified 15 times in the top 3 of the ranking. To get the GM title, a player has to win 20 tournaments, 10 of them without losing a single match.

 

In Mill, the one who has most of the moves and approaches in his head by heart, loses the least time and has little or no time pressure will be successful. One therefore asks oneself the questions while practicing and training at the board at home, or at the club evening, but not in the tournament itself. That would then be too late, and would be of no use anyway. Rather counterproductive!

 

Besides, you only go to a tournament well prepared. After each tournament, I used to replay every game played by heart against me. Every single opponent, whether with white or black, move by move, set by set. Only in this way could I recognise mistakes on my part, and on the part of my opponent in order to find out how to exploit them to win. 

One to two weeks before each new tournament, I replayed every game of every opponent pre-tournament and was thus constantly totally prepared for the tournament. This was often the key to victory, because others did not work so tirelessly. Not many were disciplined and approached the game so seriously and ambitiously.

 

In short, I never questioned myself during a tournament and even during late training. Even in the early days often things were shown to me, which I replayed until I knew them by heart. So after 40 years of playing every tournament that there is, you know almost everything that is possible.

 

Essentially you only go to a tournament because you want to win it. Otherwise, you can stay at home!

 

Did you note down your games to analyse them?

In the Mill game the notation is forbidden unlike chess where it is compulsory.

 

This is due to the fact that at the beginning of our tournament activity we could find almost no playing venues and time was very short. To begin with the innkeepers, from whom we asked for rooms, said that they did not have any premises for children's games! It should at LEAST be chess they laughed!

 

When at last there was a landlord who offered us a place in his restaurant, we had to vacate it by 6:30 p.m at the latest. He already had another group at 7 p.m so we simply couldn't allow notations as the games would take too long.

 

To move forward we had to limit the time for an entire game of mill to 5 minutes. That sounds like little time, but you have to consider that there were 5 minutes for each player, so two times five minutes comes to 10 minutes. In full-round tournaments, we were lucky to get through with 12 participants, with 2 games per opponent. Everyone started once, and had to lay the last stone as black once too.

 

That was at the very beginning, from December, 1979, when I started my tournament activity - with a 5th place at the first attempt. In chess, at that time, one made 40 moves in 5 hours. In the Mill game such a thing is unthinkable. There, the players would run away bored - in this time one accomplishes easily a whole tournament!