I found a query related to mine in the Nab-L Archives, Jan 8 2002, by Stan. Milkowsky, who writes: "here’s a gaping whole in my knowledge of VN’s work and that’s a very > superfluous idea of how chess work. In a note to the same story VN’s says: > “it oddly resembles the type of chess problem called “selfmate” (n647). I’ve > got a brief explanation of the type all right, but is there any way to find > a chessboard layout with a problem that would fall under the “selmate” > category? And what is the trick again? (“1: checkmate forced by the side > that is checkmated – called also suimate 2: a chess problem in which suimate > is required” – Webster’s Third Unabriged, 1976 – not a particularly helpful > article somehow, at least in my case). > > And that is it. I would be exceedingly grateful if you could share with me > your information or refer me to appropiate books/sites."

There is a reference by Martin Gardner,in one of his books on "recreational mathematics," in which he relates The Luzhin Defense to a "suimate." Many commentators and critics share the same view. Unfortunately, I continue in the dark. To whom is the term "sui" (oneself) applicable, to the one who creates de determining moves or to his opponent? My difficulty lies in the distinction between a championship and a "chess problem". In a world championship,a suimate (as I interpert it)wouldn't be advisable for, after all, the player's aim is to win the competition instead of simply divulging a clever "problem."
Luzhin's suicide cannot be equivalent to a "suimate" in any way when one interprets the term "sui" as indicative of "placing oneself in check mate", neither when he tries to to win Turati, nor as an attempt to evade Valentinov's fateful ploys.

 

in online entries I found: SELFMATE-SUIMATE 19:102: "A move or series of moves which lead inevitably to the checkmate of a player’s own KI - a problem in which this is the object. :A moves first and :B has to checkmate :A."  Another: "self-mate  - noun Chess .a move that will cause a player's king to be mated within a certainnumber of subsequent moves. Also called suimate."

wikipedia wasn't helpful, either:  "A selfmate is a chess problem in which white, moving first, must force black  to deliver checkmate within a specified number of moves against his will. Selfmates were once known as sui-mates."

 

My interpretations do not allow me to link "The Defense" to a "sui-mate". Since those who made such a connection are chess-experts or mathematicians, I must obviously be seeing things the wrong way.  Right now I feel that I cannot discern any pattern at all. Can anyone help????

 

Should Turati have trapped Luzhin to defeat him by checkmating the white king, the entire plot would be an echo of the tragedy that befell Oedipus. I don't think that Nabokov would have planned that! Besides, I found nowhere a reference to sui-mate except as a problem (when it makes no difference which side is checkmated)