Botvinnik, Absolute Champion

    Botvinnik was not a nice man. David Bronstein snidely referred to him as “a good Communist” who was not above using his influence to get what he wanted.
     When the 12th Soviet Championship was finished on October 1940, Botvinnik found himself tied for 5th place with Isaac Boleslavsky, two full points behind the joint winners Andor Lilienthal and Igor Bondarevsky. Vasily Smyslov and Paul Keres finished 3rd and 4th, respectively. What's more, Botvinnik had lost both of his games against the joint winners. 
     For Botvinnik it was a disaster that left him fearful of losing his position as the Soviet player with the best claim to challenge Alekhine. Something had to be done! 
     Lilienthal and Bondarevsky were scheduled to have a playoff to determine the champion, but Botvinnik was able to persuade the chess authorities that neither of those two were worthy of representing the Soviet Union. So, he pulled strings to arrange a quadruple round tournament between the top 6 finishers in the 12th Championship in place of a playoff. The tournament would be for a new title thought up by Botvinnik: Absolute Championship of the USSR, a title separate from the regular Soviet Championship to be decided only once and to determine who had priority in challenging Alekhine. 

    Botvinnik convinced authorities that reforming the title was a matter of urgency and stressed that fact to Vladimir Snegiryov, a Botvinnik supporter, whom he described as “ugly” and “slovenly dressed.” Snegiryov had taken the place of the purged Nikolai Krylenko. 
     It was Snegiryov who persuaded the authorities that a match-tournament was a better idea than a playoff and so it happened. The first ten rounds were held in the Tauride Palace in Leningrad and last ten rounds in the Hall Of Columns in Moscow. It started on the 23rd of March and ran until the 29th of April. 
     Two months after this tournament in Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, a number of players were lost in the ensuing fighting and Soviet chess activity receded into the background until after the War. 
     The antagonists in this game are Bondarevsky and Lilienthal. The latter is famous for eing the world's oldest living Grandmaster. Lilienthal (May 5, 1911 – May 8, 2010) was born in Moscow and moved to Hungary at the age of two, returned to the Soviet Union in 1935 and then went back to Hungary in 1976.
     Writing in The Soviet School of Chess, a book loaded with propaganda about the superiority of the Soviet system, authors Kotov and Yudovich made the observation that Lilienthal was uneven in his results because he had not fully mastered the training methods worked out in the Soviet Union. 
     Another reason they gave was that he paid insufficient attention to physical fitness and as a result he was unable to stand the strain in competition. I was reminded of the time I met an elderly gentleman in his nineties. The old guy looked sixty and every morning enjoyed a hearty breakfast of beer poured over a big bowl of Wheaties. For more on beer over cereal see HERE! He told me of the time when as a young man he had tried to buy life insurance but was turned down because he was too skinny. In those days life insurance companies equated being skinny with being sickly.
     When Lilienthal played at the high level at which he was capable, his games were examples of subtle positional maneuvering, smashing attacks and ingenious exploitation of endgame advantages. 
     Lilienthal's opponent was Igor Bondarevsky (May 12, 1913 – June 14, 1979).  Like Tartakower, Bondarevsky was born in Rostov-on--Don and was a GM in both OTB and postal play, an International Arbiter, trainer, and author. He later was Spassky's coach. 
     Bondarevsky made comparatively few appearances in international tournaments, but in his first, Stockholm 1948, he tied for sixth with Najdorf, Stahberg and Flohr which earned him a spot in the challengers tournament in Budapest 1950. Unfortunately, illness prevented him from playing. 
     Initially, he was known for complicated tactical chess, but when he realized that more was required to reach the upper echelons, he began studying, and mastered, strategy. At that time he more or less abandoned tactics and began relying purely on technique. With that there was a decline in his results. 

Exciting Finish in the 1951 Canadian Championship

     The 1951 championship marked the first time it was held on the Pacific Coast. A substantial fundraising drive that was undertaken to provide sufficient funds to sponsor the tournament netted just under $1,700 of which $500 came from a private patron. 
     The previous championship in Arvida, Quebec, in 1949 had been won by Maurice Fox for a record eight times. His record was subsequently matched by Abe Yanofsky. In the 1949 event, Fox had managed to stave off challenges Yanofsky, Frank Anderson, Vaitonis and Fedor Bohatirchuk who had won the 1927 championship of the Ukraine. 
   In the 1951 championship play was from, Sundays excepted, August 26, from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., with adjournments being played on the following mornings from 9 o'clock to 12 noon. 
     As defending champion Fox's traveling expenses paid. Additionally, accommodations for all the participants was paid. Prize money: First $300; second $200; third $120; fourth $80; fifth $60; sixth $20. Plus bonuses were paid to the other plays based on wins. Other prizes for brilliancy, shortest game, etc were offered. Prior to the start there was a banquet for the players that was open to the public for $2.50 per plate. 
     The big question was could Fox repeat? He couldn't. The championship was won by Paul Vaitonis, a cost accountant in Hamilton, Ontario. 
     Povilas (Paul) Vaitonis (August 15, 1911 – April 23, 1983) was born in what was to become modern Lithuania.  He was an IM and was inducted into the Canadian Chess Hall of Fame in 2011. 
     Vaitonis was a five-time Lithuanian champion ( 1934, 1937, 1938, 1942, and 1944) and played for Lithuania in four official and one unofficial Olympiads (1933, 1935,1936, 1937, 1939) scoring +36 -29 =18.  The 1936 Olympiad held in Munich was unofficial. In those days he played, and lost, three matches against Vladas Mikenas. He won the Canadian championship twice. 
     Vaitonis left Lithuania just before the advancing Soviet forces arrived. His reason..."all the time you're afraid. Even if you don't do anything wrong you never know when they'll arrest you." 
     He was scheduled to escape to Sweden in a small boat, but the boat was bombed and those he intended to escape with were killed. He managed to find another ship which successfully ran the gauntlet to Sweden. Many Baltic players ended up in the US, Canada and Australia: Arlauskas, Dreibergs, Endzelins, Jursevskis, Mednis, Ozols, Sarapu, Tautvaiaas and Zemgalis. 
     He remained in Sweden until 1948. That year he got married and left for Canada in 1949. After working for a year on a farm he found employment as a cost accountant. He wrote a weekly chess column in The Hamilton Spectator from 1953–1955. 
     In 1949, he finished 5th in the Canadian Championship. In 1951 and in 1957, he was Canadian Champion. In 1952 he qualified for the Interzonal in Stockholm 1952, but only managed 19th place. In 1953, he finished 3rd place in Canadian Championship. Vaitonis played for Canada in two Olympiads (1954 and 1958), scoring +10 -8 =10.   In 1952, he was awarded the IM title and through the 1960s he continued playing in the Canadian Championships and on various local teams. 
     Vaitonis leaned to play chess at the age of five, and oddly, he did not particularly care for tournament play; he most enjoyed just casual play with friends. 
     The 1951 championship quickly turned into a race to see if anyone could catch Frank Anderson, who established a substantial lead by scoring 9.5 out of his first 10 games! 
     The only ones who had a chance were Vaitonis and Frank Anderson. For Abe Yanofsky the tournament was a disaster when he lost his first two games: to Bohatirchuk and Anderson. Then is round 5 he lost to Hayes and it was all over.
     The championship came right down to the wire and wasn't decided until the last adjournment of the final round. Because of the odd number of players each player had to receive a bye. I still have painful memories of losing a game to Hayes back in 1962 and I also did a post on him HERE.
     When the final round arrived Vaitonis already had his bye and Bohatirchuk had his in round 11. Anderson's bye was in the last round which meant his 10.0 points was his final score. In round 12 Bohatirchuk had beaten Anderson which set up the decisive last round game between Bohatirchuk and Vaitonis. Going into the 13th round the scores were: 
1) Anderson 10.0 
2) Vaitonis 9.5 
3) Bohatirchuk 9.0 

Final standings;
1) Paul Vaitonis 10.5 
2) Frank Anderson 10.0 
3) Fedor Bohatirchuk 9.0 
4) Abe Yanofsky 8.0 
5) Nathan Divinsky 6.5 
6-7) Maurice Fox and Walter Jursevskis 6.0 
8-9) Frank Yerhoff and Jack Taylor 5.0 
10-11) Rea B. Hayes and Walter Holowach 4.0 
12) Howard Ridout 3.0 
13) Charles Millar 1.0 

Here is the decisive game. 

The Rise of Bent Larsen

     February 1956 was a sad month because on February 4th, Dr. Savielly Tartakower died at the age of 68 in Paris. On a happier note, a few months later at the Olympiad in Moscow Bent Larsen (March 4, 1935 – September 9, 2010) made his debut in the international arena. Like Tartakower, Larsen was to become known for his imaginative and unorthodox style. 
     Larsen won the Danish championship six times and was a Candidate for the World Championship four times, reaching the semifinal three times. Larsen became a GM in 1956 with his gold-medal performance on board one at the Moscow Olympiad, where he drew World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. He suffered from diabetes and died in 2010 from a cerebral hemorrhage. 
     The 12th Olympiad took place between August 31 and September 25, 1956, in Moscow and the Soviet team (Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Bronstein, Taimanov and Geller) which had won the previous two Olympiads, was the huge favorite and they lived up to expectations. 
     A total of 34 teams were entered and were divided into four preliminary groups of eight or nine teams. The top three from each group advanced to Final A, the teams placed 4th–6th to Final B, and the rest to Final C. All groups and finals were played as round-robin tournaments. The US did not sent a team to the Olympiad that year, but less than a month after the Olympiad, on October 17th at the Marshall Chess Club in New York, 26-year-old Donald Byrne sat down to play 13-year-old Bobby Fischer in what was later to be called "The Game of the Century" by Hans Kmoch in Chess Review. 
     Even though the Soviet Union was the heavy favorite, authorities treated the event dead seriously.  Things were changing in the Soviet Union. Unknown to the world at the time, at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held during February, the Soviet Leader, Nikita Khrushchev, had given a speech condemning former Soviet premier Joseph Stalin who had died three years earlier. Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a cruel leader who had created a toxic, suspicious and terrifying environment in which persecution was rife. Khrushchev stated that Stalin's "cult of personality" must be dismantled and urged the Soviet Congress members to reveal the truth about Stalin slowly to the Russian public. The entirety of the secretive speech was not revealed to the Russian people until 1988. And, a win by the Soviet team would go a long way to “prove” the superiority of the Soviet system.

    The Red Army Central Theater was the venue. The main final consisted of 12 teams. The Soviets started with impressive 4-0 over England and took the early lead. After challenges by Hungary, Yugoslavia and unexpectedly Switzerland, in round 9 the Soviets trounced Denmark by scoring three wins and assured themselves a first place finish. But the sensation was on on board 1 where Larsen held the World Champion, the mighty Botvinnik, to a draw. When it was all over, the Soviets won another trophy but this time it was not so easy. They lost their first ever match and couldn't overtake their competitors until penultimate round. 

Final A 
1-Soviet Union (Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Bronstein, Taimanov and Geller)
2-Yugoslavia (Gligoric, Matanovic, Ivkov, Karaklajic, Milic, Durasevic) 
3-Hungary (Szabo, Barcza, Benko, Szilagyi, Bely, Portisch) 
4-Argentina (Najdorf, Bolbochán, Panno, Pilnik, Sanguineti, Wexler) 
5-West Germany (Unzicker, Schmid, Darga, Pfeiffer, Niephaus, Teschner)
6-Bulgaria (Padevsky, Minev, Kolarov, Tringov, Tsvetkov, Milev) 
7-Czechoslovakia (Filip, Pachman, Sefc, Rejfir, Alster, Jezek) 
8- England (Golombek, Penrose, Wade, Milner-Barry, Clarke, Phillips)
9-Switzerland (Blau, Bhend, Walther, Keller, Johner) 
10-Denmark (Larsen, Poulsen, Pedersen, Ingerslev, Nielsen, Enevoldsen) 
11-Romania (Balanel, Ciocaltea, Troianescu, Soos, Ghițescu, Radulescu) 
12-Israel (Czerniak, Porath, Aloni, Oren, Dobkin, Smiltiner) 

Stumped by Sam Loyd

When I saw this two mover by Loyd that appeared in Musical World in 1859, the solution came pretty quickly...that is until I realized that it must be cooked, but it isn't. For the solution visit my book review page HERE.

White mates in 2

The Night Cuban Police Raided Capablanca's House

     Cuba is known for old cars, cigars, Fidel Castro and chess which is one of Cuba’s greatest prides and is deeply embedded in Cuban history and culture.
     Even Castro played chess and promoted it along with his nationwide literacy programs. When the Cuban government promoted a campaign to educate the masses in Cuba after the revolution, the goal was to provide free education to every citizen. Around 1966 chess would be taught to all children; Castro borrowed this idea from Capablanca, who believed it was important for children to learn chess in school. Che Guevara also pushed for chess education in schools. 
     Things didn't quite work out as hoped though. It was obligatory to learn chess in primary school, but there were not enough teachers. As a result, the government pushed for more chess education, particularly when it strengthened relations with the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, the government created the Latin American Higher Institute of Chess that offered free chess lessons in the hopes of creating a new generation of Grandmasters. Castro and his right-hand-man Che Guevara organized the Chess Olympiads in 1966 and the world’s largest simultaneous game of chess in 2002. 
     Guevara's father took him to a tournament when he was a boy growing up in Buenos Aires and he saw Capablanca playing. That’s where he first got addicted to chess and also where he first learned about the country where Capablanca came from. Che and the Cuban government invested huge amounts of money to support chess. 
     In Cuba, chess is synonymous with Capablanca, but few know that Christopher Columbus brought chess to the island in the 15th century. However, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, the man who declared Cuban independence in 1868, is considered to be the father of chess in the country because he translated the rules. 
     Of course, Jose Raul Capablanca is considered one of the greatest players of all time and when he won the World Championship in Havana in 1921, he became a national hero and greatly contributed to the game’s popularity in Cuba. 
     Today the recognized Cuban organization is Federacion Cubana de Ajedrez, but at one time there was a rival organization. When Reuben Fine visited Havana on personal business in 1942 he was surprised to find there was an internal dispute in Cuban chess. 
     A few years prior to his visit the Federacion Cubana de Ajedrez was the sole organization in existence. To Fine's surprise they had begun a vitriolic campaign against Capablanca some years previously when it became apparent that Capa's failing health was preventing him from repeating his great success of the past.
     Fine was shown newspaper clippings that made ridiculous claims about Capa which he described as silly and insulting. For example, at one time Capa was asked to play a match against one of the strongest Cuban players of the day and when he refused, it was claimed Capa was afraid he would lose. 
     After the 1938 AVRO tournament where Capa finished 7th out of 8 places, the organization made what Fine called pernicious and vituperative attacks on Alekhine and called Capa the professional champion of Cuba. At the same time, they withdrew his honorary title of president of the Cuban Chess Federation. Fine claimed that while the Federacion Cubana de Ajedrez paid lip service to Capa's influence on chess in the country, they did not appreciate his importance to it. 
     The result was that Capablanca formed his own organization, the Federacion Nacional de Ajedrez de Cuba, which continued even after his death. However, FIDE only recognized Federacion Cubana de Ajedrez whose behavior thoroughly annoyed Fine because they tried to exploit his visit which was made entirely for personal reasons and at his own expense. He was also annoyed that they tried to use the name of Capablanca to harm his own organization. 
     What really got Fine was upset was that when he gave a simultaneous exhibition, the official Cuban federation tried to make his score as bad as possibly by stacking the deck against him with strong players and encouraging another strong player to roam around giving advice to his opponents. And, they actually ordered players who were going to resign to play on in the hopes of tiring him out. 
     Fine also found it galling that the official federation (Federacion Cubana de Ajedrez) had printed on its stationery a line calling Francisco Planas, the 1927 and 1929 Cuban champion, the “simultaneous chess champion of the world” which Fine dubbed “material for good comedy.” 
     In 1941, Planas broke a simultaneous record by playing 618 opponents at 103 boards in Havana. Six players consulted at each table. He won 64, drew 26, and lost 13. It took him 16 hours to finish and he walked over 15 miles. 
     Back on March 5, 1933 Capa had given an 8 board clock simul in Havana with the stipulation that he had one minute per move and his opponents had 3 minutes. Additionally, his opponent's time could be rolled over if they moved before the three minutes were up. 
     On six of the boards there were teams of two or three players while two strong players, Francisco Planas and Alejandro Meylan, took on Capa single handed. Only Planas was able to put a dent in Capa's performance when he drew in 48 moves. Capa used 42 minutes and Planas used 92 minutes. 
     Shortly after that exhibition Capa was scheduled to head out for a tour of Panama and the United States, but that evening the police surrounded his house. They were looking for one Carlos Pelaez Cossio, husband of his wife's sister. 
     Back in 1924, Capa was world champion and he had been mentioned as the author of a proclamation against the president of Cuba. Capa denied the rumors but admitted that he was friends with the rebels. Pelaez had written letters to Capa stating that he was trying to send weapons and armed expeditions to Cuba. Pelaez was one of those people who was willing to be martyred for his beliefs and the government police reckoned him to be a dangerous revolutionary. 
     Years later a family member told one of Capa's biographers that Capa helped Pelaez escape through the back yard and he made it to the Mexican embassy where he asked for asylum along with Capa's brother Ramiro. 
     Ramiro Capablanca Graupera (died December 6, 1944) was governor of the Cuban province of Las Villas and president of the Municipal Institute of Pan American Sciences. He was part of the council that drafted the Cuban Constitution of 1940. 
     After helping the two escape, Capa rushed to a neighbor's house (a former minister of justice) where he explained the situation and was then taken to the port for his departure to Panama. It's not known if he returned to his house to pick up luggage, but when he arrived in Panama it is known that he went shopping for suits and ties. 
     Although the police did surround his house and there was a great deal of hubbub, they never actually raided the house by entering it. 
     After Capablanca died in 1942, chess aficionados organized the Capablanca Memorial tournament in his honor. The first tournament after the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power was in 1962 at the Habana Libre Hotel, the finest hotel in Havana. It was funded by Che Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary and director of the National Bank. 
     This was not the last time the government promoted chess. In 1962 Castro banned professional sports, but huge amounts of money were devoted to baseball, boxing and chess. When Cuba sponsored the 1966 Chess Olympiad, they provided each of the 58 participating countries’ teams with a chauffeur, car and paid air travel and spent an estimated $5 million on the event. Castro himself even put in an appearance and played Bobby Fischer, who was barred by the U.S. government from attending the Capablanca Memorial the year before although he played by telex. 

     In December 2002, Castro led another chess exhibition in Jose Marti Square in Havana that made the Guinness World Book of Records for the largest chess simultaneous match, with 11,320 players. The success of the event led to the broadcasting chess lessons on TV. 
     In 2003, universities began offering chess degrees. A year later, 13,000 players took on 500 masters and Cuba broke the world record for the largest simultaneous chess exhibition in history. In 2008, Cuban GM Leinier Dominguez won the World Blitz Championship. 
     Chess by mail was once very popular and Cuba had 10,000 people in the ICCF, but now the number has fallen to less than 1,000. The reason is because these days most correspondence chess is conducted over the internet and online chess in Cuba is difficult because internet play is difficult. Internet access is limited to Wi-Fi hotspots and expensive for the average Cuban. 
     Officially the government claims that 4.5 million users accessed Cuba’s internet in 2016, representing about 40 percent of the country’s population, but home internet is only available in 5 percent of homes, typically belonging to doctors, professors and state media professionals. Until last year, most home internet connections were illegal until the government announced a pilot program to install internet in 2,000 homes across selected neighborhoods in Old Havana and provincial capitals. Still, many Cubans can't afford to pay for internet connection. 
     Mobile internet does not exist in Cuba, so Cubans must visit local Wi-Fi hotspots at parks to go online by purchasing one-hour user cards for about a dollar an hour. One dollar may not seem like much but when you consider the average Cuban makes $30 per month, it's expensive.

The Hungarian Defense

Sir George Thomas - Southea 1949

     In his writing C.J.S. Purdy gave four rules that will help average players avoid opening pitfalls: 

1- Move nothing beyond the fourth (or 5th rank as black) until all pieces are developed unless it is a capture or attacks something. 
2- Avoid h2/h6 or a3/a6 unless it attacks a piece 
3- Castle as early as possible, but first make sure your opponent can't sacrifice a B on h2 (or h7).
 4- As black play Bf8-e7. 

     As Purdy observed, these rules won't enable you to play like a master, but they will avoid almost all opening traps. He added that if your judgment tells you to break one of the rules, then break it. 
     He also pointed out that the above rules preclude one from playing the Ruy Lopez, but he advised against playing the Ruy anyway because it's a complex opening that requires too much study.
     This brings us to the Hungarian Defense, a quiet response against the popular Guioco Piano which is often seen by white in amateur games. Besides being very solid and easy to play, it has almost no critical variations.
     The variation takes its name from a correspondence game between Paris and Pest, Hungary played from 1842–1845, but was first analyzed by Cozio in the 18th century. It has been played on occasion by some GMs, including Reshevsky, Hort, and former world champions Petrosian, Karpov and Smyslov.
     With the move 3...Be7, Black avoids the complexities of the Giuoco Piano, the Evans Gambit and the Two Knights Defense, but at the same time gives white an advantage in space and freer development, so Black must be prepared to defend a cramped position. 
     White's best response is 4.d4, seeking advantage in the center. Other moves pose less problems for Black; they are: 4.c3 Nf6 (Steinitz) and 4.0-0 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.d4 Bg4.  After 4.d4, Black continues either 4...exd4 or 4...d6. 
     All that said, Harding and Botterill, in their 1977 book on the Italian Game conclude that, "The Hungarian Defense can only be played for a draw. White should have an edge in most lines". 
     

Tartakower - Southsea 1949

     In the following game Thomas shows some of the latent possibilities in the Hungarian Defense.  It was played at Southsea 1949 which was won by Rossolimo ahead of Pachman and Tartakower. I have a small book on the tournament written by Harry Golombek that I purchased from the CCLA many, many years ago. 

Rossolimo at Southsea 1949

     The 1949 Southsea tournament was the first 10-day Southsea Swiss tournament that was the forerunner of a number of tournaments that were held in the 1950s and 60s. The event was repeated at Easter time until 1952 and the series was known as Agnes Stevenson Memorial tournament. It attracted many players of international repute: Bogoljubov, Tartakower, Yanofsky, Rossolimo, Bisguier and Pachman and helped start the career of Jonathan Penrose, ten times British Chess Champion. 

Golombek preparing the tournament book

     Sir George Thomas is well known, but R.C. Woodthorpe, a British amateur, is almost unknown.  His name shows up in many British tournaments of the 30s, 40s and 50s. 
     I am not sure they are the same person, but in the 1930s there was a British mystery writer named R.C. Woodthorpe. As a mystery writer, Ralph Carter Woodthorpe (1886-?) was the author of eight detective novels published between 1932 and 1940. Two of these featured Nicholas Slade as the leading character.

Prince Dadian - Real Player, Fake Games

     The chess world has occasionally been victimized with tales of fake and doctored games, fake tournaments and even fake Grandmaster titles, but probably none of those are more enigmatic than the games played by the Prince. 
     Andrey Davidovich Dadian-Mingrelsky (1850-1910), known as Prince Diadian to the chess world, was a Georgian nobleman, chess player, sponsor and organizer. An article appearing in an 1808 issue of the American Chess Magazine made the claim that “some of the most ingenious endings that have ever occurred in over the board play have been evolved by him and his success in matches with strong amateurs and in tournaments in clubs have placed him among the leading amateurs of Europe.” 
     Dadian was a member of a Mingrelian (Western Georgia) princely family of Svan descent. The Savans are an ethnic subgroup of Georgians living mostly in a region in northwest Georgia. They speak the Svan language and are mostly bilingual in Georgian. 
     Dadian was born in Zugdidi in West Georgia and graduated from Heidelberg University Faculty of Law in 1873. Later, he served in the Russian army. 
     He learned to play chess from his parents who spent summers in Paris. At the age of 14 in 1864 he met Thomas Wilson Barnes while vacationing in Homberg, Germany, a small town in the northern part of Hesse, a state in central Germany. 
     Barnes befriended Dadian and they played many games against each other which left Barnes impressed with Dadian's play and he predicted a great future for him. In 1867 Dadian met Ignatz Kolisch who had just won the Paris tournament. The two supposedly played some offhand games with Dadian winning a few. 
     Due to his position, Dadiani participated in very few tournaments. He is said to have won an amateur tournament Homberg in 1864. In 1873 he completed his studies at Heidelberg where he showed great brilliance, mastering six languages. 
     After graduation Dadian again took up chess and is supposed to have successfully played against several French amateurs. In 1874, he began his career as an officer in the Russian Hussars of the Guard and it was claimed that he met and vanquished many of the best amateur players in St. Petersburg. 
     Supposedly Dadian also had considerable talent as a blindfold player even though he was opposed to that sort of play because it was a “tax upon the brain.” He occasionally played three or four blindfold games simultaneously while reciting the moves of several master games. 
     A lot of his games were published in La Strategie and by William Steinitz in his International Chess Magazine and the British Chess Magazine dedicated its June–July 1892 issue to Dadian. 
     Many of the games were brilliant and after his death some people accused him composing many of them. Though nothing has ever been proven, most modern historians regard his games with skepticism. 
     It's been noted that he only published his most stunning victories, though the same can be said of most players. Although none of these claims have even been substantiated, it is known that he paid Steinitz and Preti for publishing his games and he was later accused by the Russian player Fedor Duz-Chotimirski of sending in his own wins while ignoring his opponents wins. Nothing new or unusual there! In fact, it's the exception when a player publishes his losses. 
     In 1903, Emmanuel Schiffers published a book of Prince Dadian's end-games titled Fins de Partie de S.A.S. le Prince Dadian de Mingrelie. In 1972, Ygraet A. Dadiani (Play A. Dadiani) was published in Georgia. 
     These are just highlights of Dadian's career and more complete details concerning this cryptic character can be read in the excellent 7-part article on him by Batgirl HERE. Particularly interesting is his influence which lead to the exclusion of Chigorin from the Monte Carlo tournament of 1903. Batgirl's article also includes many of Dadian's games.

The Memory Doctor

     In 1887, Mark Twain discovered Professor Loisette, a memory doctor, who made a living peddling a system of memory techniques bearing his name. Inductees into the Loisette System were sworn to secrecy and charged the modern equivalent of five hundred dollars to learn the “natural laws of memory” which the doctor claimed to have discovered.
     Twain enrolled in a several-week-long course and at first was deeply impressed, even going so far as to publish a testimonial in favor of the System. He was soon to regret this; a year later a book was published titled Loisette Exposed. The author, G.S. Fellows, debunked the system. 
     In a lawsuit the contract was rendered null and void because it was obtained under false pretenses as to what the system was. Dr. Loisette invented not only his academic degree but also his name, Alphonse Loisette. He was really Marcus Dwight Larrowe and had no qualifications to speak of. His entire system had been either plagiarized from other sources or oversold as to its effectiveness.
     Eventually, Twain discovered a system that worked for him. As he wrote, “It was now that the idea of pictures occurred to me; then my troubles passed away…The lecture vanished out of my head more than twenty years ago, but I could rewrite it from the pictures – for they remain.” 
     In 1880 he shared his system of mental “hieroglyphics” with his friend William Dean Howells. After Twain’s death, Howells revealed the method which Twain used to memorize his speeches. 
     Appearing in the 1896 Australian Chess Annual under the heading The Materials Of War was a blurb about chess books which could be obtained from the branches of Geo. Robertson and Co. and added, “Furthermore, to such as are subject to a want of mind concentration, it may not be out of place to mention that the Loisette system claims for itself the power of strengthening mind concentrations-no small boon to chess players.” Guess news of the fraud had not yet reached the publisher. 
     Mnemonic is another word for memory tool. Mnemonics are techniques for remembering information that is otherwise quite difficult to recall: a very simple example is the "30 days hath September" rhyme for remembering the number of days in each calendar month. By the way, there's an easier way of remembering how many days are in a month: 

    
     Loisette's book is still available on Amazon and the System is explained thus: It is the will directing the activity of the intellect into some particular channel and keeping it there. It is the opposite of mind-wandering. What is thinking? It consists in finding relations between the objects of thought with an immediate awareness of those relations. 
     What is the Loisette System? Just a work on mnemonics. Is there a technique that will help chess players remember? Chessbase has a series of articles on the subject: 

Memory Techniques: An Introduction 
Memory Techniques: Memory Palace, from Roman times to today 
Memory Techniques: Creating a Memory Palace, Dos and Don'ts 
Memory Techniques: the Peg system (part one) 
Memory Techniques: the Peg system (part two)

Pal Benko

     Back in July, Benko (born in 1928) celebrated his 90th birthday. From the end of the 1950s to the middle of the 1970s, he was one of the world's best players. 
     I never cottoned to Benko's boring positional style with what seemed like endless maneuvering that often lead to the endgame and if you were watching him play it was tedious because it took him forever to make a move.  Same for William Lombardy. That was Benko's biggest weakness...his constant time trouble.  At least he always followed his own advice when he wrote, “Under no circumstances should you play fast if you have a winning position. Forget the clock, use all your time and make good moves.” 
     He was born in Amiens, France where his father was an engineer who fancied himself an artist and loved to travel which is how Benko ended up spending most of this youth in Budapest. As a kid he loved sports and learned to play chess at the age of ten. He enjoyed his youth in Budapest, but that all came to an end in 1940 when war, with all its deprivations, came and people had to stand in line for hours for bread. At the same time the allied forces were repeatedly bombing Budapest. 
     By the end of 1944, the Russians occupied Hungary and things got even worse. Benko, who had just turned 16, was drafted into the Hungarian army, but rather that go to the front, he deserted. 
     He was eventually captured by the Russian army, which forced him to be a laborer. He managed escape and return home only to find that his father and brother had been sent to Russia as slave laborers and his mother had died, leaving Benko to take care of his little sister. 

Hungarian laborers

     During the war he had been studying and had turned into a strong player. Strong enough that he qualified for the Hungarian Championship in 1946. Things were still so bad in Hungary that food was offered as a prize because inflation was so bad that food was more valuable than currency. 
     In 1948, at the age of 20, he played his first international tournament in Budapest and shortly afterwards won the Hungarian Championship. In 1952,during a tournament in East Berlin, he tried to defect to the American embassy in West Berlin, but was captured, interrogated, tortured and without trial sent to a concentration camp for a year and a half. Starving, he lost 20 pounds and watched others around him die. When Stalin died Hungarian President Nagy gave amnesty to most prisoners, including Benko. In My Life, Games and Compositions he wrote, "Prison camp really makes you appreciate things that you might have been oblivious to before!" 
    Benko appreciated his freedom and determined to enjoy life, travel, beautiful women and play chess. Away from the board Benko was a ladies man. In his youth, Bobby Fischer exclaimed he wanted to emulate Benko in that area, but apparently he was never able to pull it off. Finally, in 1968 at the age of 40, Benko married his Hungarian girlfriend Gizella and began spending a lot of time in his native Hungary. 
     After his release from prison Benko adapted, but he had to be very careful. He had made up his mind to escape and chess was going to be the means. He had to become even better in order to get invitations for tournaments abroad so he devoted his efforts at improving. 
      In 1957, following the World Student Team Championship in Reykjavík, he walked into the American embassy and asked for and was granted asylum. He arrived in the United States at the end of 1957. He didn't speak a word of English and had only a few dollars. 
     He ended up in Cleveland, Ohio, but didn't stay long. He had hoped to find employment as a professional at a chess club like they had in Europe, but no Cleveland club was interested in paying for a professional on staff, so Benko moved on to greener pastures. 
     In the U.S. he earned the title “King of the Opens.”  He finished in first place or tied for first in eight U.S. Open Championships: 1961, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1974, 1975. He also won the 1964 Canadian Open. Starting in 1962, he represented the U.S. on six Olympic teams. 
     Benko was a successful open player, playing almost every weekend in open tournaments all over the US. The prizes gave him a good income but he had to adapt his style to fit those tournaments: in open tournaments, you always had to play for a win and that's when he developed the Benko Gambit which brought him great success. 

    Besides being known for popularizing the Benko Gambit and a composer of endgame studies and problems, he is also remembered for giving up his spot in the Interzonal tournament in Palma de Mallorca 1970 to Fischer. Was Benko paid to give up his place in the 1970 Interzonal so that Fischer could play?
     According to Edmonds and Eidinow in Bobby Fischer Goes to War, Benko received $2,000 from the USCF for his withdrawal. In his 2010 book Chess Duels Yasser Seirawan disputed that claiming Benko yielded his place to Fischer because he thought Fischer had a real chance at becoming World Champion.  And, if Fischer was successful in advancing then Benko would have a chance at being his second. 
     Benko said he went to Palma de Mallorca in 1970 despite having agreed to yield his spot to Fischer just in case Fischer changed his mind and didn't show up. Fellow qualifiers Samuel Reshevsky and William Addison were each paid $2,000 for their participation in the Interzonal and the USCF Executive Director Ed Edmondson offered Benko the same. Benko declined, but agreed to stay and serve as a second to Reshevsky and Addison and received his regular fee of $2,000 for his services. Fischer got more than $2,000, but how much more isn't known. 
     Benko noted that he explained his actions to Fischer who never even so much as said, “Thanks” although Fischer did add Benko to his team at Reykjavik for his match against Spassky.   However, Benko had already committed himself to play in a tournament in Las Palmas and said he would only be willing to cancel if he would be serving in Reykjavik as Fischer's second. Fischer would not commit, so Benko went to Las Palmas instead. 
     Benko's career peaked in 1958 when he qualified for the Interzonal in Belgrade; that's where he became friends with Fischer. Benko, an IM at the time, qualified for the Candidates Tournament 1959 and was awarded the GM title. A letter from Fischer to Benko
     According to Chessmetrics 1958 was Benko's highest ever rating, 2687 (number 17 on the list), which put him in company with Najdorf, Reshevsky and Larsen. His best performance ratings were 2724 at the Stockholm Interzonal, 1962 (2724), Portoroz Interzonal, 1958 (2717) and the Curacao Candidates, 1961 (2713). 
     At Curacao, Benko played white 14 times and 11 times he opened with 1.g3, hence it became known as the Benko Opening. As he got older Benko abandoned tournament chess and served as a columnist for Chess Life where he concentrated on problems and endings. 
     In the following game played in round 3 at Curacao 1962, Benko used the same opening move (1.g3) that he used to defeat Fischer in round 1 and Tal opted for the same setup which allowed white to exert strong pressure on black's position. In the end, Tal gets swindled in time pressure.