The first magazine was the London Chess Fortnightly which was published in 1892 and 1893). Next was Lasker's Chess Magazine from 1904 to 1909. According to Lasker, “The aim of this magazine is to convey correct information of all doings in the chess world, to cultivate a sound taste for the efficient and the beautiful in chess and to spread the love for chess among all peoples speaking the English tongue.” Finally there was The Chess Player's Scrap Book (1907-08).
A fourth magazine, Der Shachwart, was published in Germany in 1913 and 1914. It received notice in the chess column of the St. Petersburg magazine, Niva under the headline: "Berlin. E. Lasker has begun editing a monthly magazine, Der Shachwart, a very cheap periodical.” The column also noted the subscription price and the address. This was the only magazine he published that was able to stay afloat more than four years.
From time to time Lasker wrote chess columns for general circulation. He also reported from important tournaments and especially from matches for the world championship. Among these were his reporting and information on his matches with Janowsky and Schlechter in 1909-10 for The New York Evening Post, his match with Capablanca for the Amsterdam paper De Telegraaf and on the Alekhine-Euwe match for the Moscow paper Izvestia.
Lasker had strong opinions on the creativity in chess and the rivalry between Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe that he published in various magazines and newspapers. Among these were his thoughts on Capablanca and Alekhine, the 1935 Alekhine-Euwe match in Moscow’s Chess Yearbook and in 1937, "Two Matches" in the Russian magazine 64. He also gave his impressions of the 1936 Moscow Tournament in an article published in the Soviet newspaper Pravda in the June 10, 1936 issue.
In many newspaper and magazine articles Lasker frequently rendered his opinions regarding the philosophical essence of chess, its aesthetics, the psychology of play, and its historical fate. For example, he philosophically wrote, “Yet, it is a very plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess.”
In Lasker's Chess Magazine he once carried on a transatlantic feud with Tarrasch about whom he wrote that his strength (or weakness) was his self-love and without it he’d be a very mediocre chess player.
Browsing the Lasker Chess Magazine, May – October, 1905, revealed a lot of interesting material.
James Mason (1849 – 1905) was an Irish-born player, journalist and writer who became one of the world's best half-dozen players in the 1880s. Mason was born in Kilkenny in Ireland and was adopted as a child and took the name James Mason (his original birth name was unknown) when his family moved to the United States in 1861.
Under the headline, JAMES MASON'S TRUE NAME, a brief article read:
The statement is made by Robert Buckley, the veteran writer of Birmingham, England. that James Mason confided to him the information that the name he bore was not his family name. He declared that when his father landed in New Orleans he dropped his family name and took the name of Mason, the young lad then being eleven years of age. Mr. Buckley quotes from a letter received from James Mason the following : My father adopted the name of Mason on landing in New Orleans when I was 11, his object being avoidance of the prejudice which obtained against the Irish. Don't split till I'm dead, and even then I would rather you didn't give the name. It's so infernally Milesian, and they'd say that all the faults of the race went with it, particularly love of drink arid laziness. I have them both myself!
In medieval Irish Christian pseudo-history, the Milesians are the final race to settle in Ireland and they represent the Irish people. In the letter to Buckley, Mason didn’t reveal his real name.
DR. TARRASCH'S COUPLET.
Jacob G. Ascher, of the Manhattan Chess Club and former champion of Canada, wrote regarding “that excellent couplet Of Dr. Tarrasch,” that he was giving a very free translation. I can’t appreciate it, but it sounds like it was poking fun at Tarrasch.
When a checkmate stares you in the face
Get up and run at a breakneck pace
Whenever a mate you have to fear
Run out of the room and shed a tear
Whenever your game has gone to smash
Get up from your seat and go like a flash
When playing chess and your game is lost
Get up and run for fear of a frost.
There is a brief mention of Charles Dickens as a chess player by Victoria Tregear. For further information about Dickens and chess see Edward Winter’s site HERE.
In an editorial Lasker took a shot at Pillsbury. The Boston Journal, in an article that appeared on May 6, 1905, stated Pillsbury was visiting his brother in Somerville, Massachusetts while recuperating from his recent illness. Pillsbury was to die in June of 1906, but the article stated that he had almost regained his health and was arranging for an exhibition of chess and checkers at the Boston Chess Club, but he had given up blindfold play for a time.
Pillsbury expected to make his home in Philadelphia and hoped to take part in the annual telegraph match between the Manhattan and Franklin clubs on May 30, playing for the Philadelphia (Franklin) club.
Pillsbury did play in the match and defeated Edward Hymes (1871 – 1938), a New York attorney whose practice left him little time for competitive play. His one major tournament saw him finish tied for 3rd and 4th with Jackson W. Showalter behind Wilhelm Steinitz and Adolf Albin but ahead of Pillsbury at the Second City Chess Club Tournament held in New York City in 1894.
Three days before the match, on May 27th, Pillsbury gave a simultaneous series at the Franklin Chess Club, contesting twelve games of chess and one of checkers, but his score wasn’t very good. He beat the checker player, but only scored +4 -5 =3 against the chess players. However, it must be admitted that the opposition consisted of several of the clubs top players, a few of which were Masters.
Pillsbury told The Boston Journal that when playing blindfold he did not find it necessary to visualize the board and men, but rather he played just as a pianist plays, without any necessity for seeing the notes (keys?) of the piano.
Lasker thought Pillsbury’s explanation was malarkey. According to Lasker there is a clearly distinction between playing music from memory and playing blindfold chess. He went on a long dissertation about how the pianist does not create anything, he merely reproduces the sounds in the right sequence. To do this, long training of the muscles of the hand and arm is necessary along with the memorizing of the complicated combinations of sounds, all of which is limited only by the degree of ability the performer possesses.
On the other hand, the blindfold chess player is required to construct his game, meet the moves of his adversary, follow the pieces into new and difficult, complex problems and from it all to evolve deeper combinations than his opponent, to effect the victory; it is composition, not reproduction of the work of others.
There was also a letter from a Mr. G.R. Williams under the heading PILLSBURY AND MENTAL CHESS. i.e. blindfold chess
Mr. Williams opined that Pillsbury was the greatest exponent of mental chess the world has ever known, therefore anything he says on the subject must be interesting to those who know what mental chess is. When Pillsbury was in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1904, he was asked how he played blindfold, did he visualize the board?
In reply he said, “No, I do not visualize the board. It is a work of memory." He did not explain further. He was then asked what was the color of (c4)? Pillsbury’s answer was, “The white Q stands on a white square, the K on a black, the K's B on a white, the B’s second is black, the third, white and the fourth black. That is the mental process by which I arrive at the result."
Mr. Williams concluded that Pillsbury did not visualize the empty board, but it wasn’t conclusive that he did not in some sense see the pieces on the board and the relation they have to each other. Mr. Williams rambled on about whether seeing square colors was part of blindfold chess.
Lasker and Mr. Williams weren't the only ones prone to rambling on and on. Mr. W.H. Kimble was able to match their expertise in that area in a letter concerning correspondence chess.
Mr. Kimble described himself as taking “a deep interest in correspondence chess play, and knows the facts he has set forth regarding the same to be absolutely true.”
By his letter he hoped to do away with “all future collision be tween the two modes of (correspondence) play. What two modes of correspondence play was he referring to?
Mr. Kimble was appalled that there existed a group of players who when analyzing did not abide by the touch-move rule that is part of the rules of chess!
It was his contention that the only difference between OTB and correspondence was that the players had to exchange moves by mail. He asked what was there about the term correspondence chess that could lead a rational and honest person to infer or believe he has perfect right to make and retract as many moves as he sees fit in his turn to play and to manipulate both white and black pieces?
Mr. Kimble asserted that anything contrary to mental analysis is directly antagonistic to the principles of chess, and should be sternly frowned upon by all honest players.
Though he did admit there was no harm done when both players indulged in the manipulation of the pieces, it wasn’t fair when one player did and the other didn’t. In the latter case, the “honest” player could end up feeling “blue” over his lack of success which could lead to him abandoning correspondence play altogether.
Mr. Kimble believed that if a player intended to manipulate the pieces during his analysis, he should so inform his opponent at the start of the game. Otherwise he is being dishonest.
And that is just a taste from the first 60 pages out of 302. You can read them all HERE.
No comments:
Post a Comment