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| Ham |
Monday saw some widely scattered pockets of rain with a few rumbles of thunder. At about 2:00pm it got pretty dark and I thought I heard rain and looked out the front window and saw nothing. Still thinking I heard rain, I looked out the back window and there was a drenching downpour and the patio and picnic table had rain bouncing off of them. I guess the rain has to stop somewhere and at that time it was right over our house.
Who remembers 1961? A chimpanzee named Ham was launched on a test flight into space in on January 31, 1961. Born in Cameroon in approximately 1957; he was captured and brought to a facility in Florida. In July 1959, he was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, to be trained for space flight as part of Project Mercury. His name was the acronym for Holloman Aero Medical.
Ham, along with his partners, including another chimp named Enos (who would become the first and only chimpanzee to orbit the Earth), were trained by spending long periods of time confined in a chair and being trained to operate levers in response to light cues.
After 18 months of training, Ham was selected as the chimp whose life would be risked to test the safety of space flight on his body.
On January 31, 1961, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Ham was blasted into space, strapped into a container called a couch. During a flight of about 16.5 minutes when he traveled at a speed of about 580 miles per hour to an altitude of 157 miles above the earth, he experienced about 6.5 minutes of weightlessness. Despite the g-forces and weightlessness, Ham performed his tasks correctly.
After he splashed down 130 miles off target his capsule began taking on water. It took several hours for a recovery ship to reach him and miraculously he was alive and appeared relatively calm. However, chimp experts interpreted his facial expression as being one of extreme fear and anxiety. Later when photographers wanted a picture of him in his “couch” he refused to get back into it and even several men could not force him to do so.
After his ordeal he was transferred to The National Zoo in 1963, where he was forced to lived alone for 17 years before being transferred to the North Carolina Zoo where he was allowed to live with other chimps. He died 22 years after his historic flight on January 18, 1983, at the estimated age of 26. On to the chess stuff...
Chess players who were lost in 1961 were Soviet GM Grigory Levenfish (1889-1961) who died in Moscow at the age of 71. Akiba Rubinstein (1880-1961) died in Antwerp, Belgium at the age of 80 and the 1923-24 champion of Scotland, Christopher Heath (1877-1961) who died in London at the age of 83.
Mikhail Botvinnk defeated Mikhail Tal to regain the world championship. Bobby Fischer won the US Championship for the 4th time. Boris Spassky won the Soviet Championship.
In December, 1961, US lady champ, Lisa Lane generated a lot of excitement when she was playing in the Hastings Reserve tournament. After she played four games in which she scored one draw, two losses and had one adjourned game, she withdrew claiming she was homesick and in love.
Like most of the people and events mentioned here, Austrian Grandmaster and noted botanist Karl Robatsch (October 14, 1929 - September 19, 2000) have been forgotten.
At the age of 17 he moved to Graz to become a student and while there he often frequented the local chess club where he quickly advanced to Master. He was awarded the IM title in 1957 and the GM title in 1961.
Robatsch played competitively for over fifty years with his greatest successes coming in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In his early years Robatsch was noted for his highly tactical play, but later he adopted a more positional approach. His opening play was often experimental and a system of opening moves commencing 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 was named after him.
Robatsch had a notable career in botany in which he was an highly esteemed orchidologist in which he performed outstanding research work in the classification of different species and sub-species of orchids.
He died in 2000, following a long fight with throat and stomach cancer.
His opponent was Vasja Pirc (December 19, 1907 – June 2, 1980), a Slovenian player best known as a strong exponent of the hypermodern defense now generally known as the Pirc Defence.
Pirc was Yugoslav champion five times: 1935, 1936, 1937, 1951, and 1953. He was awarded the IM title in 1950 and the GM title in 1953. He was also an International Arbiter. He died in Ljubljana in 1980.
A game that I liked (Fritz 17)
Karl Robatsch–Vasja Pirc1–0A53Madrid International1105.1961Stockfish/Komodo
A53: Old Indian Defense 1.d4 f6 2.c4 d6 In the Old Indian black develops
his B on e7 indtead of g7. Soviet player Mikhail Chigorin pioneered it in the
late 1800s and while it's considered sound, it's never been very popular. 3.c3 bd7 4.e4 e5 5.e3 e7 6.h3 6.ge2 g4 7.d2 c6 8.h3 exd4 9.xd4 b6 10.hxg4 xd4 11.c2 White is better. Kuligowski,A (2495)-Vogt,L (2500)
Warsaw 1979 6.e2 0-0 7.f3 c6 8.h3 a6 9.a4 a5 10.f2 is equal.
Castrogiovanni,C (2073)-Welling,G (2378) Lodi 2008 6...0-0 7.g3 Highly
unusual. 7.Nf3 is the book move. e8 7...exd4 is an interesting idea that
leads to a Benko Gambit like position. 8.xd4 c5 9.d1 b5 10.cxb5 b7 11.g2 a6 12.bxa6 xa6 8.g2 c6 9.ge2 f8 Quite passive. 9...d5 This
leads to some complicated play. White's best line appears to be 10.exd5 cxd5 11.xd5 xd5 12.cxd5 b4+ 13.c3 exd4 14.xd4 c5 with about equal
chances. 10.d5 a5 11.0-0 b6 12.b3± fd7 13.f4 a4 14.f5 White
already has the makings of a dangerous K-side attack...notice the absence of
black defenders in that neck of the woods! c5 15.b1 axb3 16.axb3 e7
Proof that his 9th move was a waste of time. 17.d2 a3 18.c1 d7 19.g4 f6 20.f3 f8 Again?! It doesn't matter much though because black's
situation is already difficult. 20...c7 21.h4 ea8 22.f1 cxd5 23.exd5 xb3 24.xb3 xc4 25.e2 xe3 26.xe3 b5 27.e4 a7 28.xa7 8xa7
Black probably will not get enough compensation for the piece, but at least in
this line he has some play. 21.g3 h8 22.g5 This overly anxious move
should have allowed black to equalize. 22.b2 a8 23.h4 cxd5 24.cxd5 g6 25.g5 breaks up black's K-side and with most of the black pieces on the
other side of the board putting up a successful defense is not likely 22.b2 a8 This allows black to keep the Q available on the K-side. 23.h4 cxd5 24.exd5 c8 25.1e2 c7 26.b4 With no immediate breakthrough on the K-side
available white can shift his attention to the other side. a6 27.c1
White has a dominating position on all three sector-s: Q-side, center and
K-side. 22...cxd5 23.cxd5 e7 Again?! This time the consequences are much
more serious! 23...fxg5 24.xg5 e7 This time it's OK! 25.h4 f8
Black has managed to get his pieces to the defense of the K-side and as a
result his position is now stable. 24.g6 f8 As has been seen several
times in this game! AT least here it serves a defensive function. 24...h6
is obvioulsy bad on account of 25.xh6 gxh6 Other moves avoid mate but are
quiet hopeless. 26.xh6+ g8 27.h7+ f8 28.f7# 25.g4 h6 26.3e2
Headed to where the action is. a8 27.g3 a1 28.xa1 xa1
A superficial glance at the position might suggest that black is doing OK:
material is equal and he has a lot of activity on the Q-side. However, engine
analysis makes it clear that white's advantage (2 - 4.5 Pawns) is a winning
one. The reason is that white's brewing K-side attack is going to prevail. 29.h2 Freeing up the N which as it turns out does not have any need to join in
on the attack. e7 What's the point? Black has defended everything on the
K-side. 30.h5 Oddly, black can't take any action against white's b-Pawn
because the N on c5 is pinned. Black is pretty much helpless. g8 31.xh6
Removing the f-Pawn's defender and destroying the K's house. d4
The N cannot be taken. 31...gxh6 32.xf6+ g7 33.h5+ g8 34.g7 xg7 34...xg7 35.xh6 mates in 4 f8 36.xg7 xg7 37.xg7+ e8 38.g8+ e7 39.f6# 35.xg7 f7 36.xh6 b2 37.h5+ e7 38.h4+ f7 39.h7 xb3 40.e6+ e8 41.g6+ e7 42.f6# 32.e1 There's nothing forcing to be done
regarding the attack, so this nifty little move prepares to add the Q to the
assault with Qh4 32.e1 b2 32...gxh6 33.xf6+ h8 33...g7 34.e2 b2 35.h5+ h8 36.h4 xe2 37.g7+ wins 34.h4 d2 35.e2 xe2 36.g7+ xg7 37.xh6+ xh6 38.g8# 33.xf6+ gxf6 34.xf8 xf8 35.h4 wraps it up. 1–0
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