A Chimp Named Ham plus a Nice Win by Robatsch

Ham

     Strange weather yesterday (Monday). Sunday was hot and humid with a cold front forecast to move through in the evening...all the ingredients for severe weather including tornadoes. Fortunately when the front came through (as evidenced by several minutes of strong wind) there were only some light sprinkles. 

     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.

[Event "Madrid International"] [Site ""] [Date "1961.05.??"] [Round "11"] [White "Karl Robatsch"] [Black "Vasja Pirc"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A53"] [Annotator "Stockfish/Komodo"] [PlyCount "63"] [EventDate "1961.??.??"] {A53: Old Indian Defense} 1. d4 Nf6 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. Nc3 Nbd7 4. e4 e5 5. Be3 Be7 6. h3 (6. Nge2 Ng4 7. Bd2 c6 8. h3 exd4 9. Nxd4 Qb6 10. hxg4 Qxd4 11. Qc2 {White is better. Kuligowski,A (2495)-Vogt,L (2500) Warsaw 1979}) (6. Be2 O-O 7. f3 c6 8. Nh3 a6 9. a4 a5 10. Nf2 {is equal. Castrogiovanni,C (2073)-Welling,G (2378) Lodi 2008}) 6... O-O 7. g3 {Highly unusual. 7.Nf3 is the book move.} Re8 (7... exd4 {is an interesting idea that leads to a Benko Gambit like position.} 8. Qxd4 c5 9. Qd1 b5 10. cxb5 Bb7 11. Bg2 a6 12. bxa6 Rxa6) 8. Bg2 c6 9. Nge2 Bf8 {Quite passive.} (9... d5 {This leads to some complicated play. White's best line appears to be} 10. exd5 cxd5 11. Nxd5 Nxd5 12. cxd5 Bb4+ 13. Nc3 exd4 14. Qxd4 Bc5 {with about equal chances.}) 10. d5 a5 11. O-O Nb6 12. b3 $16 Nfd7 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!} Nc5 15. Rb1 axb3 16. axb3 Be7 { Proof that his 9th move was a waste of time.} 17. Qd2 Ra3 18. Nc1 Bd7 19. g4 f6 20. Rf3 {[%mdl 32]} Bf8 {Again?! It doesn't matter much though because black's situation is already difficult.} (20... Qc7 21. h4 Rea8 22. Rf1 cxd5 23. exd5 Nxb3 24. Nxb3 Nxc4 25. Qe2 Nxe3 26. Qxe3 b5 27. Ne4 Qa7 28. Qxa7 R8xa7 { Black probably will not get enough compensation for the piece, but at least in this line he has some play.}) 21. Rg3 Kh8 22. g5 {This overly anxious move should have allowed black to equalize.} (22. Qb2 Qa8 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. Qb2 Ra8 {This allows black to keep the Q available on the K-side.} 23. h4 cxd5 24. exd5 Nc8 25. N1e2 Qc7 26. b4 {With no immediate breakthrough on the K-side available white can shift his attention to the other side.} Na6 27. Rc1 { White has a dominating position on all three sector-s: Q-side, center and K-side.}) 22... cxd5 23. cxd5 Be7 {Again?! This time the consequences are much more serious!} (23... fxg5 24. Bxg5 Be7 {This time it's OK!} 25. h4 Rf8 { 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 Bf8 {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. Bxh6 gxh6 {Other moves avoid mate but are quiet hopeless.} 26. Qxh6+ Kg8 27. Qh7+ Kf8 28. Qf7#) 25. Rg4 h6 26. N3e2 { [%mdl 32] Headed to where the action is.} Qa8 27. Ng3 Ra1 28. Rxa1 Qxa1 { 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. Kh2 {Freeing up the N which as it turns out does not have any need to join in on the attack.} Re7 {What's the point? Black has defended everything on the K-side.} 30. Nh5 {Oddly, black can't take any action against white's b-Pawn because the N on c5 is pinned. Black is pretty much helpless.} Kg8 31. Bxh6 { [%mdl 512] Removing the f-Pawn's defender and destroying the K's house.} Qd4 { The N cannot be taken.} (31... gxh6 32. Nxf6+ Kg7 33. Nh5+ Kg8 34. g7 Rxg7 ( 34... Bxg7 35. Qxh6 {mates in 4} Kf8 36. Rxg7 Rxg7 37. Qxg7+ Ke8 38. Qg8+ Ke7 39. f6#) 35. Nxg7 Kf7 36. Qxh6 Qb2 37. Qh5+ Ke7 38. Qh4+ Kf7 39. Qh7 Nxb3 40. Ne6+ Ke8 41. Qg6+ Ke7 42. f6#) 32. Qe1 {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. Qe1 Qb2 (32... gxh6 33. Nxf6+ Kh8 (33... Kg7 34. Ne2 Qb2 35. Nh5+ Kh8 36. Qh4 Qxe2 37. g7+ {wins}) 34. Qh4 Qd2 35. Ne2 Qxe2 36. g7+ Bxg7 37. Qxh6+ Bxh6 38. Rg8#) 33. Nxf6+ gxf6 34. Bxf8 Kxf8 35. Qh4 {wraps it up.}) 1-0