Bobby Fischer’s Correspondence Career

      If you didn’t know he had one, neither did I until I came into possession of the out of print The Unknown Bobby Fischer by Donaldson and Tangborn.  I love this book! Published in 1999 the book chapters describe his career: The Early Years, 1956-The Big One, 1957-The Big Breakthrough, 1960-1965, Fischer’s 1965 Transcontinental Tour, Articles 70s Simuls-Blitz, Fischer’s Originality-Analysis-Suggestions-Interviews plus 24 photos.  If you can find this book used don't hesitate...buy it!

      Bobby's career as a correspondence player is a bit of a mystery. His mentor, John W. Collins, who was a strong postal master and wrote a correspondence chess column for Chess Review, writes in My Seven Chess Prodigies: Bobby never played correspondence chess. Probably the pace was too slow and the dramatic personal confrontation, which is such a large part of the excitement of the game, was lacking. Consulting books while the game was in progress would not be his idea of legitimate chess either. In fact, very few grandmasters, and potential grandmasters, with the notable exception of Paul Keres in his formative years, have cottoned to correspondence chess. This is in contrast to its popularity with experts and lower-rated players who delight in it. Possibly the difference of appeal is due to the reasons just mentioned, to preference for public or private competition, or to causes which are psychological in nature.

Here’s the real story from The Unknown Bobby Fischer:

      Actually, Bobby did play in at least one correspondence tournament. The reason Collins didn't know about it is because he first met Bobby on Memorial Day Weekend in 1 956.  By then Bobby's short-lived postal career appears to have either finished or been winding down.

      The first indication that Bobby played correspondence chess appears in Legend on the Road. There, on page 12, Donald P. Reithel, who played Bobby during his 1964 simul tour, writes: In 1955 I played Bobby in postal chess - a prize tourney in Chess Review. I remember him as a typical American kid: Brooklyn Dodger fan, somewhat opinionated about school and somewhat desirous to exchange ideas and thoughts. He printed his name in lower case letters, "bobby fischer." He didn't finish the event because he was starting to play over-the-board tournaments.

In a later communication, Reithal added:  A. W. Conger was one of my opponents in [a] Chess Review Prize Tourney . . . [a player named Fisher played in 54-P 38-100] . . . That is the event Bobby Fischer competed in . .
      For myself, I discarded many of my early tournament results and no longer have my scorepads covering that period of time. I did have several of Bobby's cards, but they too were tossed out in Spring cleanups. What was interesting about them was that Bobby had notes on all of them covering various subjects.
       Our individual game was a King's Indian Defense (I was White) and the game lasted 1 2- 1 5 moves when he wrote me that he was withdrawing from the tourney to pursue a lengthy cross-country trip and series of over-the-board tournaments, which, he said, was his entry toward capturing the world chess title - build skills, gain exposure, make results and earn a reputation. A year or two later he won the U.S. Championship for the first time and he was true to his word.
       I did not find his comments to be egotistic, but rather showing youthful optimism and self confidence as to his talent and ability. We shared considerable note exchanges, as I was only a teen myself and I think he related to that, as we had similar interests outside of just chess. I recall responding to his direct statement that he intended to win the world championship and return it to the USA, advising him to complete his education which he would need to handle his affairs during his adulthood.
      His response was that I sounded just like his sister and teachers. His follow-up card listed only the moves. But then he responded in a more friendly way to my comments about his note . . .
       In all, I found him to be a rather lonesome kid who was trying to find himself and purpose. He no doubt caught the chess bug early and it was a burning fire inside him. Who exactly contributed toward his maturity, I cannot say.
       He told me he studying the Bible and I wrote that he might find Rev. Rice and Herbert W. Armstrong and Garner Ted Armstrong's religious broadcasts informative, which he apparently checked out, as he later became interested in the latter's Worldwide Church of God.
       . . . I found him to be a nice, normal kid with a lot of dedication to chess, but also having interests that all kids seem to share. He was a Dodger fan and I a Yankee fan. Maybe that it is why we hit it off. Anyway, I followed his career and was most pleased that his youthful dream was fulfilled.

      AI Horowitz's Chess Review was one of the major organizers of correspondence tournaments in the 1950s. The record is spotty, but it appears Bobby played in a Prize Tourney section during 1955 and 1 956. The May 1955 issue of Chess Review, on page
159, lists an R. Fischer under new postalites, assigning him a Class B (1200) rating. The piece mentions that newcomers to postal chess are "rated" on their estimated ability with Class A running from 1300 on up.  Class B was from 1000-1298. Note that the postal ratings were about 500-600 points lower than over-the-board USCF ratings at the time.
       Postal ratings appeared in Chess Review approximately twice a year. The August 1955 issue (p. 252) lists a B. Fischer at 1198. Later he drops to 1082 in March 1 956. The August 1956 issue again lists him at 1082 which suggests that he was no longer active.
       The following game is the only correspondence effort of Bobby's that we have discovered.  A.W Conger of Pennsylvania was rated 1274 in the August 1955 issue of Chess Review. It first appeared in Zugzwang, the newsletter of the King of Prussia Chess Club which is located in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia.
       Fischer resigned on move 12 after dropping a Pawn, but engine analysis shows his game was still playable but despite what the engine says, it would have been difficult and we know Fischer did not like passive positions.  It’s just a guess, but I suspect he resigned in disgust, being ruled by his emotions rather than hard analysis.

Richard Ling

      I recently bemoaned the fact that there is a paucity of information available about Ohio Chess players but in the process discovered a Blog that gave a tribute to this great Ohio player of the past.  I found it, of all places, on a sports Blog maintained by Expert David Friedman who is an eight-time champion of the Dayton Chess Club. In addition to blogging about the sports world Friedman has a large collection of interesting blogs on Fischer and chess in general.  Please check it out!  Mr. Friedman’s post about Ling can be read in its entirety HERE.

       Ling won the championship of the Dayton Chess Club the most times: Five titles between 1961 and 1973, including three straight from 1965-67. Ling claimed his final DCC title by beating Robert Lytle in a playoff match after they tied for first place in the tournament.
       Ling, who was the Ohio co-champion in 1962 and was known for three things: 1) A remarkable ability to rattle off moves quickly during severe time pressure; 2) an uncanny knack for saving bad positions (often while rattling off moves quickly during severe time pressure); 3) being a gentleman at all times.
       Friedman wrote of Ling, “I very much enjoyed competing against Ling and then analyzing with him after the games. He never once acted like my questions were stupid or bothersome. At first I was no match for him but eventually I was able to give him a decent game; inevitably, he would get into time pressure, I would move too fast and he would win.”
       “Ling never talked about why he always got into time pressure or how he so frequently managed to completely outplay his opponents once he got there. Several players frankly told me that the likelihood of ever running Ling out of time was very remote—and this was before the days of Chronos clocks and five second time delay. If you have a good position, don’t even look at the clock, they implored; play the best move that you can find and let him worry about your move and his dwindling time. Of course, they were right but this kind of advice falls into the “easier said than done” category, particularly for a young player who tended to play too fast anyway.”
       “Sadly, on December 11, 1989, he and his wife were killed in a car accident. The DCC Championship trophy was renamed the Richard Ling Memorial Trophy in his honor.”  
      In 1961 I played in my first tournament, the Ohio Junior Championship, which was being held at the same time as the Region 5 Championship in Dayton and I well-remember Ling.  At some point in the tournament Ling, who seemed very mannerly and polite, actually spoke to me when he said hello.  OK, so it wasn't a big deal, but at that time I had never met any real chessplayers and to actually have an Expert acknowledge my presence by saying, "Hello, how are you?" was a pretty big deal!  The fact that I still remember the incident 50 years later just shows you that sometimes a smile and a friendly word will go a long way.

Here is Ling’s game against GM Larry Christiansen from a 1980 simul in Dayton.

Chess Cafe Needs Your Donation

      The really excellent site Chess Café which includes NM Dan Heisman’s Novice Nook (some of the best instruction around) plus tons of other fascinating and useful chess material is asking for donations to, well…let them explain:

      To create a freely accessible online chess curriculum that focuses on using chess as a tool for teaching problem solving and critical thinking skills. A curriculum that can be used in classrooms, home-schooling, libraries, institutions, etc. with complete course work, exercises, and activities available to print out as worksheets and lessons. One that gives someone with little or no chess knowledge the means and materials to run a successful chess program. Along with a freely accessible online playing interface that offers real-time play, correspondence play, and various training features. Be sure to checkout our contributor rewards!  View request.

      They are accepting donations in the amount of $25, $65, $150, $300, $500 and $1000 in an effort to raise $65,000 to accomplish the task. They will also supply you with a gift of set and board, etc. depending on the size of your gift. I’m not sure why they need $65,000 for this project unless they are planning on paying GMs et al to put together the material and/or need to pay for a website and/or server.

      This is a great site that has been around a long time and I am sure their request for donations for this project is legitimate but what if I donated $1000 and they end up short of their goal?  Have I ended up paying $1000 for a folding chess table, wooden set w/box for a project that’s stillborn, or what? 

      One thing I have always noticed about requests for donations relating to chess for any reason…I have rarely, if ever, seen any masters or GMs donating anything.  It always seems to be us average players.  Why is that?

Albert Sandrin

Albert Sandrin (1923-2004)


      Probably Sandrin’s best tournament results were first prize ($35) at the Illinois State Tournament in 1944 and winning the U.S. Open in Omaha in 1949.
      Sandrin learned chess from his uncle who taught him and his brother, Angelo, how to play. Well, they were “sort of” taught how to play. Sandrin told how they made up their own rules and it wasn’t until a few years that he and his brother got serious and borrowed some books from the library and learned how chess was really played. Shortly after that they both began playing in local tournaments where both Sandrins became regulars on the Chicago chess scene for many years. Throughout most of his career Sandrin maintained a solid master rating.
      Sandrin’s vision was damaged in August, 1929 when, while playing outside the family home on Chicago's south side, the bored six year old stared directly into the sun for a long period of time. His eyesight deteriorated very slowly over the following years. In 1952 he entered the Marshall School for the Blind and studied piano tuning. After learning how to tune pianos, he advertised in the telephone book for customers and soon found himself tuning pianos all over the Chicago area. He was totally blind by 1968. Sandrin played a small part in US airline history when he was a passenger aboard the first PanAm 747 flight from Chicago to London on April 26, 1970.
      In the US Open in 1965, one player described how Sandrin would sit at the board with a female companion sitting beside him and when it was time to make his move, he would announce it and then move the piece. His companion would then write down the move.
      Another player described his meeting with Sandrin in another US Open during the 1980s and was surprised to see that Sandrin did not use a special set designed for blind players but used their regular set. He was shocked at the beginning of the game to see Sandrin use his little fingers to locate the edge of the board then pick up a Pawn and move it right where he wanted it. This guy explained that he thought that because Sandrin was blind, a good plan would be to complicate the game as much as possible, figuring Sandrin was bound to make a mistake. It turned out Sandrin avoided all the traps and simplified into a won ending.

A good collection of his games can be found HERE  and a nice photo HERE.

Worthy of the GM Title?

      The oldest player ever to receive the GM title was Enrico Paoli (1908-2005) of Italy who was awarded title in 1996 at the age of 88.  Five other players were awarded the title after the age of 80:  Jacques Mieses (1865-1954) of Germany appeared on the first list of GMs in 1950 at 85 years, George Koltanowski (1903-2000) of USA got his title in 1988 at 85, Vladimir Makogonov (1904-1993) of Azerbaijan in 1987 at 83, Mario Monticelli (1902-1995) of Italy in 1985 at 83 years and Esteban Canal (1896-1981) of Peru got it in 1977 at 81.

      Does awarding the title in recognition for past feats, awarding the title for life, after a player has died or for political reasons make sense?
      For example, US player Arthur Dake who was once one of the US’s top players and a very strong one at that, tied for first with Rubinstein and Yates in Antwerp in 1931 and for 3-5 place in a small event won by Alekhine in Pasadena the following year. In 1934/35 he also tied for first with Fine and Kashdan in Mexico City.  Beyond that he only registered some modest successes in US Championships in the 1930’s before dropping out of chess until the Lone Pine events in the 1970’s.
       In 1985 FIDE awarded Golombek an emeritus GM title despite the fact that during the best five year period of his career he only maintained an average estimated rating of around 2450.
       Arnold Denker (February 20, 1914 – January 2, 2005) became an IM in 1950 (the year the title was first awarded) and in 1981 FIDE made him an honorary GM. I think at the time Denker was one of the US representatives to FIDE…sounds political to me.  While Denker was a fine player with a few big name scalps to his credit and was also the winner of one US Championship, he was never a GM caliber player.  BTW, the year Denker won the US Championship, Reshevsky wasn’t playing.  Reuben Fine did participate and as the second best player in the US it was expected he would win but Denker, playing in the tournament of his life, defeated Fine and won the title.
       Back in 1998 Nigel Short wrote a letter to the editor of Inside Chess complaining that the title should only be awarded to the best players in the world and that too many having the title were too low rated to warrant the title.  Short actually proposed that anybody with the GM title who dropped below 2450 two rating lists in a row should get busted back to IM.  In reply GM Andrew Soltis complained that life is tough for old GMs and yanking their title would be an injustice.  Soltis also opined that the title represents accomplishments and not necessarily current status…something like having a PhD or MD degree.
       There was a discrepancy from the very beginning with the awarding of the GM title. According to Frank Marshall in My 50 Years of Chess (actually the book was ghosted by Fred Reinfeld) in the St. Petersburg 1914 tournament (Corrected year thanks to reader Paul Gottlieb) the title "Grandmaster" was conferred by Russian Tsar Nichols II to the five finalist: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall.   Players who didn’t make the cut were Ossip Bernstein, Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Blackburne, Janowski and Gunsburg.  It seems that at least two of this group were probably better than Marshall but didn’t get the title. 
      The first known use of the term “Grandmaster” was in an 1838 issue of was an English weekly sporting paper named Bell’s Life in which one William Lewis was referred to as a GM.  William Lewis (1787–1870) was an English player and author best known for the Lewis Countergambit (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.c3 d5).  Lewis himself had referred ro Philidor as a GM.
      In the 1907 Ostend tournament the term Grandmaster (Großmeister in German) was also used. The tournament was divided into two sections: the Championship Tournament and the Masters' Tournament. The Championship section was for players who had previously won an international tournament and was won by Tarrasch over Schlechter, Janowski, Marshall, Burn and Chigorin.  Later the San Sebastion tournament of 1912 won by Rubinstein ahead of Nimzovich and Speilmann was also designated a GM tournament.
      Anyway, just looking at the names of the old-timers who were designated GMs reveals names like Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, Marshall, Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Schlechter etc.  I am not trying to belittle the talent of today’s title holders because they have accomplished a lot and their chess playing abilities are huge but somehow a lot of the people who have reveived “honorary” or “emeritus” titles, or for that matter, some who have obtained the title legitimately under the rules of today just don’t seem to measure up to those “originals.”

From the 1949 US Open

Here’s a knock down drag out fight between a couple of masters from the 1949 US Open played in Omaha, Nebraska which was won by Albert Sandrin ahead of Anthony Santasiere and Larry Evans. Giles A. Koelsche withdrew after 6 rounds with a score of +3 -2 =1 while Schaffer withdrew after 9 rounds with a +4 -2 =3 result.  I have been unable to verify the spelling of the last name of “Schaffer” and it seems I remember having seen it spelled a couple different ways.  In any case he used to play in the early years in tournaments in Pennsylvania as well as Ohio.  In the mid-1960s when I lived in Toledo, Ohio, Dr. Joseph I. Schaffer was a very popular master associated with the University of Toledo.

Prominent Ohio Chess Players

      I recently searched Google for a list of past Ohio chess champions and couldn’t find one!  I was hoping to find something like they have in North Carolina and Missouri and probably other states that have a “Hall of Fame” list that includes brief biographies of past champions and prominent players.  Even the Ohio Chess Association does not have a list of past champions.  This Blog has a post on Saul Wachs  who was a very strong master in his day but almost all of the information I gathered on him came from non-chess sites!  I was interested in finding out some information on players like James Schroeder and discovered the following:  The Man Who Was Once Somebody and A Chronicle of James Schroeder.

      However a search of prominent Ohio players of the past like Jerry Fink, Lajos Szedlacksek, Tom Lajcik, Richard Kause, Tom Wozney, Ross Sprague, Dr. Joseph I. Schaeffer, Robert H. Burns and others didn’t turn up much.  Little or nothing seems to be available on these players and in many cases even their games are not available. That’s disappointing.

Sidney N. Bernstein

      Sidney Bernstein (13 July 1911, New York City – 30 January 1992, New York City) had two different phases to his career. After being a serious player in his youth he stopped playing for ten years and then came back with the idea of playing just for fun.

      Bernstein had an impressive record in US tournaments:
Tie for 2nd-4th in Marshall Chess Club Championship at New York 1930/31
Tie for 6-7th in New York State Chess Championship at Rome 1931
He played board two, behind Reuben Fine, on the victorious CCNY team in the 1931-32 Intercollegiate championships.
11th in the American Chess Federation Congress (U.S. Open) at Philadelphia 1936 Participanted in eight U.S. Chess Championship events (1936, 1938, 1940, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1959 and 1961).
Played three times in Ventnor City, sharing 1st in 1940,tied for 5-7 in 1941, and tied for 3rd-6th in 1942.
He tied for 1st with Reinfeld in Manhattan Chess Club Championship at New York 1942 and took 8th in Manhattan CC in 1955.   Over the course of his career Bernstein played Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Rubinstein in simultaneous displays and scored many wins against Denker, Marshall, Mednis and Reshevsky in tournament play.
      His career was well chronicled in his book Combat: My 50 Years at the Chessboard, but unfortunately he did not write much else about chess. In the late 1930s he coedited with Fred Reinfeld a book on Kemeri 1937 and in 1947 the two collaborated on a revision of James Mason’s The Art of Chess.
      Combat: My 50 Years at the Chessboard is unusual in that he kept annotations to a minimum under the assumption his readers were not novices. However, in complicated positions he did supply detailed notes. Also rather odd was Bernstein’s omission of diagrams.  The reason? He thought they wasted space and encouraged readers to skim! Another oddity was hyphens between moves were omitted. It has long been a questions as to who wrote the book Reshevsky On Chess.  Reshevsky claimed he wrote it, but others suspected it was ghost written by Fred Reinfeld.  I once read somewhere that the fee was $100 which would be about $1500 in today’s currency.  BTW, Reinfeld also ghost wrote Frank Marshall’s My Fifty Years of Chess.

      In writing to Edward Winter, Bernstein related how he and Reinfeld eventually had a falling out when Bernstein was working for Reinfeld in the 1950s as an analyst. Reinfeld began complaining about Bernstein’s work.  Without telling her husband, Bernstein’s wife wrote Reinfeld a nasty letter and that ended their friendhip. Reinfeld was not a particularly pleasant man himself and he also had a falling out that ended his friendship with I.A. Horowitz.
      Bernstein, who had many opening innovations, wrote of the King's Indian …over many years I’ve come to feel that even the world’s greatest players (Karpov included) misplay the white side of the King’s Indian by an early e4. This blocks the fianchettoed bishop (as Black will certainly play …e5), allows a “hole” at d4 and forfeits the option of using the square e4 as a transfer spot (for example, my last move). I’ve always kept the e-pawn at home with the option of e3 if needed – and have scored numerous wins in that fashion. (Source: Edward Winter’s Chess Notes)
      Bernstein never contributed to the USCF’s Chess Life: “…mediocre bureaucrats” and “…those USCF morons” pretty much summed up his opinion.

A Chess Legend is Gone

The greatest Yugoslav player ever has passed away in Belgrade after suffering a stroke.

Link to Article

Another Failed Brilliancy

      I enjoy looking at some of my old games just to see how I played way back when.  This game was played in one of Chess Review’s Golden Knights Championships.  If memory serves my opponent was a college student from Kansas and was rated around 1900 while I was not long out of the US military and also attending school.  It was one of those games where you think you played really well and had some brilliant ideas and fondly remember it that way even if the game turned out to be, as this one was, a loss.

      Of course these days when we all have a grandmaster in our computer that will take a look at the game for us (most GM’s won’t bother unless you pay them) we usually discover the games weren’t really as good as we thought.  I know because Fritz has repeatedly pointed out that a lot of my “brilliancies” were more in the way of what could better be described as “blunders” and the games look like they were played by a patzer.  I know, that should not be surprising because they were played by a patzer but I once heard Dr. Eliot Hearst (I think it was) comment that the definition of a master is every player’s secret evaluation of his own ability.  Fritz pretty much destroyed that for most of us, too. 
      Still, the game wasn’t that bad. The opening was the Caro-Kann: Panov-Botvinnik Attack and for some reason I’ve always liked playing those type positions.
      The Panov–Botvinnik Attack is not surprisingly named after Vasily Panov and Mikhail Botvinnik and often leads to typical isolated QP positions where White gets rapid development, a grip on e5, and kingside attacking chances to compensate for the long-term structural weakness of the isolated d4 pawn.

Unfinished Chess Set/Making a Board

      OK, an unfinished set isn’t going to save you much money, but what you can do when you finish it yourself is make the finish any way you want it.  The Chess Store offers their unfinished 3.75”  German Knight Staunton set in white boxwood which is ideal for painting or staining for about $45. You can combine this with building your own chessboard using basic tools as shown in the 7-part Youtube video. Or you can also check out this link  for a step-by-step guide for making a board, checkers and a simple chess set.  I really didn’t care for the piece design, but if you’re really handy, it looks easy enough to modify the shape.  ChessUSA has a nice explanation of different types of wood that can be used for boards HERE. 

      I’d love to try this except I can’t get the wife to park her car outside so I can put about a million dollars worth of woodworking equipment in her half of the garage.

Playing Styles

In an interesting article the US Chess League attempted to classify different styles of players. Their list:


Technical: A technical player will usually play the same openings repeatedly and know them extremely well…they are hard to play against… almost all technical player's seem to have an incredible overall chess understanding. It's a very practical style of play…it's almost impossible to be a technical player, without being very strong, as it requires too much chess understanding for lower rated players to use successfully.
Positional Players: Postional players are more versatile in their opening choices and simply rely on their general chess understanding to find the right solution in all positions.
Attacking Players: Feel comfortable with the initiative. They want to be always attacking the opponent…some attackers don't even have to be great calculators, but instead just have a natural understanding of how to conduct an attack.
Calculators: Generally work very hard at the board. Even though their general chess intuition may not be the greatest, they make up for it by pure and raw calculation power. They try to always see one move further then their opponent, and are ready to pounce if you make just the slightest miscalculation.
Tricky Players: Repeatedly they will play moves that you didn't even consider and that just flat out look weird, to the extent that it may become very confusing for you… they are constantly looking for ways to trap and attack you.
Dynamic players: Usually pretty well rounded, but lean more towards the aggressive/tactical side. They often play enterprising openings and try to simply outplay you. They aren't scared to mix things up and are usually fighting constantly.
Practical: They understand that chess is a game, and the object is to do everything possible to win and not always to find the absolute best move. They usually will play openings they are very familiar with…these players often have serious holes in their theoretical knowledge. They just hope to get a reasonable position out of the opening without spending too much time…
Intuitive: A weird group of players. You get the sense that they simply understand where the pieces belong, whether the game is positional or tactical in nature. Their reliance on their intuition may sometimes be a weakness as they trust their instincts too much …
Logical: Try very hard to try to understand the position they are playing from a logical perspective. These players won't often try anything too unorthodox, however they also won't shy away from complications if they are necessary.
Young Players: Have not yet developed a sense of style. It's very rare that you will find a positional young player…
For a complete discussion visit their site.

PlasticBishop Closing

      The site’s owner, “Ste”, announced recently that the site will be closing in August 2013. That’s unfortunate because not only is another chess site is closing, but because a few years ago I had a brief e-mail exchange with Ste and he seemed like a really nice guy who was running the site all by himself simply for the love of it.
      I played a few games there but generally found the level of play too low for my liking (a couple of games only lasted 5 or 6 moves!). PlasticBishop was a great site for beginners and low rated players that was very nicely done.
      Back in 2006, Ste posted that it cost him £120 per month, plus advertising costs to keep new members coming, so all in all that is approaching £150 per month…all out of his own pocket. He stated then that his main concern was paying for the site's cost. In the process, he noted that advertisements don’t work particularly well on chess sites. As he pointed out, advertisements work best when you have a large volume of unique visitors on a site each day, but most sites have pretty much the same visitors every day. Once a person has seen an ad they will ignore it. That’s true, I do some advertising on my other chess blog and if I am lucky, I may make $10 every couple of months.
      When I tried visiting the site this morning the web page would not display, so perhaps they are already out of business. In any case, expenses, family life and other interests are taking their toll and as a result PlasticBishop is closing. That’s sad.

Total Replay CC Archive

      Total Replay has correspondence master games including miscellaneous games, world championships and individual tournaments; cosstables are included.  Unfortunately the site has not been kept up to date and only contains games from 1998-2003.

       I did find some interesting games.  Between 1979 and 1986 an ICCF CC master named Mordechai Rechtman whose rating at one time was near 2450 played six correspondence games against Samuel Reshevsky, scoring +1 -2 =3.
       Rechtman, born May 16, 1926 - Wuppertal, Germany, is a renowned bassoonist, conductor, arranger, teacher and educator. Together with his parents he left Germany in 1933 and went to Israel in 1934. Between 1946 and 1991 he was principal bassoonist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He founded the "Israel Woodwind Quintet" in 1963 and the Philharmonic Woodwind Ensemble in 1976. Since 1985 and for many years on, he was the musical director and conductor of the Israel Chamber Orchestra Wind Ensemble.
       While pursuing his career as a bassoonist Rechtman spent much time writing transcriptions and arrangements for wind quintet, wind instruments and large wind ensembles. His unique talent as an arranger has been highly acclaimed. He recorded 6 CD's at the age of 75, and in 2006 at the age of 80, came out with a DVD recording which demonstrated his unique system of playing the bassoon.
       Rechtman has been Professor at the Rubin Academy of Music of Tel-Aviv University from 1969 until 2002, and as Guest Professor has taught in music schools such as the Juilliard School in New-York, the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, The Royal Academy of Music in London, and the Geneva Music Conservatory. During 1977 and 1978 he was Professor at the famous School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.
      He was winner of the 2004 award of the Board of Trustees of the Minister of Education, Culture and Sports Prize of Music Performances for his special contribution to music in Israel. In August 1994, he was unanimously elected Honorary Membership of the IDRS.
       As near as I can tell, Mr. Rechtman is still around and still playing correspondence chess.  The ICCF rating list showed him active as late as last year with a rating of 2206.

Bobby Fischer Singing

From the Bobby Fischer radio interviews: Obscene language and babbling of a deranged madman, but interesting… LINK

Download a Lot of Chess Stuff!

Chessdotcom has a lot of free stuff:

167 playing and engines

12 database programs

57 lesson/training

17 opening study tools

8 tournament management programs (Great for clubs that want to run a small tournament)

227 game databases

20 pgn utilities

23 screen savers

13 chess fonts

89 miscellaneous chess “stuff”

One thing I did like was the chessfonts for Fritz.  You can install 44 fonts.  Some will be to “weird” for everyday use but some are nice just to change about the display a bit. Here are two examples.

Celtic font

Chessmaster font

Difficult Game

I recently finished another tough game on LSS.  What made this one so difficult was the fact that there were a few critical points in the ending.  But before that the most difficult decision was when I went for a position that involved a material imbalance.  As I have posted before, these positions are very difficult to evaluate because you have different engines telling you what the best move is plus the fact that engines sometimes put more emphasis on material than they should (for example, see the post below, Dilemma of the Engines).  This can make entering into those variations very dicey and, not being good enough to really know if the engines are feeding me good advice or not, I spent a lot of time analyzing my decision.  It turned out I was right…this time.