Fifty Years Ago

     At this time 50 years ago I was anxiously awaiting for Wednesday, July 19th to roll around. That's because I was a Navy Hospital Corpsman serving with the Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic and stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina with the Second Battalion, Second Marines.  That was the date I was to receive my release from active duty and return to civilian life. The actual discharge would have to wait two more years when my reserve duty time was completed. 
     It was exciting to think that I could also return to tournament chess. The only serious chess I had played was in a match that pitted North Carolina against Virginia. All I remember is that I played some guy rated in the mid-1900s and lost. There was also one tournament in Raliegh, North Carolina in 1966 or 1967, but I don't remember much about it except that Norman Whitaker showed up selling a book he had co-authored.  As it was to turn out, civilian life never allowed time for much tournament chess and so postal play became the norm. 
     The year 1967 saw some important tournaments. Some big ones were Mar del Plata, Maribor, Monte Carlo, Montevideo, Palma de Mallorca, the Soviet Championship, Venice, Winnipeg, Reggio Emila, Polancia Zdroj, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sochi, the Sousse Interzonal, the Capablanca Memorial, Hastings, and of course Fischer was the US champion again. 
     It was also the year that Fischer walked out of the Interzonal at Sousse, Tunisia. He had scored 8.5-1.5 and was in first place when things stuck a snag. His observance of the Worldwide Church of God's seventh-day Sabbath was honored by the organizers, but deprived Fischer of several rest days, which led to a scheduling dispute causing him to forfeit two games in protest and later withdraw. He thus eliminated himself from the 1969 World Championship cycle. Since Fischer had completed fewer than half of his scheduled games, all of his results were annulled. 
     The world champion was some guy known for conservative, cautious, and highly defensive play who did more to dampen his opponent's chances than make use of his own. He very rarely went on the offensive unless he felt his position was completely secure and usually won by waiting until his opponent made a mistake. His name was Tigran Petrosian. Thankfully, Boris Spassky ousted him, but we had to wait until 1969. 
     Down in North Carolina there was no state championship held in 1967, so the 1966 champion, David Steele, still reigned. Come to think of it, I played Steele in that tournament in Raliegh and remember how gracious he was in the post-mortem when we discussed my crushing defeat. Meanwhile, in Ohio Tom Wozney was the champ. 
     Here is one of my half dozen games that have survived over the last half century.
 

Botvinnik and black currant juice

     Vladimir Kramnik called Botvinnik the first real professional because Botvinnik believed his results depended on more than his chess skill; preparation, openings, sleep, diet and exercise were all necessary. Kramnik compared that to the Alekhine – Euwe matches where, for example, Alekhine had a drink and Euwe a business meeting before they sat down to play. 
     The 11th USSR Championship was played in Leningrad in 1939 and was won by Botvinnik who went undefeated and finished a full point ahead of Alexander Kotov followed by Sergey Belavenets and Vladimir Makogonov who tied for third and fourth. 
     This event was also an important turning point in Botvinnik's chess career because he and his wife, Gayane, a ballerina, had been thinking about how to maximize his stamina and energy and their plan was first put to the test in Leningrad. 
     In the fall of 1936 Botvinnik had begun working 12 hours a day on his candidate's dissertation in electrical engineering. The result was a plan that involved dictating when he was to sleep, eat, go for a walk and work. 
     His plans for Leningrad included how to overcome nervousness because he could only think well when he was calm. And, in order to stay calm he had to stay out of time pressure. Botvinnik distinguished between what he called “normal” time pressure which he believed was manageable and extreme time pressure which was to be avoided, so he disciplined himself on time management. 
     In addition to that problem, he also felt he needed to increase his physical stamina because Soviet championships were generally long, 17 to 19 rounds, and lasted a month. By round 12 or so, fatigue began to set in and by the end of the tournament he was exhausted.
     To correct the problem he adopted a strict regimen where after breakfast he walked for one hour prior to beginning preparation for his game which only took him about half an hour. After that, he would rest. Then at 3:30 in the afternoon he would eat lunch then lay down for about an hour. As the games in this tournament ended at 10:30 pm, he would have supper at 11 pm and go to bed at midnight. At least that was the plan, but sometimes sleep eluded him because he would analyze his just completed game in his head for a few hours. That was a habit he was to eliminate; during tournaments he never analyzed games before he went to bed. 
     Eventually he reached the point that nothing was done without rigid scheduling: daily exercise, sleep, diet and work were all according to a strict discipline. 
     After World War Two Botvinnik came to be known for his habit of bringing a thermos bottle to all of his games. What was in it? At first, lemonade and later black current juice with hand squeezed lemon juice. 
     Maybe Botvinnik was on to something. For many years black currants were called “the forbidden fruit” in the United States. Farmers thought that the tart berries, native to Europe and Asia, helped spread a fungus that killed pine trees and so they were banned. 
     The ban started when a certain Lord Weymouth shipped white pine seedlings from America to Britain. Before long, white pines in Germany began showing blister rust. Unaware of the problem, the US began importing European pine seedlings, as well as the disease. Tree experts decided the disease, appearing to threaten the white pine industry, actually jumped from white pines to black currants to white pines. As a result, in 1911, bans against black currant bushes were put into effect. In 1966 some states began lifting the ban, but it still stands to this day in some states. 
     Chinese and European folk medicine both claim dozens of uses for black currants as a curative. Studies show they may play a part in preventing Alzheimer's disease, preventing and treating arthritis, gout, and liver problems, ease problems with menopause, painful periods, and PMS, and fight against against diarrhea. It's even useful topically for healing wounds and treating insect bites. 
     At some point Botvinnik switched to coffee and even began breaking his own rules. During his 1961 return match with Tahl game 20 lasted 121 moves. After the first adjournment, Botvinnik spent a sleepless night analyzing. Upon resumption Tahl missed a winning line in his analysis, but Botvinnik mixed up the variations and by the second adjournment he still had a lost game. 
     Another sleepless night followed and he found a hidden stalemate possibility. After two days of play and two sleepless nights he was thoroughly tired and when he went to resume the game he didn't take his usual thermos of coffee. It wasn't that he didn't want to drink any; it was a subtle psychological ploy. By not having his thermos, he hoped Tahl would expect to play just a few more moves before Botvinnik resigned. It worked. Tahl played too casually, missed the stalemate possibility and the game was drawn.

Spassky – Petrosian World Championship Match of 1969

     In 1966 Tigran Petrosian's challenger was Boris Spassky, who was favored to win. On his way to meet Petrosian, Spassky had downed Keres, Geller and Tahl in candidates matches. Spassky's universal style meant he was equally at home in all types of positions. 
     But, as it turned out, even though he obtained promising positions, he could not break through Petrosian's ingenious defenses and found himself two points down after 10 games. By the 19th game though Spassky had managed to even the score, but that was as close as he could get to victory and Petrosian went on to clinch the title and remain World Champion. 
     In 1969 they met in Moscow between April 14 and June 17 for a second match.  At the start it appeared that a repeat of the 1966 match was imminent when Petrosian won the first game, but after a couple of draws Spassky evened the score and went ahead by a point when he also won the fifth game. 
     After two more draws, Spassky won again bringing the score to +3 -1 =5 and perhaps he was going to rout his rival. After the ninth game was drawn, Petrosian roared back with two straight wins to tie the match. Then came a skein of draws in games 12-16. 
     The turning point in the match occurred in the 17th game when Petrosian, in a position where he stood better, offered a draw, but Spassky refused! Spassky agonized over whether or not to accept the offer for several minutes, but finally decided to decline. His reasoning was that in a long match it was necessary to play both good and bad positions and Petrosian's draw offer indicated some insecurity on his part. And when he detected Petrosian's slight pyschological crack, he decided it was to his benefit to create the maximum amount of difficulty for his opponent. So, inspired, Spassky decided to play for the full point and managed to pull off a win. 
      The 18th game was also a difficult on for Petrosian, but he managed to hold the draw. Spassky scored again in game 19 making the score +5 -3 =11 in his favor, but Petrosian pulled within one point by winning game twenty. 
     Game 21 went to Spassky, giving him a score of 11.5-9.5, meaning he needed only one more point in the three remaining games which he obtained by drawing games 22 and 23. 
     In the following game, the 19th, Petrosian decided to make a fight of it, but was dispatched in short order.
 

Just An Evans Gambit

     Anderssen's opponent in this game was Johannes Zukertort (September 7, 1842 – June 20, 1888) of Poland, who was one of the leading players during the 1870s and 1880s. He lost a match to Wilhelm Steinitz in 1886 in what was generally regarded as the first World Championship match. He was also defeated by Steinitz in 1872 in an unofficial championship. 
     Zukertort became a naturalized citizen of the United Kingdom in 1878. Beside chess, Zukertort had many other achievements as a soldier, musician, linguist, journalist and political activist.  
     Zukertort is widely believed to have embellished his biography. In an account of his life he claimed aristocratic descent, fluency in at least nine languages, proficiency in swordsmanship, dominoes and whist.  He said he had played 6,000 games of chess with Adolf Anderssen, fought in numerous battles and was awarded seven medals. He also got a medical doctor's degree at Breslau in 1865 and worked on the staff of Bismarck's newspaper, the Allgemeine Zeitung. He also laid claim to writing two chess books and working as the editor of a chess magazine for several years. There is some truth to the latter: he was co-author of the books, co-editor of a chess magazine. 
     It is claimed Zukertort died in London from a cerebral hemorrhage after playing a game in a tournament Simpson's Divan, which he was leading at the time. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery in London. 
     As you know, Anderssen was a mighty man with the Evans Gambit and this game was one of many mighty feats he performed with it. 

Reshevsky Tricks Najdorf

     The date and venue of 10th Chess Olympiad held in 1952 in Helsinki was held concurrently with the Summer Olympics. Helsinki had been earlier selected to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were canceled due to World War II. The 1952 Games had the most number of world records broken until surpassed by the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Indonesia, Israel, Thailand, and Saarland made their Olympic debuts in Helsinki. 
     This Chess Olympiad was especially notable for the debut of the Soviet team, who won their first gold medals and went on to completely dominate the Olympiads for the next four decades. 
     Although the Soviets won the gold medal, it was not as easy as they might have expected. The team consisted of Keres, Smyslov, Bronstein, Geller, Boleslavsky and Kotov. Keres' score of about 50 percent was disappointing, but the rest of the team made up for his poor showing. 
     This event saw a change in the old format of playing two rounds per day and the adjournments were, this time, held the following morning. The teams were divided into three groups of 8 and 9 with the top three of each group qualifying for the Finals. 
     Because there were no Elo rating in those days, a jury seeded the teams at their discretion and their decisions were often held in dispute. The 25 teams were divided as follows: 
     Group 1) Argentina ahead of West Germany, Czechoslovakia, England, Denmark, Cuba, Iceland, Saar, and Luxembourg. 
     Group 2) Sweden ahead of Hungary, Yugoslavia. East Germany, Austria, Italy, Brazil and NorwayGroup 
      Group 3) Soviet Union ahead of the United States, Finland, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland and Greece. 
     The US team consisted of Samuel Reshevsky, Larry Evans, Robert Byrne, Arthur Bisguier, George Koltanowski and Hans Berliner.
     The finals consisted of just 9 teams and turned out to not be a very good idea. Apart from the inconvenience caused by the odd number of participants, nine teams were way too few because the gain of a single point from a blunder might play relatively important role. 
     The Final A section was a tough fight. The Soviets started moderately, beating Hungary and drawing with the American team. Finland beat West Germany but were down the table because of a bye at the start. Yugoslavia earned valuable 3-1 win over Hungary in round three. Most of matches were either draws or 2.5-1.5 so the standings were not very clear and whether a team already had a bye or not further clouded the issue. In fact, at the halfway point, the Soviets were in sixth place. 
     The US team (which had a bye in the last round) was undefeated until the seventh round when they unexpectedly lost to Sweden (Stahlberg, Stoltz, Lundin, Skold, Johansson and Danielsson) which knocked them out of contention for a medal. 
     Georgia's chess blog has an amusing anecdote about this Olympiad HERE.

Finals: 
1) Soviet Union 21.0 
2) Argentina 19.5 
3) Yugoslavia 19.0 
4) Czechoslovakia 18.0 
5) United States 17.0 
6) Hungary 16.0 
7) Sweden 13.0 
8) West Germany 10.5 
9) Finland 10.0
 

Excitement at the Moscow Interzonal 1982

     The tournament got off to an interesting start when Boris Gulko and his wife, who had for years been agitating leave the Soviet Union, staged a demonstration which resulted in both getting arrested.
     Viktor Korchnoi and Robert Huebner were already pre-qualified for the next tournament to select a challenger for the 1983 match against World Champion Anatoly Karpov. This time the other qualifiers would not come from one huge tournament as in the past, but from three smaller events held in Las Palmas, Moscow and Toluca. 
     The Moscow event contained the most drama. Although Kasparov managed to finish clear first, one and half points ahead of second place Beliavsky, he had some anxious moments. His play in the early rounds was risky and exciting, but in three games (Tahl, Andersson and Velimirovic) he was in serious trouble. For some reason both Tahl and Andersson offered draws when they had winning positions. 
     The real drama was Beliavsky's final surge to second place. He had a mediocre start, losing to Sax and Murey, but then went on a roll by defeating Tahl, Geller and the early leader, Garcia. 
     Beliavsky downed Tahl in a crucial round 7 game and after 8 rounds the surprise leader was Garcia with Andersson, Beliavsky, Geller, Kasparov and Tahl all hot on his heels. 
     In Round 9 Beliavsky defeated Garcia. Kasparov was near defeat in his game against Anderrson when all of a sudden the latter offered a draw. 
     Then in round ten things started to go wrong for Beliavsky. He established a powerful attack against Andersson and the game was adjourned. The problem for Beliavsky was that the adjourned game was to be played off the day before the final round.  In his next game he outplayed Rodriquez who managed to hold out until adjournment and that game was also scheduled to played before the last round. 
     In round 11 Beliavsky faced van der Weil who was having a bad tournament and was setting records for the most adjournments. In their game van der Weil took a gamble and played the Svehnikov and it didn't work out well. Beliavsky quickly gained the advantage and emerged from the complications a full R up.  Beliavsky then went on a blunder rampage and resigned at adjournment! Considering his strength and the fact that he was way ahead on his clock, the result left everyone flabbergasted.
     At the end of the 12th round Andersson, Beliavsky, Geller, Garcia and Tahl were in 2nd place. Disaster struck Garcia when he lost to Rodriguez and Geller fumbled and lost to Sax.  For some reason Andersson and Tahl agreed to a quick draw.  
     When it came time for Beliavsky to play off his adjourned games, the game against Andersson was a blunder filled ending that lasted until move 110 and ended in a draw. As a result, Beliavsky's adjourned game against Rodriquez had to be delayed until the next morning. When the game resumed Beliavsky was completely winning, but then a hung piece! Fortunately, his position was good enough that even after that disaster he was able to draw. 
     Going into the last round Tahl missed his chance to qualify when he could only draw against the last place Quinteros. Beliavsky moved into clear second by defeating Gheorghiu. It was this crucial last round win over Gheorghiu that allowed Beliavsky qualify because if Tahl, Andersson, Garcia or Geller would have won, there would have been a playoff for the final spot. 
     Interesting sidelights: 
     After seven rounds Guillermo Garcia was sporting a 6-1 score, but his run came to an end after successive defeats by Beliavsky and Larry Christiansen. 
     Yacov Murey, playing under difficult circumstances, was almost ignored by the Soviet press because he was a former Soviet player from Moscow who had immigrated to Israel in 1977; he later settled in France. 
     Raymond Keene (there as a reporter) and the US representative Christiansen were subjected to intensive luggage searches at the Moscow airport on the way home. Christiansen was caught carrying an article by Gulko which was intended to be published in a US chess magazine. The article was in Russian and the officials confiscated it. Keene had been given a letter from Gulko to FIDE, but anticipating that the guards would intercept it, Keene had memorized and destroyed the letter. 
     In an interview after the event Kasparov said, besides himself, he had considered Beliavsky and Andersson as other favorites, but Andersson was more concerned about not losing than winning and Beliavsky's play merited his second place finish.
     As for Boris Gulko (born in 1947 to a Jewish family), he was an ardent anti-Communist. In 1977, shortly after sharing the title of Soviet Champion, he applied to leave the country, but permission was denied. He and his wife, WGM Anna Akhsharumova, became Refuseniks. They weren't allowed in top-level chess competition until the period of glasnost and they were finally allowed to immigrate to the United States in 1986.  Gulko was subject to anti-semitic discrimination almost 20 years later when he qualified for the 2004 World Championship in Libya. The president of the Libyan Organizing Committee, dictator Gaddafi’s son, announced: “We did not and will not invite the Zionist enemies to this championship.” Gulko and several other Jewish players withdrew from the tournament and Gulko's letter to FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov protesting the decision went unheeded. 

1) Kasparov 10.0 
2) Beliavsky 8.5
3-4) Tahl and Andersson 8.0 
5-6) Geller and Garcia 7.5 
7) Murey 6.5 
8-9) Sax and Christiansen 6.0 
10) Velimirovic 5.5 
11-12) van der Wiel and Gheorghiu 5.0 
13) Rodriguez 4.5 
14) Quinteros 3.0 
 

Arnold Schottlander

     Arnold Schottlander (April 2, 1854 – September 9, 1909) was born in Münsterberg (now Ziebice), Silesia and was one of Adolf Anderssen's pupils. 
     Anderssen (July 6, 1818 – March 13, 1879 was considered to have been the world's leading player for much of the 1850s and 1860s.  He was quite soundly defeated by Paul Morphy who toured Europe in 1858, but Morphy retired from chess soon after and Anderssen was again considered the leading player. After his defeat by Steinitz in 1866, Anderssen became the most successful tournament player in Europe, winning over half the events he entered. 
     Anderssen was born in Breslau (now called Wrocław), in the Prussian Province of Silesia, in 1818. He lived there for most of his life, sharing a house with and supporting his widowed mother and his unmarried sister. Anderssen never married.  Anderssen lived a quiet, stable, responsible, respectable middle-class life. teaching mathematics, while his hobby and passion was playing chess. 
     Schottlaender, who was born into a well-known and prosperous family of Jewish industrialists, spent his childhood and early youth in Wrocław, Poland which was at that time one of the strongest chess centers of Prussia. His first public debut was in 1876 and was not particularly successful as he lost 0 to 5 in a friendly match against Fritz Riemann. 
    A year later in July 1877 he participated in an event in Leipzig to celebrate Andersen's 50th anniversary and his result there was not particularly successful either. But, in 1878 a Western-German Chess Federation congress was held in Frankfurt am Main. Schottlander took part in a secondary event, which he won, and so was awarded the title of master. It was also an important victory because by gaining the coveted master title, he also earned the right to play in the championships for the rest of his life. 
     The first congress of the German Chess Federation (DSB) took place in Leipzig in July 1879 and ended with Berthold Englisch's victory over Louis Paulsen with Schottlander sharing 8th-9th place. After that Schottlander was present for almost every DSB tournament, either as a player or as a patron. During these tournaments he would frequently make the rounds of all the games and make comments on them. Known for the brilliance and accuracy of his analysis and his sense of humor, Schottlander was always less concerned about his placement in a tournament than having fun and enjoying the game. 
     In 1893 Schottlander visited the United States and sent an official entry for the proposed Columbian Chess Congress that was to be held in New York City that year. Because the tournament was to coincide with the famous Columbian Exposition of 1893, a world’s fair held in Chicago, the tournament became widely known as the Columbian Chess Congress. Unfortunately, the tournament never took place mostly due to the Panic of 1893, so on August 31, 1893, when it was clear the tournament would not be held, Schottlander returned to Europe. Prior to returning home Schottlander had suffered an injury while visiting Niagara Falls and was still troubled by it a few weeks later which may prompted him to leave earlier than he initially planned.
     After returning from America, Schottländer continued to actively participate in the chess life of Wroclaw.  From time to time he participated in local tournaments and gave simultaneous. 
     Schottlaender was a wealthy man who, though crippled by polio, appeared at the cafe every afternoon where he would perch himself in the center of the U-shaped table on which there were almost always six or eight games in progress. From his vantage point Schottlaender, who was known for his wit, never played but criticized the games with good natured sarcastic remarks. On occasion though, he gave simultaneous exhibitions where he would take on some thirty opponents.
    His major results were: 

1879: 8-9th place at Leipzig 
1880: 9-10th at Wiesbaden 
1883: 12th at Nuremberg 
1885: 16th at Hamburg
1888: 5-6th at Leipzig 
1892: 11-13th at Dresden 

   He is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Breslau. The grave still stands with the symbolic chessboard and the engraving "His body was weak, his spirit strong". 
 

Edward Lasker: First International Tournament, the Evils of Drink and Women

     The summer of 1913 found the 28-year old Edward Lasker on vacation at a French seaside resort when he received a telegram that contained an invitation to play in the International Masters Tournament at Scheveningen in place of Nimzovich who had been forced to withdraw because of illness. Lasker was excited about the prospect because it was his chance to gain the master title officially by scoring one third of the possible points. 
     He rushed to the railroad station to get a train to Scheveningen in time for the tournament which was to start the following morning at 9am. There was only one train and it left at 2:10, but he arrived late and missed the train by a matter of minutes. He the raced to the docks to find a ship headed for Holland and discovered the only one available was going by way of Folkestone, England. And, from there he barely would have time to catch another ship to Holland and then a train which would put him in Scheveningen only one hour before the start of the tournament. 
     He managed to get to Folkestone twenty minutes before the boat for Holland sailed, but there was the matter of customs officials who wanted to go through his bags. After arguing briefly with the officials, he was allowed to proceed and reached his boat with only minutes to spare. 
     On arrival in Scheveningen a taxi driver took him to a hotel for breakfast where he unexpectedly ran into Janowski. After breakfast and a brief walk along the beach he arrived at the tournament somewhat refreshed and managed to defeat his first round opponent, one of the weaker players. Lasker also won his second round game, also against one of the Dutch players, but in the third round he faced Gyula Breyer, a brilliant young player from Hungary against whom he managed to draw. 
     His fourth round opponent, Dr. Adolf Olland, employed an unbooked variation of the Ruy Lopez, outplayed Lasker and won without much trouble. After this defeat Lasker vowed that for the rest of the tournament he would play aggressively, come what may. 
     Facing Mieses in the fifth round, he knew Mieses would play the Center Counter Game because he had scored many brilliant successes with it. However, Edward had seen a game in which Emanuel Lasker had scored a quick win by posting his N on e5 and pushing his K-side Ps. His hope was that Mieses, who was in the habit of playing 5...Bg4 in this line, would not know of the Emanuel Lasker game; in any case, Mieses avoided 5...Bg4 and lost a miniature. See the featured game below. After this game Mieses offered Lasker a bet that he would place higher in the tournament than Lasker. Lasker took the bet if for no other reason than Meises was playing under a twenty-five year age handicap. 
     The next two rounds were bad news. The Dutch player Rudolf Loman lost the exchange, but Lasker took his opponent too lightly and allowed the draw. Then in the seventh round Alekhine badly outplayed him in the early middlegame and won easily. 
     With the tournament half over, Lasker's score was only 4-3, but on the plus side, only three players had a better score, so he was not discouraged. Alekhine had won every game and he was closely followed by Janowski with 6.5 points and Frederick Yates with 6 points. Then came Dr. Olland, Fritz Englund and Lasker. 
     In the eighth round Lasker caught Yates in a prepared opening line which he had analyzed with Teichmann only a few months previously where they had discovered a promising positional sacrifice of a P. Lasker won when Yates, with only seconds left, blundered. After defeating Yates he had high hopes of finishing third; Alekhine and Janowski were too far ahead to catch. 
     He defeated Abraham Speyer who had been doing poorly and then had to face Janowski, against whom he had white. Lasker admitted that he was much too impressed by his famous opponent, played for a draw, and lost as badly as he had to Alekhine. The only difference was that against Janowski he butchered the ending instead of the middlegame. 
     In spite of this loss, he calculated that he still had a chance for third prize. Alekhine and Janowski had a big lead. Breyer and Yates were next with only a half point lead over Lasker and Olland. Lasker felt rather sure that he could beat his final opponents, so that his final score could be 9 points. As is often the case, fate had different plans. 
     Janowski lost to Yates giving Alekhine a one point lead. Meanwhile, in his game against te Koiste, Lasker tried to make something out of nothing in an effort to avoid a draw, lost a Pawn and had an awful time working up any kind of counterplay. The game was adjourned in an unclear position which could go either way. 
     In the next to last round he played Englund who misplayed the opening and lost a game for which Lasker received a brilliancy prize. After this game, Alekhine who had also won, was in high spirits and offered to take everybody to a night club who wanted to help him celebrate his assured victory. Naturally, Lasker accepted the invitation, feeling certain he would win his last round game and that he would have no difficulty in drawing his adjourned game with te Koiste. Several players declined Alekhine's invitation: te Koiste, Janowski, Olland and Yates. 
     Alekhine ordered champagne for everyone, including a number of French hostesses who saw to it that the bottles were emptied fast and replenished without delay. As the night wore on, Alekhine became happily intoxicated, and he refused to let the others leave. Lasker noticed that Alekhine insisted on dancing exclusively with a woman about twice is age and twice his circumference, although there were plenty of young girls around. At about four in the morning Mieses, who was the only one left outside of Alekhine and Lasker sneaked off. It was after 7am when the club finally closed and Lasker staggered back to his hotel. 
     At 9am he sat down to play his adjourned game and quickly lost both the game and any chance at third prize. At least that left him a few hours to sleep before his final round game, which he won, but his rivals for third place also won, leaving Lasker in fifth. It was good enough to allow him to be recognized as a master, plus he also learned a lesson that drink and women don't mix at a tournament. 
     In other final round news, Alekhine appeared late for his game and Janowski made short work of him, but all that did was narrow the difference between their scores down to a half a point. However, Janowski's victory convinced one Monsieur Nardus, his sponsor, that Janowski could really beat anybody in the world if he only half tried. It also meant that Janowski continued to receive a fair sized check from Nardus on the first of every month. Lasker commented that the money should have allowed Janowski to live quite comfortably, but within a week or two he was usually cleaned out because of his fondness for roulette.
     After the tournament Alekhine, Janowski, Nardus and Lasker decided to stay another week in Scheveningen, but a couple of days later Alekhine suddenly left for Paris and Janowski headed for the gambling casinos. When Lasker returned to England for a week, he received a telegram from Alekhine claiming he had been robbed in Paris and wanting to borrow fifty pounds. At the same time he informed Lasker that he had made arrangements to sponsor a short match of three games between them. Lasker sent the money and when he got to Paris he was informed by Janowski that Alekhine had shown up in Paris with one of the fat girls he had met in Scheveningen, but after a week she had disappeared. It made Lasker suspicious of the robbery story. He lost all three games of the match. 

1) Alekhine 11.5 
2) Janowski 11.0 
3) Olland 9.0 
4) Yates 8.5 
5) Lasker 8.0
6-7) te Kolste and Breyer 7.5 
8) Mieses 6.0 
9-10) Englund and Geus 5.5 
11) Loman 5.0 
12) Speijer 4.0 
13) Schelfhout 2.0 
14) Van Foreest 0.0

Arthur Bisguier Is Gone

New York Times Obituary 

I am saddened by this. Bisguier has been around since I began playing chess decades ago. I met him at the US Championship in 1975 and found him to be most approachable and likable.  He was a real "people person."