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Thursday, July 18, 2019

Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis

     I’d sooner live among people who don’t cheat at chess than among people who are earnest about not cheating at chess. 
     C.S. Lewis was actually talking about cards, not chess, but after reading about how GM Igors Rausis got caught cheating at a tournament in France, I think I understand what Lewis meant. 
     I don’t follow the latest chess news much, but I couldn’t help but take note of the situation involving Rausis. He has been creating quite a stir because he is in his late 50s and his rating, after having been rated in the 2500s for years, went over 2700... his play wasn’t improving, just his rating. It seems he was taking advantage the 400 point rule in the rating system and was playing lots of weak players to gain under one rating point per game and eventually boosting his rating to over 2600. Nothing new there. 
     Many years ago there was a local player who was always tantalizingly close to a Master rating, but could never quite seem to make it over 2200. His solution: he got a TD certificate from the USCF and started holding crappy little tournaments nobody but low rated players played in. Somehow he always managed to get in a game as a house player in order to prevent a bye. Naturally he beat up on the patzers and picked up a point to two. Once he got to 2202 he quit playing. We used to say he became a Master one point at a time. 
     Decades ago a prisoner in the Virginia State Penitentiary named Claude F. Bloodgood III did the same thing with the USCF system and “qualified” for the US Championship. The difference was Bloodgood supposedly wrote a letter to the USCF demonstrating how the system could be manipulated. The USCF dealt with the problem easily enough...they wiped out Bloodgood’s rating and kicked him out of the USCF. 
     Then there was the odd situation involving Jude Acers. Acers reached a USCF rating of 2399, one point shy of being a Senior Master, by playing matches against unrated players. Supposedly that’s when USCF Executive Director Ed Edmondson then froze Acer’s rating at 2399 until he played in an open tournament. I don’t know if that has been confirmed though. 
     Cheating has involved players conferring while the game was in progress or, before there were ratings, just outright buying and selling games for prizes and titles. Then there was a case of one IM sneaking off to his hotel room to get booked up…as Arthur Bisguier once suspected his opponent of doing. 
     Moving into the electronic age several players have been caught using cell phones or being signaled by accomplices. The latest cheater is Rausis who has been under suspicion for some time now...he was caught red handed using his cell phone while in the toilet. There is even a picture of him seated on the toilet (with the lid down) consulting his cell phone. He signed a confession admitting to everything. He later stated, "I simply lost my mind yesterday. I confirmed the fact of using my phone during the game by written [statement]. What could I say more? ... At least what I committed yesterday is a good lesson, not for me—I played my last game of chess already." 
     According to FIDE director general Emil Sutovsky, Rausis was suspended from the tournament and all materials will be sent to the ethical commission. Sutovsky also said Rausis was reported to French police. 
     The thing that shocked me the most was the published photo of Rausis seated on the toilet consulting his cell phone. GM Kevin Spraggett stated “Privacy issues far out weigh any ethics violations that Rausis might or might not have committed. FIDE should have recognized the difference, but they did not. If Rausis wishes, he could probably launch a criminal case against Garrett and the ‘Fair Play’ Commission.” I have to agree with GM Spraggett...cameras aimed at toilets is just wrong! 
     I don’t know about the laws in France, but in the US if you want to install a security camera in a business or even your home, installing one in a bathroom is a gray area. Public bathrooms can be a place where some pretty heinous crimes are committed, but there are some factors that must be considered: 

1. Cameras Aren’t Allowed in Areas Where People Expect Privacy. If there’s an expectation of privacy in an area, then you can’t have a camera...places like commercial bathrooms and changing rooms. What about your private home? What if you employ a nanny or a maid? Bathrooms are nearly always considered to be places where people can expect privacy and so security cameras aren’t allowed in bathrooms, only outside of them. 
2. Security Cameras Can Be Anywhere With Permission. Anyone can be filmed with their permission. In your home, if you have a security camera in the bathroom, that’s OK, but there must be a warning posted in case someone else uses it. 
3. Security Cameras Are Still Regularly Found in Bathrooms. Some business employees have reported that they’ve found security cameras in bathrooms. And nannies, maids, and even tenants occasionally report that they’ve found security cameras in bathrooms. The whole thing enters a complicated legal area, but cameras are generally considered illegal if the other party is not aware or has not consented to them and the other party has a reasonable expectation of privacy. 

    Ultimately, a security camera in a bathroom is risky and likely to be illegal, especially in public areas, even if a warning is posted. In July of last year a school in England was ordered to remove cameras it had installed in bathrooms in an attempt to curtail incidents of vandalism and bullying. 
     Cameras that also record sound may run afoul of federal wiretapping laws, with or without an otherwise legitimate reason. Years ago my boss installed a camera aimed at the receptionist and the door entering the office so he could see who was coming into the office.  That was OK, but there was a problem.  The camera was mounted over the coffee machine which was no problem in itself, but there was also a microphone on the camera and so the boss could hear what was being said at the coffee pot!  Somebody called the corporate legal department and he was instructed to unhook the microphone.  By the way, it wasn't me that called corporate.  I knew about the microphone and once or twice while at the coffee pot told fellow employees what a great boss we had.  Regardless of the reason for use, employers must let workers know that cameras are being used in the workplace. 
     Seriously, if I am playing in a chess tournament and need to use the bathroom I don’t want the tournament director, or anyone else, watching me tend to business. Maybe the best solution is to hire a bathroom attendant. 


     Here’s an early (and legitimate) Rausis game in which he defeats GM Alexander Shabalov (born September 12-1967) formerly of Latvia and now of the United States. Shabalov studied under former world champion Mikhail Tal, was awarded the IM title in 1989 and his GM title in 1991. About 1992, Shabalov emigrated to the United States with his family and eventually settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is known for courting complications and for an uncompromising, attacking style. In the mid to late 1990s his USCF rating was over 2700. Currently it’s 2575 and his play is confined to open events. 

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Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Chess Under Stalin

Stalin's chess set
     Josef Stalin wrote: "Chess players should be in the front ranks of the fighters for the building of socialism for technical mastery and for the rapid and successful fulfillment of the five-year plan." 
     The picture of Stalin's chess set came from the article Visiting Stalin's Sochi Retreat which you can visit HERE.
     Soviet chess has a long history starting with Ivan the Terrible who, according to some accounts, died at the chess board. Peter the Great used to force his guests to play and Lenin was reputed to be an expert. Under Stalin chess became a matter of national prestige. It became a form of of propaganda to show that the Soviet system could accomplish great things. If you ever read The Soviet School of Chess by Kotov and Yudovich, you will remember it’s filled with laudatory remarks about Socialism and the wonderful traits of the Soviet man.
     The Third Moscow International Tournament was held in the summer of 1936. The foreign contingent consisted of Lasker, Capablanca, Flohr, Lilienthal and Eliskases. Of the Soviet players Levenfish represented the old guard with Botvinnik, Ragozin, Riumin and Kan representing the younger generation. 
     The tournament quickly became a race between Botvinnik and Capablanca. This was even though during the tournament Botvinnik claimed to have suffered from the heat and insomnia while Capablanca was bitten by the love bug...he had met the woman who would become his second wife. See Edward Winter's greta article on Capa and his second wife HERE.
     The tournament was a double round affair and Botvinnik lost one of his games against Capablanca (the other being a draw) and that point was Capablanca’s margin of victory. Flohr finished a distant third two and a half points back. The rest of the Soviet contingent fared rather badly. 
     Nikolai Krylenko (May 2, 1885 – July 29, 1938) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician who served in a variety of posts in the Soviet legal system, rising to become People's Commissar for Justice and Prosecutor General. He was also an ardent chess promoter. 
     He was an exponent of the socialist legal theory that said political considerations, rather than guilt or innocence, should guide the application of punishment. Although a participant in the Show Trials and political repression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Krylenko himself was ultimately arrested during the Great Purge. Following interrogation and torture by the NKVD, Krylenko confessed to extensive involvement in “wrecking” and anti-Soviet agitation. He was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court in a trial lasting 20 minutes and shot immediately afterward. 
     At the time of the Moscow tournament Krylenko wasn’t especially satisfied with Botvinnik’s play and was even less pleased with the other players. In his foreword to the tournament book, he ripped the Soviet players and insisted that the lessons to be learned were Soviet players needed to drop their conceit, study their games and learn from their numerous mistakes. 
     There is an anecdote about Moscow 1936 that was related years later by Capablanca’s widow. Stalin showed up to watch Capablanca play but hid behind a drapery. Later during the tournament Capa met Stalin and told him that the Soviet players were cheating by losing games on purpose so Botvinnik could keep up. Supposedly Stalin took it good naturedly and promised to take care of the situation; from then on the cheating stopped. Capablanca’s charges of collusion were confirmed in 1946 by Ragozin who participated in both Moscow 1935 and 1936. 
     Lasker, at the age of 67, emerged from retirement to play in this tournament because the Nazis in his native Germany had stolen his home and all his possessions leaving him and his wife destitute. He placed a very respectable sixth. 
     Lasker had always been a friend of Soviet chess, visiting the country four times and was always full of praise for Soviet chess and the Soviet state. So, after the tournament Krylenko invited him to remain in the Soviet Union and secured work for him in the Moscow Academy of Science. To make things appear legitimate Lasker did a little research, but mostly his job was to mentor young Soviet players. 
     Lasker and his wife began the process of acquiring Soviet citizenship. However, in August 1937, Martha and Emanuel Lasker decided to leave the Soviet Union and moved, via the Netherlands, to the United States, first Chicago, then to New York in October 1937. It was the following year that Krylenko got shot. In the United States Lasker tried to support himself by giving chess and bridge lectures and exhibitions. He published one more book in 1940, The Community of the Future, in which he proposed solutions for political problems, including anti-Semitism and unemployment. You can still find the book on the internet if you’re willing to pay $3,250.  
     He died of a kidney infection in New York on January 11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at Mount Sinai Hospital and was buried at historic Beth Olom Cemetery, Queens, New York. Further reading...The Last Part of Lasker’s Legacy 
     Also, in 1936 Botvinnik tied with Capablanca at Nottingham. It was a very important victory for the Soviet Union because during the tournament, from August 19 to August 24, in the House of Unions the great show trials of 1936 were taking place. Defendants were tried and found guilty of plotting with Leon Trotsky, murdering Stalin’s personal friend Sergey Kirov and plotting to kill Stalin. They “confessed” and were shot. 
     The British press had been skeptical of the trials and an official at the Soviet embassy told Botvinnik that it was good he finished so well because they could have a reception for the players so something favorable could be written about the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for the Soviets it backfired because the British press only wanted to talk only about the trials. 
     In 1936, with advent of the new Stalin Constitution, socialism officially arrived and the culture, including music, literature, art and chess were expected to properly reflect the changes in a positive light. 

 Final standings Moscow 1936
1) Capablanca 13.0 
2) Botvinnik 12.0 
3) Flohr 9.5 
4) Lilienthal 9.0 
5) Ragozin 8.5 
6) Lasker 8.0 
7-10) Levenfish, Eliskases, Kan, Riumin 7.5 

     When analyzing the Lasker-Levenfish game the following position was reached after 32.Kh1: 

     Levenfish started down the wrong path when he played 32...Ba4. The best move was 32...Bxc3! and it’s really worthwhile to set up this position and look at all the possibilities with an engine. In fact, the entire remainder of the game is worth examining with an engine in order to bring out all the latent possibilities. 

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Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Arresting Kids in Russia

     As noted in the previous post, under Stalin in April of 1935, the age of legal responsibility was lowered to 12 years old which meant that children over the age of 12 could be treated like adults and exiled or executed if they were deemed to be guilty of crimes against the state.
     In the book Soviet Criminal Justice Under Stalin by Peter H. Solomon and published by Cambridge University Press, it appears that the source I used which stated children could be executed was incorrect. The book states that the source of the allegation about the death penalty was the memoir of Alexander Orlov, a high ranking official of the political police. Police apparently used it as a threat when conducting interviews. 
     In any case, the reason for lowering the age of responsibility was that many children had been orphaned, abandoned or separated from home during Stalin’s collectivization campaigns and famines of 1932 and 1934 with the resultant epidemic of homeless children. Moscow was their favorite destination and many of them managed to ride the trains to the city. The result was the police, courts and children’s homes were overwhelmed when police made regular sweeps to round up homeless kids and put them in state run institutions ostensibly for adoption. The problem was that conditions in the homes were abysmal and at least half of the kids ran away. 
     In 1932 at a huge cost the Moscow police cleared the streets of over 15,000 homeless children between the ages of 12 and 17. And in 1933 a police dragnet scooped up nearly 28,000 kids. 
     These kids were homeless, had no money and were outcasts so they often resorted to crime to the point that in 1934 papers were reporting concerns about the soaring crime rates among this group. 
     Criminal youth gangs were terrorizing local markets and the public was blaming everybody in the government, the police, the courts and educators. Most of the arrests were made for theft and Soviet authorities singled out “socially dangerous” classes...the kids who came from rural, non-collective farms or city kids whose parents either didn’t work or were not professionals. 
     One result of repeated arrests was that these youths were simply being recycled through children’s homes where, as is frequently the case, they were educating each other in the fine art of everything from grab and run thefts to murder. At the time there were legal restrictions against prosecuting youth under 17 as adults and all the police could do was deposit them at one of the youth centers. 
     This lead to a series of changes in the law in 1935 that gave the NKVD sweeping powers to deal with homeless and criminal children. The changes involving lowering the age of responsibility was the result of an edict issued by Stalin himself. The edict sent all kids to regular courts, subjected them to adult punishment and, also, established criminal responsibility for adults who enticed children into crime. 
     Reducing the age of criminal accountability from 16 to 12 essentially brought the children’s homes under control of the NKVD and they established labor camps for juvenile criminals. In fact, being homeless was considered a crime in itself. Further reading...Angel Factories
     Authorities were alarmed when they discovered that of the children in those labor camps, a little over half lived with both of their working parents and were not from the so called socially dangerous class. How to explain this? 
     Authorities linked youth crimes to anti-Soviet thinking and that had to be taken seriously. At one time the crime of “Hooliganism” involved insulting people and “rambunctious” behavior, but now it also included organized violence and assaults with weapons, murder, rape, banditry and counter-revolutionary activity.
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Monday, July 15, 2019

Sozin Attacks Like A Mad Dog

     One of my older books is The Russians Play Chess by Irving Chernev; it was originally published in 1947 and updated in 1963 which is the edition I have. The games (in descriptive notation) all have an introduction, comments every move or two and lots of diagrams. 
     A lot of the games are by lesser known Russian players. In choosing them Chernev examined thousands of games and selected games based on variety (26 different players), modern (meaning between 1925 and 1946) and reasonably short (the average was 30 moves per game). Additionally, Chernev selected the games because their brilliancy made them enjoyable to play over.
     When I came across the following game played by Veniamin Sozin (1896–1956) against somebody named Nekrasov at Moscow, 1931 I was impressed with Sozin’s Queen sacrifice which netted him four pieces for his Q. All of his pieces were aimed at black’s K and there was nothing black could do to defend himself.
     Chernev’s book, and all the other databases I checked, only list the game as being played in Moscow, but the wonderful site Rusbase 1913-1994 shows that it was played in one of the sections of the semi-finals of the USSR Championship: 

1-2) Sozin and Lisitsyn 6.5 
3-4) Verlinsky and Podolny 6.0 
5) Yuriv 5.0 
6) Nekrasov 4.5 
7) Kaspersky 4.0 
8) Ratner 3.0 

     I wonder if Kaspersky Anti-Vitus is named after the guy who finished 7th?! Searching for the identity of Neksarov turned up a bunch of Russians named Nekrasov, not all of them chess players. There is a Wikipedia article on Nikolay Nekrasov, a Russian poet, writer, critic and publisher, but he’s not our man. This fellow was born in 1821 and died in 1878.
     In his delightful book, For Friends & Colleagues: Volume 1: Profession - Chess Coach, Mark Dvoretsky mentions a player named Neksarov during the 1980s, who was a coach of several younger players including Ivanchuk, but there’s no way of knowing if it’s the same guy. However, I found mention of a Nikloai Nekrasov in a Chess.com article that quotes a 1929 article from the Russian chess magazine 
     A little bit more is known about Veniamin Sozin (1896–1956). He was a Russian master, author, and theoretician who is best known today for his contributions to the Sozin Attack, 6.Bc4 against the Sicilian. 
     Sozin, an accountant by profession, was an active player during the 1920s and 1930s and competed in four Soviet championships. Following the third Soviet Championship in 1924, in which he finished a creditable ninth with a score of 9.0-8.0, Sozin was awarded the title of Master of Sport. 
     He contributed many articles to the Moscow magazine Shakhmatny Vestnik and authored two books, Combinations and Traps published in 1929 and What Everyone Should Know about the Endgame which was published in 1931. 
     The Wikipedia article on Sozin says that he was unable to maintain the level of performance expected from a Master of Sport and was one of several players whose title was revoked in 1935. 
     In the Soviet Union, the Master title was conferred by the federal government and was connected to the title of Master of Sport. The first chess player to receive the title was Peter Romanovsky in 1934. Only players who featured prominently in the Soviet Chess Championship were considered for the title, and less than 100 awards were made altogether. The majority of the players were eventually FIDE IMS or GMs. 
     One suspects that given what was going on under Stalin in the Soviet Union during that era that something more than Sozin’s results were behind getting his title revoked. 
     Here’s an interesting little tidbit...In April of 1935 the age of legal responsibility was lowered to 12 years. This meant that children over the age of 12 could be treated like adults and exiled or executed if they were deemed to be guilty of crimes against the state. And, in December 1935 The Central Committee recognized the Stakhanovite movement and introduced competitions where the most productive workers could be rewarded with rich, quality flats and luxury foods. 

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Friday, July 12, 2019

Stefano Rosselli del Turco et al

     I had begun this post on Rosselli del Turco. His featured game against Znosko-Borovsky was played in a small international tournament in Nice in 1935 and in the course of looking for information on the tournament I came across the interesting story of the winner, Brian P. Rielly.
     Reilly (December 12, 1901 - December 29, 1991) did his bio for the Irish Chess Union and you can read it HERE. 
     The Rosselli Del Turco family are an historic noble family from Florence, Italy. Their origins date back to 1727 and since then the family gained notable wealth and acquired significant properties. It has included some prominent painters starting in the 15th century and in the 19th century the title of Marquis was conferred on the family by the Pope. 
     Marquis Stefano Rosselli del Turco (July 27, 1877 – August 18, 1947) was an Italian player, chess writer and publisher. He won the Italian championship five times and represented Italy in the Olympiads seven times. Confining his play mostly to Italian tournaments, he participated in only a handful of international events. He was awarded the IM title posthumously in 1950. 
     Born in Florence, Rosselli del Turco received the title of National Master from the Italian Chess Federation in 1900 and was one of the strongest players of Italy between 1900 and 1930. He was one of the founders of the magazine Italia Schaccistica and wrote for the magazine between 1911 and 1943. 

Nice 1931
1) Brian P. Reilly 6.0 
2-3) Stefano Rosselli del Turco and Abraham Baratz 5.5 
4) Daniel Noteboom 5.0 
5-8) Sir George Thomas, Jacques Mieses, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and Jakob Seitz 
9) Arpad Vajda 3.5 
10) Marcel Duchamp 1.5 

     Artist Marcel Duchamp was an avid player and a few years ago Christie’s auctioned a pipe that he presented to George Koltanowski. Christie’s has a nice article on Duchamp and chess you will not want to miss. 
     Duchamp’s chess, as far as I know, has never been taken seriously, but I did locate THIS book that examines his “activities as a chess player affected his art.”  The book also has a selection of 15 of his games selected by Jennifer Shahade. 
     Chessmetrics puts his highest rating at 2413 on its January, 1930 list. And, on the January, 1931 list Duchamp was in the world’s top 100 players with a 2412 rating. Chessgames.com has 82 of his games dating between 1922 and 1961.
 
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Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Tarrasch Meets the K-Indian

     “...I disapprove to the Fianchetto Opening altogether whether it take the form of the double Fianchetto or of the movement of the (g-Pawn) or the (b-Pawn) to make place for the Bishop...One may very properly play (c2-c4) upon the Queen’s Opening, But if the (e-Pawn) be the opening move, to bring the (f-Pawn) into action is more critical, as it exposes the King. For this reason I consider the King’s Gambit thoroughly wrong in principle.” 
     “The Knight’s Pawns should never be moved in the opening on account of the resultant loosening of the position...I consider the Evans Gambit so correct that I cannot warn you sufficiently against accepting it in a tourney fame. A Pawn up is no equivalent for the attack one is subjected to...I myself am inclined to appraise the correct play of the pieces above that of the Pawns...I never worry much about my unfavorable Pawn position so long as my pieces are rightly posted.” Dr. S. Tarrasch 

     Indian Defenses weren’t popular in Tarrasch’s day and they were generally frowned upon but that was because they were so poorly played. It wasn’t until the hypermoderns began playing them in the 1920s that they were given serious attention. But, even then it took until the 1940s and 1950s for the Russian players to prove their true worth. 
     In the following game Tarrasch was 64 years old...ancient for a chess player, but when he met Davidson’s Indian Defense he conducted the attack like a kid. The Dutch player Jacques Davidson (1890-1969) was considered the first Dutch chess professional and was one of the country's strongest players during the 1920s. He finished 1st at Amsterdam 1925 and finished second behind Euwe in the 1921 and 1924 Dutch Championships. 
     Here, let me mention that Tarrasch’s Best Games of Chess by Fred Reinfeld is a great book! Reinfeld was a great writer when he wanted to be and this book of Tarrasch’s games is superb and filled with masterpieces that will help the careful reader understand basic classical principles. 
     From March 7th to the 29th, 1926 a great international tournament, organized by Ossip Bernstein, was held at the Grand Hotel Panhas in the Semmering Pass south of Vienna. For the first half Nimzovich and Tartakower lead the field, but towards the finish the lead changing hands until Spielmann emerged as the winner in the best tournament of his career. 
     One interesting participant was Karl Gilg (January 20, 1901 - December 4, 1981), a German master who as one of the German minority in the newly-formed Czechoslovakia after the end of the First World War. He learned chess at the age of four. He took an active part in Czech chess, representing them in the Olympiads in 1927, 1928 and 1931. 
     Semmering 1926 was his first major international tournament. Although he finished poorly, he caused a sensation by defeating Alekhine in round three. He went on to participate in numerous international tournaments with modest success. After Czechoslovakia had been occupied by the Germans, Gilg began taking part in the German championships. 
     Gilg served in the military during World War Two and became a prisoner of War and was held in East Lothian in Scotland. In an article by Alan McGowan in Chess Scotland, Gilg was held in Amisfield Park Camp 243, Haddington, East Lothian, from October 29, 1945 to July 5, 1946. From there he was transferred to Gosford Camp 16 at Aberlady, also in East Lothian, from July 6, 1946 to September 30, 1947. After his release Gilg lived in West Germany where he was a teacher. He was awarded the IM title in 1953. 
     In case you are wondering why Gilg was held as a POW until late in 1947, two years after the war ended, it was because in the years following World War II large numbers of German civilians and captured soldiers were forced into labor by the Allied forces. In Great Britain they had more than 400,000 prisoners; many of whom had been transferred from POW camps in the US and Canada and many were used as forced labor, as a form of "reparations.”  

1) Spielmann 13.0 
2) Alekhine 12.5 
3) Vidmar 12.0 
4-5) Nimzovich and Tartakower 11.5 
6-7) Rubinstein and Tarrasch 10.0 
8) Reti 9.5 
 9) Grünfeld 9.0 
10) Janowski 8.5 
11) Treybal 8.0 
12) Vajda 7.5 
13) Yates 7.0 
14-15) Gilg and Kmoch 6.0 
16) Davidson 5.5 
17) Michel 4.5 
18) Rosselli del Turco 1.0 

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Monday, July 8, 2019

Berlin 1920

     

     In the 1920s Berlin was a hectic place and in the center of the Weimar culture that was popular during the interwar period between Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 and Hitler's rise to power in 1933. 
     Berlin was fertile ground for intellectuals, artists, and innovators from many fields and included a gay subculture that included nightclubs and cabarets that catered to a gay clientele, gay-themed theater and films and gay-oriented publications that were sold at kiosks. Gay prostitution flourished, too. 
     Amid that backdrop there was a chess tournament in Berlin in 1920. Writing on Chessgames.com sometime reader of this blog Graham Clayton quoted the October 1937 issue of Chess Review’s description of this tournament: The Berlin tournament of 1920, played during the post-War turmoil and financed very generously by Bernhard Kagan, probably has a higher percentage of good games than any other tournament ever played. 
     It was won by Gyula Breyer (April 30, 1893 - November 9, 1921) of Hungary. Breyer was a leading pioneer of the hypermodern school which favored controlling the center with from the flanks. He died in 1921 at the age of 28 in Bratislava. He was buried in Bratislava and after exhumation in 1987, was reburied in the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest. Kingpin Magazine has a four part series on Breyer by chess historian and author Jimmy Adams that is a must read. 
Part 1 
Part 2 
Part 3 
Part 4 

1) Breyer 6.5 
2-3) Bogoljubow and Tartakower 5.5 
4) Reti 5.0 
5-7) Maroczy, Miese and Tarrasch 4.5 
8-9) Saemisch and Leonhardt 3.5 
10) Spielmann 2.5 

     Enjoy the following crazy game between two of the most colorful players in the tournament. 

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Friday, July 5, 2019

Marshall's Chess Swindles

     I have a copy of this book, published in 1923, which is subtitled Comprising Over One Hundred And Twenty-five Of His Best Tournament And Match Games At Chess, Together With The Annotation Of The Same.
     If you can find a copy of Marshall's Best Games of Chess (formerly titled My Fifty Years of Chess)  that was published in 1960, it is probably the better of the two books and is a much more enjoyable read.  I wish I still had my copy because I see it's selling on Amazon for $150!!  I would never, ever, pay that for it, but you never know when you might stumble on it some place for a reasonable price.
     Andy Soltis' book on Marshall got good reviews on Amazon. Call me cheap, but I would never pay $40 for a chess book either.
     In the introduction Marshall explained why he used the title “Marshall’s Swindles.” Swindle is a term of derision that some of his opponents used to describe his wins over them when “their fond preconceived notions (were) demolished over the open board.” He added that when he, a man not tied to book chess, smashed those gentlemen (as he referred to them) they claimed they got swindled. Marshall invited the reader to be the judge of whether or not victory involved chance, luck or trickery or if a move was successful because it was based on sound play. 
     The following game was played in Paris between May 17th and June 20th 1900 in a tournament which was held in conjunction with the Exposition Universelle, one of the world's most notable fairs or exhibitions up to that time.  The time limit was 30 moves in two hours, followed by 15 moves in one hour. Draws had to be replayed once. This tournament also marked Marshall’s international debut. 
     Lasker suffered only one defeat, to Marshall while Pillsbury was beaten by Lasker, Marshall and Burn. Marshall lost game to Maroczy, Showalter and Janowski. He dew with Chigorin and Schlechter. 

1) Lasker 14.5 
2) Pillsbury 12.5 
3-4) Marshall and Maroczy 12.0 
5) Burn 11.0 
6) Chigorin 10.5 
7-9) Schlechter, Marco and Mieses 10.0 
10-11) Showalter and Janowski 9.0 
12) Mason 4.5 13) Brody 4.0 
14) Rosen 3.0 
15) Mortimer 2.0 
16-17) Sterling and Didier 1.0 

     Who were the tailenders, Sterling and Didier? Manuel Marquez Sterling was actually born Carlos Manuel Agustin Marquez Sterling y Loret de Mola to Cuban parents on August 28, 1872 in Lima, Peru. 
     At the age of 16 he began a career in journalism writing for publications founded by his father. Suffering from asthma, part of his adolescence was spent in Merida, Mexico when he was sent there by his father because it was believed the climate would help with the asthma attacks. While in Mexico he met Jose Marti (1853 – 1895) a Cuban poet, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. 
     Eventually Sterling found himself in Spain and was a contributor to Steinitz’ The International Chess Magazine. The magazine, based in the United States, was established in 1885 and published until 1891. While in Spain, Sterling let it be known that he favored Cuban independence, a position that lead to his pending arrest and his hightailing it back to Cuba. 
     After his return, he served in various political capacities and in 1934, when the President of Cuba was forced to resign, Sterling accepted the presidency from six in the morning until noon when he transferred power. The same year he was appointed ambassador to the United States and died there on December 9, 1934. He wrote about 15 books on diverse topics such as politics, history and chess. 
     Marshall’s opponent in this game, M. Didier, is something of an enigma and I refer you to the discussion about him on Chessgames.com.

Didier

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Thursday, July 4, 2019

Engine, engine, who’s the strongest of them all?

     Who's the greatest of them all? Who's the one we love the most? It seems it depends on who you ask! 
     One would think that in this day of engines that are stronger than any human it would be easy to figure out. But that does not seem to be the case. 
     According to a 2006 article which you can download HERE, Capablanca was the best, but they used the less strong Crafty engine. See also this article on Chessbase: Computer analysis of world champions 
     Then there is the 2017 report on Chess.com that comes to a different conclusion and says Carlsen is the man. For further reading: Chess Fans Booed This Year's World Championship, but Computers Cheered 
     So, who’s the baddest of them all. What really makes a player great? What are their characteristics? Do we really prefer the flawed master or, do we prefer perfection? 
     If one is looking for perfectly played games then games from engine championships or even the ICCF world championship finals are the ones that should be examined. But, I don’t think most of us are interested in that kind of chess. 
     We prefer lots of excitement with spills and thrills brought about by mistakes. Not gross blunders, but subtle mistakes that allow one side to deliver, as the Soviets liked to put it, a sledgehammer blow. Or, we like to see gamblers making speculative sacrifices that will require both players to walk on the razor’s edge even if Stockfish sees the refutation in the twinkling of an eye!

Speaking of chessplayers...I was looking at collections of best games and here’s the list of books, about $400 worth, I’d like to have: 

My Magic Years of Topalov 
Gata Kamsky - Chess Gamer - Vol. 1 
Learn from Michal Krasenkow 
Fabiano Caruana 
Alexander Beliavsky - Legendary Chess Careers - Part 1 and 2 
Max Euwe - Fifth World Chess Champion 
Triple Exclam!!! - the life and games of Emory Tate 
Najdorf x Najdorf 
The Soviet Championships 
Lajos Portisch
Oldrich Duras - Master of Chess Combination
Combat – My 50 Years of Chess, Sidney Bernstein 
The Life and Games of Frank Ross Anderson 
Mir Sultan Khan
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Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Lajos Steiner vs Lilienthal Match 1934

Steiner and Lilienthal
     Andor Lilienthal, the last of the original 27 GM’s, died at his home in Budapest in 2010 at the age of 99. Lilienthal, who is largely unknown today, played 10 world champions and beat 6 of them. He was the last living GM to have played and beaten Emanuel Lasker; he also had tournament victories against Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik and Smyslov. 
    Prior to participating in the Hastings tournament, Lilienthal, then a talented young Hungarian master, played a six games with Lajos Steiner in Budapest. Steiner won +3 -1 =2. For details on the Hastings tournament see Chessgames.com. It was at Hastings that Lilienthal defeated Capablanca in a sensational game.
     According to Chessmetrics at the time Steiner is assigned a rating of 2602 placing him number 27 in the world. He was ranked in a group that included Kurt Richter, Fritz Saemisch and Frank Marshall. On Chessmetrics' list Steiner peaked at 2654 in 1934 and in 1937 was ranked as number 11 in the world. 
     In 1934 Lilienthal was ranked much higher – number 6 in the world with an assigned rating of 2710. The top five were Aekhine, Euwe, Flohr, Bogoljubow and Kashdan. Lilienthal was grouped with Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Denker and Sultan Kahn! Yes, Arnold Denker was assigned a rating that put him in the top 10 players in the world in 1934 and 1935 and he was to remain in Chessmetrics top 100 until 1949. Personally, I never realized that Denker was that good! 
     As for Sultan Kahn, he was ranked among the top 10 players in the world for his entire short career which was between 1930 and 1935.
Denker

     Lajos Steiner (June 14, 1903 - April 22, 1975) was one of four children of Bernat Steiner, a mathematics teacher, and his wife Cecilia. His older brother was Endre Steiner. Both he and his Endre started playing in master chess events in Budapest while they were schoolboys. Lajos was granted the title of master at the age of 19. 
     He graduated from the Technikum Mittweida, Germany in 1926 with a mechanical engineering degree. In the late 1920s Steiner spent two years working as an engineer in the United States and after his return to Europe he turned professional, but made a precarious living from tournaments. 
     He won the Hungarian Championship in 1931 and 1936. In the mid-1930s he played for Hungary in four Chess Olympiads. In 1936 Steiner toured Australia and although he played in the 1936-37 Australian championship and won every game, he was ineligible for the title. He returned to Western Australia in 1939 and settled in Sydney. His father and brother were to die in Nazi concentration camps. 
     He won the Australian Chess Championship four times: 1945, 1946/47, 1952/53, and 1958/59. He also won nine of his ten attempts at the New South Wales title (1940–41, 1943, 1944, 1945–46, 1953, 1955, 1958). 
     In 1939 Steiner married Augusta Edna Kingston, a New South Wales women's champion. He acquired Australian citizenship in 1944. Finding it impossible to earn a living playing chess, he took employment a design draftsman. 
     After moving to Australia he only returned to Europe once, in 1948, where he played in three tournaments, at Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Czechoslovakia, Budapest, Hungary and Saltsjobaden, Sweden. 
     Because of his disappearance from the main chess centers of the world after WW2 he was never recognized as a GM although he surely deserved the title. He stopped competing in major tournaments in the early 1960s, but continued to play for his local club and willingly helped young players. He died at Castlecrag, a suburb of Sydney, on April 22, 1975 and was cremated. 

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