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.
It appears the final chapter has been written on the USCF, Susan Polgar, Paul Truong and Gregory Alexander imbroglio that plagued the USCF a few years back.
In August, 2008, Susan Polgar accused the USCF and some of its associates of conspiring to destroy her career and, possibly, the Texas Tech chess institute that bears her name. She filed a lawsuit in Lubbock district court against the United States Chess Federation, Inc., and 14 other associates and entities. She claimed certain federation members used the Internet and media to defame and slander her because they were jealous of her success. "Despite all her successes, there are others who strive for nothing more than to ruin Polgar's career and business relationships and to see her fail," the suit read…Because she is a woman and of foreign descent the USCF has long harbored ill will and jealously toward Polgar and more recently, the SPICE program." Several federation board members and the federation's lawyer were named in the suit, in which Polgar sought $25 million in damages. Sam Sloan, an ex-federation board member who lost his seat in the same election in which Polgar and her husband, Paul Troung, won seats on the board accused the couple of posting thousand of obscene Internet messages in his name, leading to his election loss. He filed a $20 million lawsuit against them and the federation in New York in October. Polgar's suit came on the heels of the federation's attempt to subpoena her and her husband. Back in January 2010, USCF agreed to a settlement with Polgar and Truong stemming from lawsuits filed by both parties. Polgar’s lawsuit alleged libel, slander, defamation and other claims. USCF’s lawsuit alleged email hacking and wire fraud. The USCF also filed a lawsuit against Susan Polgar and Paul Truong to remove them as Executive Board members and end their relationship with the USCF for not acting in the best interests of the USCF. Under the settlement agreement, all named parties except Gregory Alexander and Sam Sloan agreed to dismiss all claims and counter-claims in the actions. The Illinois lawsuit ended with a judgment confirming that Susan Polgar and Paul Truong were no longer Executive Board members. The USCF’s civil case against Alexander for email hacking and wire fraud continued and Alexander faced similar federal criminal charges in California. As part of the settlement, Polgar and Truong agreed to never contest the USCF Executive Board’s action in revoking their USCF memberships; acknowledge that they are no longer members of the USCF or members of the USCF Executive Board; agreed to never seek, run for, or accept a leadership position in the USCF; and never contest the Delegate’s actions that ratified the decisions of the USCF Executive Board at the August 2009 Annual Delegates Meeting. Under the same settlement the USCF allowed Polgar and Truong to be playing, non-members of the USCF and would be listed as “Playing Non-Member Status.” The indictment against Alexander charged him with thirty-four separate counts of intentionally accessing a computer without authorization and one count of aggravated identity theft. The indictment alleged that Alexander violated the law by illegally accessing the e-mail account of Randall Hough as well as illegal possession and use of a means of identification of another, specifically the username and password belonging to Randall Hough, in relation to committing a fraud in connection with computers. From Fall 2007 to Spring 2008, Gregory Alexander accessed the personal email account of Randall Hough, a Director on the United States Chess Federation Board and obtained privileged attorney-client material. The privileged attorney-client material at issue was comprised of confidential e-mail communications from Karl Kronenberger, external counsel for the United States Chess Federation (USCF), to the members of the United States Chess Federation Board of Directors Legal Subcommittee of which Alexander was not a member. The result was a loss of over $50,000 to the USCF. Alexander has admitted in court proceedings that IP addresses used to access Hough’s personal email account belonged to him, Alexander . The use of an IP address masking tool depicted Alexander’s efforts to avoid detection. Messages collected suggest that on at least one occasion, Alexander accessed Hough’s account at the behest of Susan Polgar, who was at the time, a Director on the Federation Board. Beginning in June 2005, approximately 2500 messages, many with inflammatory content, were posted to internet newsgroups and attributed to Sam Sloan, a then sitting and now former Director on the United States Chess Federation Board. The postings were concentrated in chess related newsgroups and focused on principals and institutions associated with the USCF. In September 2007, Brian Mottershead, a USCF web systems administrator, began an investigation into the source of the postings. Mottershead noticed that several of the Newsgroup postings were copies of posts originally made on an internal USCF web forum. Posts to the USCF web forum were only accessible to USCF members. Mottershead theorized that the source of the postings was a member of the USCF. By matching the publicly available IP addresses in the headers of the Newsgroup postings to the IP addresses attributable to USCF members logging into the USCF web forum, a single suspect was identified: Paul Truong, a USCF Board Member and the husband of Susan Polgar. The investigation showed the value of a seat on the USCF Board of Directors carries prestige within the chess community and associated opportunities to monetize that prestige. For example, Directors may garner opportunities to earn speaking fees or host tournaments. At the time the postings began, Sloan was a sitting member of the USCF Board and up for election. Sloan lost his bid for reelection while Truong and Polgar became first-time Directors. As a result of the allegations the USCF retained an attorney in October 2007 and subsequently formed a subcommittee consisting of the members of the USCF Board with the exceptions of Truong and Polgar. Truong and Polgar were excluded from the subcommittee since Truong was the subject of the allegations and Polgar was married to Truong. In late 2007 and early 2008, Polgar communicated via email to the other members of the USCF Board several times and repeatedly referenced contents of the privileged material to which she, Polgar, referenced privileged material. Polgar made references to confidential legal strategy, confidential negotiations, and/or quoted verbatim from privileged material or private communications between other Board members. The USCF initiated an investigation to identify the source and later alerted the United States Secret Service and were able to identify several instances of intrusions into the Hough account. As a result Alexander was revealed as the culprit. Upon being questioned about her source for the privileged material, Polgar originally claimed to have obtained the privileged materials from the Internet and, later, an anonymous source who would be willing to testify. USCF investigated Polgar’s claim that the privileged material was available on the Internet and was not able to verify Polgar’s assertion. Additionally, Polgar failed to produce the anonymous source. On June 23, 2008, however, Polgar sent an email to the members of the Subcommittee that referenced the content of an email exchanged just hours earlier between the Subcommittee members Hough, Bill Goichberg, and Jim Berry. The USCF filed a John Doe lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court. An investigation conducted by the U.S. Secret Service revealed that Alexander was a known business associate of Polgar’s. Alexander served as the webmaster for several websites owned by Polgar and it was suspected that Alexander was a source for Polgar of the privileged material. In the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on December 13, 2011 in the case of UNITED STATES v. GREGORY ALEXANDER the defendant pled guilty on Count 1 of Information and was referred to Probation.
Much of the information for this post was taken from of a story appearing in the July, 1991 issue of The Free Lance Star of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Flom's case was widely reported in newspapers around the country.
Flom was one of a million chess players that was unknown to the chess world, but he sounds like an interesting guy. Not a lot is known about him other than his fleeting moment of dubious fame when he got arrested in New York City in back 1988. A native of Kiev, Flom had earned a degree in veterinary medicine in 1955 and enjoyed a comfortable life by Soviet standards, but as a Jew, he was increasingly dismayed over religious discrimination. For Flom, the straw that broke the camel's back was when his son was kept off the fencing team. He suffered a heart attack in 1979 and the Soviet authorities finally allowed him to leave for the United States. He arrived in Brooklyn, New York and when his health didn't improve and his marriage broke up, he turned more and more to chess. Several days a week he would make the one hour subway ride from his home in Brooklyn to 42nd Street in Manhattan where chess players gathered on the sidewalk near the New York Public Library. Some enterprising individual rented sets, tables and chairs for them to use and the players typically wagered a few dollars on the games. Around noon on Monday, August 16, 1988 Flom was sitting at a table waiting for a game when a young man, apparently a construction worker on his lunch break, sat down and asked if he wanted to play. Flom said he did and he usually played for two dollars. It was obvious to Flom that his opponent was a beginner because he won easily and so Flom proposed a second game. Only this time the guy was to pay Flom a dollar for a lesson and Flom would show him where he was making mistakes. The man turned out to be an undercover cop. He gave Flom the money then an
undercover female officer hung a badge around her neck and bravely
emerged from the crowd to handcuff Flom. As other players and passersby looked on in amazement, the 67-year-old Flom was arrested for gambling and hauled off to the police station. There he was fingerprinted, photographed and charged with promoting gambling and possession of gambling equipment...a chessboard and pieces. Flom was advised that he could make a single phone call and the only person he knew to call was an elderly neighbor whom he asked to call his sons who lived out of state. Apparently, the woman, who spoke Russian, did not fully understand or didn't care because his sons never got the message. Flom was then taken from the police station to jail to await arraignment. There he was ordered to remove his shoelaces and belt and empty his pockets. He was also forced to give them his heart medication which he took three times a day. Flom, who had never been in trouble before, protested that he was sick and advised the police that he suffered from a heart condition. No matter. He was put in a filthy, stinking cell with about 60 other men and there was no place for him to even sit down. Eventually, Flom and about a dozen others were chained together and taken by van to another jail. They arrived shortly after midnight and Flom, who had been suffering through his ordeal for 12 hours, was beginning to have chest pains. A medical person examined him and gave him back his pills then sent him to Beekman Hospital; he was having a heart attack.
At the Beekman emergency room he was only given pain medicine and allowed to lie down for several hours before he was returned to the first jail he had been in. From there, he was transported back to the second jail. Assigned to a cell with one other prisoner, he was given a cheese sandwich and coffee, but not feeling like eating, he gave them to his cell mate. There was only one bed which Flom offered to his cell mate, choosing to spend the night sitting up. The next morning he was taken to a holding cell where he spent several hours before being taken into the courtroom. It was a confusing scene for Flom what with men in suits, obvious criminals, prostitutes and other assorted folks all over the place, including some sleeping on benches. Flom was represented by a public defender named Michael Butchen. Butchen told the judge, Herbert Adlerberg, that he didn't think Flom was guilty of gambling. It was a chess game, not a three-card monte scam and the whole affair was ridiculous. Butchen also informed the judge that Flom had never been in trouble before and all he did was offer a cop a chess lesson. The judge asked the prosecutor, a woman name Deborah Steiger, how what Flom did constituted gambling because he (the judge) didn't see it. Steiger agreed and asked the charges to be dismissed. Flom told them, “I am a sick man. I got two heart attacks. I told them and now...they arrested me. I am not a gambler. I play chess 40 years. I never was a gambler. They put my case now. What does that mean?” The judge advised him to talk to his lawyer, as if he had one. However, a month later Flom did have a lawyer, Charles Krupin who often represented Russian speaking clients, and he sued the city for a million dollars for wrongful arrest. The question was, why did a city that averaged seven murders a day and lead the nation in armed robberies even bother with a guy like Flom? One officer testified they did it because they had received an anonymous phone call informing then that there was illegal activity going on at that location. The director of the neighborhood planning board testified that while they had a few complaints, most people didn't object to the chess players and they were never a big problem. Besides, 87 years before Flom's arrest New York courts had determined that Flom wasn't gambling because chess is not a game of chance. Flom did not play chess any more after his arrest and his heart condition continued to worsen. Flom never collected on his lawsuit though because he died before the case was settled out of court. Five years after filing the lawsuit, in 1993, it was settled for $100,000. His relatives share, after legal fees, came to $66,000.
I can’t resist posting this photo from the October 7, 1957 issue of Life magazine.
Life was published weekly until 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, Life was a wide-ranging weekly general interest magazine known for the quality of its photography. The photo was part of a brief article on Fischer who at the time was making news news as the youngest Master in the U.S.
The book Fischer is reading is Chess in Russia : the players and their games (annotated) by P. Romanovsky with forewords by Mikhail Botvinnik and C.H.O'D. Alexander. The 53 page booklet was published by Soviet News, London in 1946.
The caption reads: MATERNAL SUMMONS to dinner in their Brooklyn apartment interrupt a problem Fischer is working out on his chessboard. Mrs. Fischer is completely certain that he can someday become world champion. “The sooner the better,” she says. “Then he can get over all this and get down to some real work.”
On the rating list published on May 20, 1956, Fischer's rating was only 1726. In July of 1956, Fischer won the US Junior Championship at Philadelphia with a score of 8.5-1.5 to become the youngest-ever Junior Champion at the age of 13. At the 1956 US Open Championship in Oklahoma City, he scored 8.5-3.5 to tie for 4th–8th places. In the Canadian Open at Montreal he scored 7.0-3.0 to tie for 8th–12th places. In November, Fischer played in the Eastern Open in Washington, D.C. and tied for second with William Lombardy, Nicholas Rossolimo, and Arthur Feuerstein. Although Fischer's rating didn’t put him among the top 12, he received special consideration when he was invited to the 1956 Rosenwald Trophy tournament, a premier tournament of 12 players considered the best in the country. The 13-year-old Fischer could only score 4.5-6.5 and tie for 8th–9th place. That was the tournament in which he played the Game of the Century when he sacrificed his Queen against Donald Byrne. In March of 1957, Fischer played a two-game match against former World Champion Max Euwe at New York and lost 0.5-1.5. On the USCF rating list, published on May 5, 1957, Fischer was rated 2231; he had gained over 500 points in a year and was the country's youngest ever master up to that point. In July,1957, he defended his US Junior title, scoring an impressive 8.5-0.5 at San Francisco. That victory put his rating at 2298, making him among the top ten players in the country. Yes, there’s been some rating inflation over the years! By this time the fourteen-year-old Fischer was the latest prodigy in the chess world and created another sensation when he tied for first with Arthur Bisguier in the US Open held in Cleveland, Ohio, both scored 10-2. Bisguier was originally proclaimed the winner and was driving back to New York with the first place trophy before a recalculation gave the title to Fischer instead. Bisguier later wrote an article for Chess Review in which he did his best to be sportsman like and praise Fischer copiously, but his bitterness with the tournament officials and tiebreaking systems in general was apparent. See my post Hey, Art. Give Back That Trophy! There were 176 entries, but Horst Kemper didn’t show to meet his first round opponent who won on forfeit. His opponent was Bobby Fischer. Fischer scored wins against Edward D. Stepans, John Rinaldo, Charles Witte, Igor Garais, Edmar Mednis, Donald Byrne and William Addison. He drew with Rudolf Pitschak, Arthur Bisguier, Robert Byrne and Walter Shipman. Fischer won the New Jersey Open with a score of 6.5-0.5 and his next success was defeating the young Filipino master Rodolfo Tan Cardoso 6–2 in a New York match sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. Based on his rating and results, the USCF invited him to play in the 1957–58 US Championship. Arthur Bisguier predicted Fischer would score slightly over fifty percent; he was wrong. Fischer scored and undefeated 10.5-2.5 and finished first thus becoming the youngest ever US Champion. The victory earned him the IM title and qualified him to participate in the Portoroz Interzonal to be August of 1958. Fischer was also invited to be one of the ten distinguished players to participate in the highly regarded Hastings Christmas tournament, but he either didn't or couldn't accept. Keres won ahead of Gligoric and Filip. Leonard Barden was the top English player, finishing fifth. Fischer had been hounding his mother about making a trip to Moscow and his mother wrote directly to the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, requesting an invitation for Bobby to participate in the World Youth and Student Festival, but the reply came too late for him to make the trip. In 1958, his mother finagled him an appearance on the game show I've Got a Secret and the producers arranged two round-trip tickets to the Soviet Union. View on Youtube Fischer was invited to Moscow and Lev Abramov served as a guide to Bobby and his sister, Joan. Once in Moscow, Fischer immediately demanded that he be taken to the Moscow Central Chess Club, where he played speed chess with two young Soviet masters, Evgeni Vasiukov and Alexander Nikitin. Fischer mopped up, winning all the games. Fischer also defeated veteran Master Vladimir Alatortsev 3-zip in blitz prompting Alatortsev to tell his wife that Fischer was going to be world champion. Fischer wasn’t done with his demands. He demanded to play World Champ Mikhail Botvinnik and when informed that was impossible, Fischer asked to play Keres who also was not available. Finally, Tigran Petrosian was summoned to play Fischer; Petrosian won most of the games. When it became clear to Fischer that the Russians weren’t going to play anything but blitz games against him, he flew into a rage saying he was fed up "with these Russian pigs." Needless to say, coming from an honored guest, it offended and angered the Russians.
Oddly, in a 1960 interview with Roman Toran during the Olympiad in Leipzig, Fischer stated, “Before the [1958] Interzonal I was invited by the USSR Chess Federation to visit Moscow, and I played some interesting training games there with notable young stars like Vasiukov, who was then champion of Moscow. Yes, the trip was very useful.” After Fischer’s tirade against his Moscow hosts, the Yugoslav chess officials stepped in and offered to take in Fischer and Joan as early guests to the Interzonal. Fischer took them up on the offer, arriving in Yugoslavia to play two short training matches against Dragoljub Janosevic and Milan Matulovic. He drew with Janosevic and defeated Matulovic. At the Interzonal at Portoroz in1958, most doubted that a 15-year-old with no international experience could finish among the six qualifiers. Fischer had a different opinion. He told journalist Miro Radoicic, "I can draw with the GMs and there are half-a-dozen patzers in the tournament I reckon to beat." He scored +6−2=12, tied for 5th–6th and qualified for the 1959 Bled-Zagreb-Belgrade Candidates tournament.
In 1959, Fischer was a sophomore at Erasmus High School where he was no better than average in his studies, displaying little interest in most of the subjects taught and being restless in class. His teachers were amazed when they heard of his chess victories because they hadn’t suspected that he would be able to sit still long enough to play five hours for a tournament game. The school’s student council awarded him a gold medal for his chess achievements, but he dropped out of high school when he turned 16, the earliest he could legally do so. His reason, as he was later to explain to Ralph Ginzburg, "You don't learn anything in school." At home chess set as always beside his bed and from the moment he woke up he studied, even during meals and while watching television. While his mother was proud of his success, she was by no means convinced that his devotion to chess was a good thing. For four years she tried everything she knew to discourage him, but it was hopeless. During the summer vacation Fischer’s evenings were spent at the Manhattan Chess Club and sometimes his mother have to go over there at midnight to haul him out. After dropping out of high school, Fischer taught himself several foreign languages so he could read foreign chess periodicals. At one time Tal and Alexander Koblencs were amazed at Fischer’s familiarity with the games of female Latvian players. The games of one in particular interested him, the almost unknown Flora Dmitrieva. It had never occurred to them to study the games of their women players. Until late 1959, Fischer’s signature dress had been sweaters and corduroys, but Pal Benko encouraged him to dress better and so Fischer began buying hand-tailored suits, shirts and shoes from all over the world. When Fischer was 16, his mother moved out of their apartment to pursue medical training. A friend named Joan Rodker, who had met Fischer’s mother when they living in Moscow in the 1930s, believes that Fischer resented his mother for being mostly absent, a communist activist and an admirer of the Soviet Union. She also believed this was what led to his hatred for the “Russians.” In letters to Rodker, Fischer's mother wrote about her desire to pursue her own obsession of training in medicine meant that Bobby would have to live in their Brooklyn apartment without her, but that he was probably happier that way. The apartment, by the way, was on the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood that had one of the highest homicide and crime rates in New York City. When the 1959 Candidates tournament came around, unlike Portoroz, there weren’t any “patzers.” The tournament was won by Tal ahead of Keres, Petrosian and Smyslov. Fischer tied for 5th-6th with Glicoric ahead of Olafsson and Benko and had to wait until 1972 to fulfill Alatortsev’s prediction. Despite their alienation, in 1960, Fischer’s mother protested the practices of the American Chess Foundation and staged a five-hour protest in front of the White House, urging President Eisenhower to send an American team to that year's chess Olympiad in Leipzig, East Germany and to help support the team financially. The American Chess Foundation was founded in the 1950s to help Samuel Reshevsky battle the Soviets, adopted a new name to better reflect its primary activity. Since May 29, 1996, it has been known as Chess-in-the-Schools. In the end, the US sent a team which was made up of Fischer, Lombardy, Robert Byrne, Bisguier, Rossolimo and Weinstein and they finished second behind the Soviet Union. It was t this event where Fischer played his only game ever against Botvinnik; it was a draw. Fischer’s opponent in the following game was the well known Oklahoma player Dale Ruth who was rated about 1970 at the time. If memory serves, I think Ruth eventually reached the Master level.
%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{B92: Sicilian Najdorf: 6 Be2} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.
Nc3 a6 6. Be2 {Nowadays 6.Bg5 is considered the main line. This, the
Opocensky (or Classical) line which leads to a quieter positional game. Black
can now transpose into a Scheveningen with 6...e6 or keep the game in Najdorf
lines by playing 6...e5.} 6... e5 7. Nf3 {The main line is 7.Nb3 which offers
white slightly better chnace of success. Interesting but largely untested is
7.Nf5?!} 7... Be7 { Pachman recommended 7...h6 preventing 8.Bg5. The idea is
a struggle to control d5.} 8. O-O O-O 9. h3 Nbd7 {More logical is 9...h6
10.Re1 e6. Black's strategic goal should be to play ...d5 and white will try
to prevent it.} 10. Re1 b5 {As a result of his 7th move white has gotten a
rather passive position. Rather than play 11.a3 Ruth opts to allow ...b5 and a
change in the P-formation.} 11. a4 b4 12. Nd5 {Tricky play. If 12...Nxe4
13.Nxe7+ Qx37 14. Qd5 Nec5! white can't take the R because he will lose his
Q, but after 15.Bg5 white has plenty of compensation for the P.} 12... Nxd5
13. Qxd5 Qc7 {Can white take the R?! Of course doing so loses the Q, but it's
interesting that Stockfish thinks he gets adequate compensation after 14.Qxa8
Nb6 (The Q slips away after 14...Bb7 15.Qa7) 15.Qxa6 Bxa6 16.Bxa6. White has
a R,B and P for his Q, but not many players would like to play white's
position.} 14. Qb3 {This is to be too passive. 14.a5 isolating black's d-Pawn
would have been better.} 14... Nc5 { Black has a better chance of securing an
advantage with 14...Rb8.} 15. Qxb4 { Now with 15...Bb7 he has a solid position
that offers roughly equal chances. Instead, Fischer goes for complications.}
15... d5 {This move is not without risks.} 16. exd5 {Black's next move should
have resulted in white getting the upper hand. Better was 16...Nd3! 17.Qc3
Qxc3 18.bxc3 Ne1 with unclear complications. } 16... e4 {With his next move,
which is far too passive, Ruth fails to take advantage of Fischer's risky
play. 17.Ng5! eliminates the possibility of 17... Nd3?? 18.Qe4 Bxg5 19.Bxd3
and white is winning rather easily. So, after 17. Ng5! Bf5 white is a solid
two Ps up.} 17. Nd2 Nd3 18. Qxe4 Nxe1 {Clearly, this N is going to be lost and
it will take a P with it, so in the end, materially white will have a N+2Ps
against a R and good practical chances in such an unbalanced position. Now
either 19.Bd1 Nxg2! or 19.Bc4 Bxh3! are white's best choices.} 19. d6 {Winning
the R is inviting, but it's not enough to salvage the game.} 19... Bxd6 {Black
saves the N after 20.Bd1 Bh2+ and 21...Qe5, but that was white's best
option.} 20. Qxa8 Bb7 {Ruth probably realized that 21.Qa7 loses the Q after
21...Bh2+ 22.Kf1 Bxg2+} 21. Qxf8+ Kxf8 22. Kf1 Nxc2 23. Rb1 Nd4 24. Bd3 Bb4
{With only a R for the Q and black's threat of ...Qe5 white's position is
beyond hope.} 0-1
On Sunday, October 22, 1922, crying bitterly and pitifully, looking haggard and tired, ten year old Sammy Rzeschewski was taken into custody at midnight after an concert and chess exhibition held at the Hunts Point Palace in the Bronx.
It was charged that the exhibition was held without proper authorization and earlier in the day authorities had obtained a warrant from a judge in the Children's Court. Under a charge of improper guardianship, Sammy was taken into custody by Chief Officer Phillip Lowenthal and Superintendent Hylan of the Bronx Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and was hauled off to to the Brown Children's Society Home in Manhattan.
Their purpose, they said, was to prevent further exploitation of the boy for the financial gain of his father, mother and manager. He was taken into custody with considerable difficulty because of the indignant demonstration of the crowd when the officers appeared.
Sammy was the center attraction for an entertainment program for the benefit of the National Hebrew Orphan Home. He entered the hall shortly after 9:00pm and received a tremendous ovation. His parents and relatives sat in the rear as Sammy strode confidently across the stage displaying more than 20 of his medals which were strung on his chest. One of them had been awarded to him the previous week after he had defeated David Janowsky in a tournament.
After being introduced as "the wonder of the 20th century" he sang three songs, during which he showed signs of being sleepy...he yawned in the middle of the second verse of the first song after which there were calls for encores which resulted in two more songs. After the songs his manager told the crowd, "Bear in
mind that Schmulke is a young boy and not doing this for money. I think he has done enough. Let's get to the chess game." Sammy then proceeded to defeat five opponents in less than half an hour after which he was given another ovation.
Two weeks prior a close friend of the family had attempted to get a permit to hold the affair, but it had been denied on the grounds that minors may not give exhibitions on Sunday. Sammy's parents were informed of the denial, but they decided to go ahead with the exhibition anyway.
As soon as the boy was placed into a cab to be hauled away his parents left the hall and followed the officers to the children's home where the boy spent the night. Because he was taking his being taken into custody so seriously, the authorities granted him the privilege of having one of his relatives, a man named Adolph Wexler, stay with him.
He spent Sunday night and all day Monday in custody during which time he had refused to take off his clothes and had been restless. He was also hungry because he had refused to take a bite of any food offered to him because it was not kosher.
After an eventful day Monday where he appeared in Children's Court and released on bail, the boy was pestered by reporters wanting an interview until finally that evening at the Hotel Broadway Central his parents put him to bed at 9 o'clock at night.
Clearly Sammy was aware of the legal problem he was facing because later after being released from custody, dressed in his nightgown and seated at the foot of his bed in his hotel room, he discussed it with all seriousness with a reporter. He was confident yet at the same time a little anxious over the outcome.
His command of English was excellent (it had been for over a year) and he well understood the meaning of the word "exploited." He asked, "How could I be exploited when all I did was for the benefit of the orphans?"
He then added, "Chess is play for me and singing can't hurt me. It was late, I know, but it wasn't my fault. They should have put me on earlier. But, my lawyers will know what to do. They have brains and they can talk." Sweeping his hand toward his parents, he asked the reporter "What will they do to them? They cannot understand. They do not know." During the interview Sammy had been fondling a folding leather travel set and he told the reporter, "I'll play you a game and I'll beat you." The reporter declined and advised him that it was getting late and so he would be going.
At his court hearing the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reminded the judge of a case that had taken place 35 years previously when a young man named Joseph Hoffman had given 50 violin concerts in less than three months and then had broken down. In that case, the Society had brought action similar to the one they were taking against Sammy and the result had been that Hoffman had recovered, traveled to Europe to study and had gone on to be "one of the world's leading violinists."
In the end, Sammy was allowed to go home with his parents, but only on condition that for the next week he could give no public exhibitions.
In the following game Reshevsky scores a win in a simul he gave at Nugents in St Louis on August 26, 1921. Nugents or B. Nugent and Brother Dry Goods Company was a department store in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was the first downtown department store in the United States to open a suburban branch.
The dry goods store was founded in 1869 by Byron Nugent (d. 1908) in Mount Vernon, Illinois. He moved to St. Louis and started a small store there in February 1873, and eventually moved to larger quarters. By 1914, the store was celebrating "41 years (of) underselling" by utilizing a low-price, mass-merchandise strategy.
The company was bought by National Department Stores in 1923 and was liquidated in 1933. At their peak the stores had employed around 1,500 employees. The store went bankrupt during the Great Depression (1929 to 1939).
Reshevsky in 1922
His visit was part of a tour that included the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
In the December 22, 1921 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle it was reported that there had been rumors of "a rich man in Chicago" who had taken a fancy to Sammy and wished to help him out in the future. There was also a rumor that some influential people in St. Louis were interested in him and his education. However, it was reported that for the time being the family intended to remain at the Broadway Central Hotel in Manhattan.
The mystery man in Chicago was Julius Rosenwald, wealthy co-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company in Chicago who soon afterward became Reshevsky's benefactor and he guaranteed Reshevsky's future on the condition that he would complete his education.
It was also reported that among the several gifts of chess sets he had received, the one he valued most was one of only two sets, one of which had presented to him and the other to President Warren G. Harding. Another set, a carved ivory set set from China, was also worth a lot of money and Reshevsky confided that money could not buy either set from him.
Reshevsky was not invincible in simuls though as can be seen in the following game he played against Edward B. A dams, president of the Capital City Chess Club in Washington D.C. It was played in April, 1922 following his visit to the city where he met President Warren G. Harding. He also defeated three Congressmen simultaneously before heading over to the Washington Central Y. M. C. A. where he scored 16 wins, 3 draws and one loss in a simul.
His one loss was to Edward B. Adams, president of the Capital City Chess Club, who had also defeated Lasker, Capablanca and Marshall in simuls. Sammy played an inferior line against Adams' Center Counter Gambit as it was called in those days and the game was adjudicated a win for black by Albert V. Fox, former Brooklyn C. C. champion.
Sammy Rzeschewski - Edward B. Adams
Result: 0-1
Site: Simul, Washington D.C.
Date: 1921
Scandinavian Defense
[...]1.e4d5 The Scandinavian Defense was known as the Center Counter Gambit when this game was played. The general goal is to prevent white from controlling the center with Ps while allowing black to build a strong P-structure. It's use died out until the the 1960s, when David Bronstein, Nona Gaprindashvili and Bent Larsen played it occasionally. 2.exd5 The usual continuation. Black has two major continuations: 2...Qxd5 and 2... Nf6 (the Modern Scandinavian). 2...♘f63.c4c64.dxc6♘xc65.♘f3e56.d3♗c57.♘c3 White had two better continuations.
7.♗e2O-O8.O-Oh69.a3a510.♘c3♗f511.♗e3 White is only slightly better. Costa,J (2350)-Koppens,P (2200) /Berlin 1988
7...♘g4 This attack on f2 is difficult to meet and white really has no completely good defense. 8.♘e4♗f5 Black misses his chance to gain the advantage.
8...♗b4+9.♗d2f510.♘eg5♗c511.d4♘xd412.b4♘xf3+13.gxf3♘xf2 and wins. Lichkun,D (1953) -Vorobiov,N (2119)/Khanty Mansiysk 2007
9.♘xc5 After this white enjoys the advantage. 9...♕a5+10.♕d2♕xc511.h3♘f612.♕e3 The attack on the e-Pawn is logical, but a better way to do it would have been by 12.Qc3 which has the advantage of preventing black's next move. 12...♕b4+13.♗d2♕xb2 Now black has equalized. 14.♖d1O-O15.♗e2♕xa2 This is a tad too risky. 16...Re8 was better. 16.♘xe5 After this his K is caught in the center so it would have been safer to castle. 16...♘xe517.♕xe5♗xd3 White's Q and K on the e-file are a bad combination! 18.♕e3♗xe219.♕xe2♖ac8 (19...♖fe820.♗e3 and white is still in the game.) 20.♖c1
20.♗e3 was slightly better. 20...♕a5+21.♕d2♕xd2+22.♔xd2♖xc423.♗xa7 with a difficult ending,but one in which white would be fighting to escape with a draw.
20...♘e4 Powerful! 21.♗e3♕a5+22.♔f1♖fd823.g3♘d2+
23...♘d624.c5♘f525.♕f3♘xe3+26.♕xe3−+26...♖d5 was even better.
24.♔g2♘xc425.♗xa7 Adjudicated as a win for black. The decision is correct because in Shootouts white scored +0 -4 =1. But the win will take some time.
25.♗xa7h626.♖hd1♖xd127.♕xd1♕xa728.♖xc4♖xc429.♕d8+♔h730.♕d3+g631.♕xc4b632.♕c6♕a533.♕d7♕a8+34.♔g1♕a1+35.♔g2♔g736.♕b5♕a537.♕b2+♔g838.♔f3♕c539.♔e2b540.♔d3♕c4+41.♔e3b442.h4h543.♔d2♕e444.♕b3♕d4+45.♔e2♕e4+46.♔d1♕d4+47.♔e2♕e5+48.♔d3♕b5+49.♕c4♕f5+50.♔e2♕b151.f3♕b2+52.♔e3♕a3+53.♔d2♕xf354.♕xb4♕f2+55.♔d3♕xg3+56.♔c2♕g457.♕b8+♔g758.♕e5+♔h759.♕c7♕e2+60.♔b3♕e3+61.♔a4♔g762.♕h2g563.♕b2+♔g864.♕b8+♔h765.hxg5♕xg5 and wins.
Gilles Andruet (March 30, 1958 - August 22, 1995), son of rally driver Jean-Claude Andruet, was a French IM, member of the French team at the 1982, 1984 and 1988 Chess Olympiad and in 1988 won the French Championship. His peak Elo rating was 2450. During the 1989 Championship, Andruet was involved in a violent altercation with Jean-Luc Seret and subsequently withdrew from the tournament despite the fact that he was in the lead after 10 of 14 rounds. He played less regularly after 1991. Jean-Luc Seret (born September 1951 in Rouen, France) is a French IM and four-time French Champion. Seret was a member of the French team at the 1974, 1976, 1980, 1982 and 1984 Chess Olympiad.
The championship was marked by an incident during the Seret-Andruet game in the 10th round. The following position was reached with Andruet to move:
White is threatening 26.Qe6 mate. There is no adequate defense so Andruet resigned. However, Seret wrote 26.Qe6 mate on his scoresheet and when they exchanged scoresheets for signing, Andruet drew a line through the move. When the scoresheet was handed back to Seret he punched Andruet in the face and drew blood. The men were separated and a "supervisory commission" met and decided to punish Seret after the tournament. The decision left Andruet furious and he produced a medical certificate and withdrew from the tournament. The commission's decision seems lenient, but it probably had something to do with the fact that Seret's reputation at the board had always been above reproach while the same thing could not be said of Andruet. Andruet was also a gambler. Starting in 1993, he regularly played backgammon and blackjack in casinos and although he initially won significant amounts of money, he eventually became a pathological gambler and overwhelmed with debt. In the beginning, Andruet took time to learn about all the theories related to gambling, like a method of counting the 342 cards contained in a blackjack shoe. Before gambling he would get proper rest, eat right and relax. He traveled the world to visit gambling casinos, even going to China. He was initially successful, reportedly winning millions, and was said to stuff money “in his pockets like Kleenex.” Eventually he acquired gambling debts and fell victim to drug addiction. In 1995 an elderly lady had left her house to him when she died which he sold and received a check for nearly 400,000 francs, but the bank would not cash it. Andruet sought out a friend to cash it for him for a fee. That friend was Joseph Liany. The bank agreed to cash the check and the money was to be available on August 22nd. In the meantime, Andruet, who had no fixed place to live, arrived at a Liany's house at 5 o'clock in the morning on August 20, 1995 with a few clothes and a backgammon set given to him by his father.
Then at about 11 pm the next day Andruet, driving his Ford Sierra, stopped in front of a restaurant in Paris to see a Polish waitress friend. The waitress recognized Joseph Liany as one of the three passengers in Andruet's car and because of her testimony she was subsequently the victim of repeated anonymous calls and death threats against her and her child. The following day a gardener discovered Andruet's body wrapped in a bed sheet lying half way in a river with his skull and larynx crushed. The forearms were also broken indicating that Andruet had attempted to protect himself. It was determined that he had been drugged with morphine and flunitrazepam, a date rape drug. His car was found abandoned a few kilometers away. It was filled with blood stains and in the glove box was a photocopy of the check from the sale of the house. By August 25, 1995 the bank account had been emptied. Joseph Liany was found, questioned and released.
Two other suspects were also implicated. One night in December 1995, while sitting in a restaurant bar, Loïc Simon, a waiter and a close friend of Sacha Rhoul, complained that he received only 30,000 of the 50,000 francs promised by Joseph Liany to kill Andruet. Simon never went to trial because in August of 1996 he committed suicide by hanging himself. The other was Sacha Rhoul, a nephew of Liany. The case went cold until 2001 when the sheet in which the body of Andruet had been wrapped was sent to the laboratory for examination and a hair was found which was believed to belong to Joseph Liany. In the meantine, Sacha Rhoul had left France in 1997 to live in Marrakech, Morocco where he managed the Palais Rhoul, a five-star hotel that belonged to his family. In addition to his French citizenship he also held Moroccan citizenship and so was safe from extradition because there was no extradition treaty between the two countries. In Morocco he lived under his Moroccan birth name of Chahine. It wasn't until November 2003, with Sacha Rhoul safe in Morocco, that his cousin Franck and his uncle Joseph Liany were brought to trial. Each put the responsibility on the other. Despite eighteen witnesses claiming memory loss or submitting medical excuses for their absence, Franck was sentenced to seven years in prison for "receiving the proceeds of a murder" and Joseph to fifteen years for murder based on testimonies and DNA evidence from a hair found on the sheet in which Andruet's body had been wrapped. Only Joseph Liany appealed his conviction. At the second trial in March 2006, Liany's defense was based on the fact that the DNA evidence could have belonged to his nephew, Sacha Rhoul. Because their was doubt as to whom the hair belonged, he was acquitted. Sacha Rhoul was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Jean-Claude Andruet, Gilles' father, repeatedly called for the arrest and extradition of Rhoul and had been threatening to kidnap him and return him to France for trial. Finally in March of 2010, Moroccan authorities arrested Rhoul and extradited him.
He was jailed for four months and in June, 2010 was released on bond and placed under judicial supervision. At his trial, Rhoul's part in the death of Andruet could not be established with certainty because of his uncle's acquittal and the boasting of Loïc Simon that he had beaten Andruet to death. So, because there was no way of establishing what, if any, part Rhoul played in Andruet's murder, he was also acquitted.
