Monday, February 23, 2015

A Zemgalis Gem

     I have posted on Elmars Zemgalis before HERE. Zemgalis passed away at age 91 on December 8 last year; his Seattle Times obituary is HERE.
     Zemgalis was the last of many great, but not very well-known players, whose careers were interrupted by WW2.  Fortunately for the chess world, back in 2001 John Donaldson published Elmars Zemgalis: Grandmaster Without the Title, an excellent book with vintage photos, a biography and 190 annotated and unannotated games.



In the following game he defeats Ludwig Rellstab with a sudden, whirlwind attack. Rellstab (23 November 1904, Schöneberg, Berlin – 14 February 1983, Wedel) was a German player who won the German Chess Championship in 1942 and was awarded the International Master title in 1950. Rellstab came from a distinguished family of academics and musicians. His great grandfather, also named Ludwig Rellstab, was a well-known poet and music critic. His father Ludwig M. E. Rellstab was a professor of physics and electronics, who in 1914 became chief engineer at Siemens & Halske. His sister Annekäthe was a pianist.

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