Thursday, April 4, 2019

Janos Flesch

     Janos Flesch (September 30, 1933 – December 9, 1983) was a Hungarian IM with an imaginative, risky attacking style. Flesch and his wife, Ildiko Tenyei died in an automobile accident in Whitstable, England. 
     Flesch was awarded the IM title in 1963 and the Honorary GM title in 1980. He represented Hungary on the Tel-Aviv Chess Olympiad in 1964 and the 1965 European Team Chess Championship in Hamburg. In 1967 he began working as chess trainer. 
     He is best known for claiming a world record simultaneous blindfold games and many books and articles cite him as the record holder. Blindfold specialist George Kotanowski and Miguel Najdorf scoffed at Flesch’s claim because he used scoresheets as an aid in recalling the games while they never used any aids. Flesch played 52 games, winning 31, drawing 18, and losing 3. The exhibition lasted thirteen and a half hours, with three five-minute breaks. 
     You can read Flesch’s autobiography beginning on page 99 of Hearst’s book, Blindfold Chess History, on Google books HERE. The authors point out that some of what he writes is self-serving, exaggerated and false. 
     Here is a typical Flesch game that illustrates his style. It was played in the Asztalos Memorial in Hungary in 1966. 

1-2) Wolfgang Uhlmann and David Bronstein 10.5 
3) Janos Flesch 8.5 
4-6) Peter Del, Victor Ciocaltea and Istvan Bilek 8.0 
7-9) Ervin Haag, Laszlo Barczay and Lubomir Kavalek 7.5 
10) Andor Lilienthal 6.5 
11) Laszlo Navarovszky 6.0 
12-13) Enver Bukic and Levente Lengyel 5.5 
14-15) Istvan Csom and Dimitar Pelitov 3.5 
16) Enrico Paoli 2.0 

     In the game, the position after 15.Nc5 is especially instructive and is a good position to practice your visualization skills.


     If black plays: 15...b6 16.Bxc6! Bh3 17.Na6 Bxf1 18.Ba3+ Kg8 19.Kxf1 reaching the following position:

     Black’s R on a8 is trapped so if: 19...Rac8 20.Bb7 Bf8 21.Bxf8 Kxf8 22.Bxc8 Rxc8 23.Rd1 white has a won ending.  
     The position after 27.Bd6 also merits special attention if you want to try and visualize all the complications.


Edit: 8/14/19 Corrected picture. See Chess Every Day blog (in Hungarian) 

1 comment:

  1. Great article! Just wanted to let you know that the image is not of my father Janos Flesch. Here is a link to a correct image for reference: https://m.blog.hu/sa/sakkozzmindennap/janos_flesch.jpg
    Sincerely, ildiko Flesch

    ReplyDelete