Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Reti Memorial, Trencianske Teplice, 1949

     Things had started to turn around in 1949. After the Depression and World War II postwar prosperity started to get underway. Auto companies began to sell cars and televisions and other goods demanded by consumers began to appear. 
     Cars and televisions got bigger and with nearly 10 million TVs in American homes, a new type of program appeared...Soap Operas, so called because soap manufacturers sponsored the shows with the idea that they would be able to reach stay at home housewives. 
1949 Cadillac



     In chess news in 1949, the first FIDE Grandmaster list appeared with and it contained 17 GMs. Claude Shannon presented a paper on programming a computer to play chess and we all know where that ultimately lead although computers and software for the public didn’t onto the market in the mid-1970s.

     In 1949, Eileen Tranmer scored a perfect 11-0 score to win the British Ladies' Chess Championship and Harry Golombek won the first British Championship to use the Swiss system. The first USSR correspondence chess championship tournament was began. It finished in 1951 and Alexander Konstantinopolsky was the winner. David Bronstein and Vasily Smyslov tied for the Soviet Championship. Nicholas Rossolimo won Hastings 1948/49. 

     In the US, Albert Sandrin won the US Open, held in Omaha. James B. Cross, Arthur Bisguier and Larry Evans tied for first in the 4th annual Junior Championship. Reuben Fine won the New York International ahead of Najdorf, Euwe and Pilnik. 
     Among the forgotten international tournaments in 1949 was a 20 player event, the Reti Memorial, held in Trencianske Teplice, a health resort and small spa town in western Slovakia. The town is renowned for its sulfur and thermal springs. 
     It was also one of Gideon Stahlberg’s great victories. At that time, according to Chessmetrics, Stahlberg was one of the top rated players in the world. The top ten players were: Botvinnik (2813), Smyslov (2756), Bronstein (2750), Kotov (2744), Najdorf (2743), Fine (2738), Doleslavaky (2728), Reshevsky (2728), Stahberg (2728) and Keres (2725). 

Final Standings: 
1) Stahlberg 14.0 
2-3) Szabo and Pachman 13.5 
4-5) Julio Bolbochan and Rossolimo 12.0 
6) Foltys 11.5 
7-8) Prins, and O'Kelly 11.0 
9) Emil Richter 10.5 
10) Kottnauer 10.0 
11) Szily 9.5 
12-13) Sefc and Golombek 9.0 
14) Ujtelky 8.0 
15-16) Erdelyi and Rohacek 7.0 
17) Ojanen 6.5 
18) Paoli 5.5 
19) Platt 5.0 
20) Wade 4.5 

No comments:

Post a Comment