Problem Composers and Article 58

     Beginning in the 1920s all areas of Soviet culture began coming under control of the government, including chess. In 1932, the creation of the Artists’ Union brought not only artists and writers under government control, but chess also. For chess, it started with Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky in 1920 and Nikolai Krylenko in 1924. Under Stalin chess continued to be a major part of the cultural struggle and in 1930 a resolution by the All-Union Chess Section of the Supreme Council for Physical Culture proclaimed that there was a necessity for “the saturation of all chess activity with political content.” What that meant was that chess for just the fun of it was not to be allowed. Consequently, in late 1930 and early 1931, the All-Union Chess Section in Moscow conducted an audit of the activities of the Leningrad chess organization which was found to be badly deficient in nearly all areas. 
     What were the problems? There wasn't any list of organized players except for 4,000 rated players and those rated players weren't taking their political duties seriously. They were neglecting propaganda and political education. Chess activity in the army and navy was being conducted poorly, activity in the trade unions was unsatisfactory, work among school children was neglected and propaganda was not being disseminated. As a result, organizers were spurred into action and Ilyin-Zhenevsky was ordered to assume control of Leningrad chess. Even the chess magazine Shakhmatyi Listok was changes to Shakhmaty v SSSR (Chess in the USSR) because it was more politically correct. 
     Krylenko proclaimed at the 1931 All-Union Chess Congress that shock brigades of chess players had to be formed and a 5-year plan was developed with the aim of organizing one million players by the end of 1933. There was to be sixty percent from the workers, nineteen percent from students in higher education, fifteen percent from the collective farmers, and the remainder from the military and police organizations. Krylenko also harangued the delegates on the political significance of their work and defended laws punishing grain theft on the collective farms and the evils of missing work in factories. 
     By the end of 1932 the All-Union Chess Section pointed out there was still a problem in that chess on the collective farms was led poorly and a goal was set that there should be 148,000 collective farmers among organized chess players. To that end, Machine Tractor Stations which ensured government control over collective farms were used as handy tools to implement chess policies. In 1936 former world champion Emmanuel Lasker, then a Soviet citizen, gave exhibitions on the farms. The activity was slowed down by the War, but by 1950 the Soviets were able to hold a massive collective farm team tournament. 
      In this whole process, Soviet chess officials had singled out problemists for attack because many of their problems had appeared in foreign magazines. In 1930 Krylenko turned savagely on the problemists and their new organization, the All-Union Association of Chess Problem and Study Lovers. His complaint was that the group was illegal because it was not affiliated with his Chess Section and the leader and well known problemist Lazar Borisovich Zalkind was arrested and accused of complicity in a Menshevik plot.
     Krylenko handled the prosecution Zalkind himself. In March 1931, Zalkind was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in the labor camps. The All-Union Association of Chess Problem and Study Lovers was disbanded and replaced by the Central Composition Committee, a part of the Chess Section. Problemists were censured for past offenses such as submitting their compositions to Western publications and they were put on notice that this practice would be severely punished. 
     Nine foreign publications were designated as acceptable, but problemists submitting works to them had to make an application through the Composition Committee and they could not deal directly with any foreign publications. 
     Problemists were also advised that bourgeois themes should be avoided in favor of revolutionary themes. What did that mean?! Simply that compositions were required to have a close relationship to practical play and they were not to be fanciful. In the problem world that meant that one-, two- and three-move compositions were out because they tended to be fanciful while long, complicated problems that required multiple variations were in favor. Problems like helpmates, self-mates and fairy chess were officially disgraced. The construction of these fanciful problems was classified as formalism. 
     In early 1936 Shakhmaty v SSSR ran an article co-authored by Botvinnik and the journal’s editor Spokoinyi announcing a crusade against formalism in composition. The article argued that compositions weren't all that important and were useful only if they helped to develop practical play. Short version: chess problems of a fanciful nature were useless and so their existence could not be justified. 
     Botvinnik claimed that a “socially useful” composition had three distinctive features. First and most importantly, it should center on a practical theme...a situation that might occur in practical play. Second, the solution should be not be obvious, but difficult to figure out. Third, the idea should be expressed artistically. In the article Botvinnik charged many Soviet composers were engaging in all manner of decadent bourgeois themes which explained why they were publishing in the West, the home of the discredited concept of art-for-art’s-sake.  The problem with many composers was that formalism had become a nasty habit that too many of them refused to renounce. But now the government's patience was exhausted and Soviet composers had better shape up. 
     The director of the composition department of the chess magazine 64, Mikhail Barulin, ridiculed Botvinnik by arguing that chess competition and chess composition were completely different things. Chess problems had a long history and had every right to be considered as separate from competitive play; it was an art form in itself. 
     The official response, again co-authored by Botvinnik and Spokoinyi, was to remind him that the practice of art for its own sake had been denounced in all areas of Soviet culture, and chess had been a leader in that movement. Therefore, Barulin was guilty of provocation and if he really believed that composition of chess problems should enjoy immunity from serving the purposes of the Soviet state, then Barulin and other like-minded composers were good for nothing. In 1937 Krylenko and the Chess Section addressed the issue. Botvinnik was correct. 
      Article 58 of the Soviet penal code was enacted against numerous problem composers. Arvid Ivanovich Kubbel (1889-1938) was a Soviet problemist with an international reputation. In 1937 he became a victim of Article 58. A specialist in self-mates and help-mates, he became increasingly frustrated with his inability to have his compositions published. In frustration, he sent his compositions directly to the German chess magazine, Die Schwalbe. He was arrested in 1937 and was sentenced to ten years at labor without right to correspondence; he died on route to a Siberian prison camp. 
     Mikhail Platov (1883-1938) was the co-author (with his brother) of a composition published in 1910 that had been published numerous times in the Soviet press prior to 1937. The problem caught the eye of Lenin when it was republished in a German paper. In letter to his brother, Lenin commented on the problem which he described as a beautiful bit of work. Lenin's praise meant nothing. Platov was arrested in October 1937, the exact charges never being made public. There was no trial and Platov was sentenced under Article 58 to ten years in a labor camp. He survived only a few months in the camp, dying in early 1938. 
     Sergei Kaminer (1908-1937) was a problemist who once defeated Botvinnik in three consecutive games. Botvinnik was thirteen and Kaminer was sixteen at the time. There were no hard feelings and the boys became good friends. Thirteen years later during Botvinnik’s 1937 match with Levenfish in Moscow, a distraught Kaminer, by then a well-known problemist who specialized in helpmates, was afraid he was about to be arrested visited Botvinnik in his hotel room. He handed Botvinnik notebooks full of finished and unfinished compositions. Of course, Botvinnik balked at taking them, but Kaminer insisted because he was fearful that the notebooks, his life’s work, would be lost. Kaminer was indeed arrested a few days later and subsequently disappeared into the gulag. His notebooks? Botvinnik claimed he sent them Kaminer’s relatives, but somehow the books disappeared forever. 
     Pavel Neunyvako (1897-1940) was a hero of the Soviet Civil War who had learned to play chess while in the Red Army, but he was attracted composition and published a number of his studies in the 1920s, while rising in the Ukrainian Party organization. He became chairman of the All-Ukrainian Chess Section in 1933 and when the controversies over composition arose, he used his position to defend Ukrainian problemists. It got him arrested in 1938 and exiled to Alma-Ata, where he continued to compose. He was rearrested and shot in 1940. 
     What happened to Mikhail Barulin after he challenged Botvinnik? Nothing immediately and his home was a meeting place for problem composers.  According to Barulin’s daughter, one of the members was arrested in early 1941 and he reportedly told his interrogators that the circle was often the occasion for anti-Soviet jokes. One by one the members were arrested. Barulin was finally arrested in November 1941 and refused to sign a confession or denounce other problemists. He died in prison in 1943. 
     That rat Botvinnik never disavowed the 1936 article that began the purge of the problem composers, not even later when it would have been safe to do so. Instead, Botvinnik justified himself, claiming that he was only responsible for the parts dealing specifically with chess while his co-author had written the political stuff. As late as 1986 Botvinnik claimed the article’s criticism about chess problems seemed quite principled and reasonable. 
     Below is a problem by Arvid Kubbel published in Sovremenoye Slovo in 1917. 
 

The Time Norman T. Whitaker Beat Two Dead Horses

     If you ever read Arnold Denker's delightful The Bobby Fischer I Knew, you read about a few of the scams Whitaker pulled off and probably wondered how people could be so gullible. A smooth talker, he even scammed me once. Often guys like Whitaker are successful with their scams because they appeal to people's greed. In my case it was the promise of becoming a Master. But, how in the 1921 Western Open he managed to convince his opponent, the tournament officials and ten other players to let him replay a lost game is beyond belief. 
     In 1939, the USCF was created through the merger of the American Chess Federation and National Chess Federation. The American Chess Federation, formerly the Western Chess Association, had held an annual open championship since 1900 and after the merger that tournament became the US Open. 
     In 1921 the Western Chess Association held its tournament at the City Club of Cleveland at the Hotel Hollenden in Cleveland, Ohio. The Hollenden Hotel was a luxury hotel in downtown Cleveland that opened in 1885, was significantly upgraded in 1926 and demolished in 1962. During the hotel's existence, it contained 1,000 rooms, 100 private baths, a lavish interior, electric lights and fireproof construction. As Cleveland's most glamorous hotel of the time, it hosted industrialists, celebrities and politicians, including five US Presidents. 
     Edward Lasker, from Chicago, annexed the title for the fifth time. The Association's meeting and tournament was held in October and Lasker, who had been elected president of the Association the previous year, had returned from spending most of the summer in Europe only two weeks earlier. 
     The referee and tournament director was Charles E. Shive, a representative of the City Club and publisher of the Cleveland Chess Bulletin. There were 12 entries and it was determined that with Sunday as a rest day, they could squeeze in the 11 rounds. The players agreed to a time limit of 20 moves per hour with playing sessions from 9:00am to 1:00pm and 2:30pm to 6:30pm. On Tuesday and Friday there would only be the morning session.
     The games were played in a suite of rooms except for the first three days which were played in the City Club's lounge. During those three days play didn't start until 4:00pm. The reason they started late those first three days was because there was a special telegraph set up in the Club's lounge that brought news of baseball's World Series being played at the Polo Grounds in New York City. 
     The much-anticipated 1921 World Series featured John McGraw's New York Giants and the New York Yankees who were appearing in their first World Series. The Yankees were relying on Babe Ruth, who was coming off what was his best year ever statistically. But, because of an infected arm and a bad knee (which he wrenched in Game 5), Ruth played only part-time in the series and did not start the final game. 
     Facing elimination, Yankee manager Miller Huggins sent Ruth up as a pinch hitter for first baseman Wally Pipp in the bottom of the ninth. Nursing both elbow and knee injuries, Ruth had sat out this game and missed all of Games 6 and 7. The bases were empty and the Yankees still trailed by the lone run of the game scored by the Giants in the top of the first. A home run would tie the game and a hit or a walk would give the Yankees a chance. Ruth grounded out and shortly afterwards infielder Aaron Ward would make the final out of the Series, giving the Giants their first world championship since 1905. 
     Following the Series, Ruth and another player did some postseason barnstorming which was against the rules for Series participants at that time. Both were suspended for a number of games at the start of the 1922 season. Ruth filed a personal appeal with Commissioner Landis, who upheld their suspensions but agreed to rescind the rule to be effective the end of that season.

The final standing were: 
1) Edward Lasker (Chicago) 9.5 
2) Samuel Factor (Chicago) 9.0 
3) Harold Hahlbohm (Chicago) 8.5 
4) Norman T. Whitaker (Washington DC) 8.0 
5) Leon Stozenberg (Detroit) 7.5 
6) J.T. Beckner ( Winchester, Kentucky) 6.0 
7) W.L. Moorman (Lynchburg, Virginia) 4.0 
8-9) H. Hoffman and S.H. Shapiro (both of Cleveland) 3.5 
10-11) B.A. Czaikowski (Chicago) and Dr. Eliot E. Sterns (Cleveland) 2.5 
12) J.H. Norris (Hoopeston, Illimois) 1.5 
Shapiro forfeited his game against Beckner when he arrived late because of a misunderstanding on the starting time. 

     Lasker was undefeated and drew with Factor, Hahlbohm and Beckner. Factor lost only one game, to Whitaker, and drew with Lasker and Stolzenberg. Factor (1883-1949) was born in Lodz, Poland and after a number of success in Europe, which included a drawn mini-match with Richard Reti (+1 –1 =0), moved to the US in 1920 or 1921. This tournament was only his second since arriving in the US. He was the nephew of Max Factor, founder of the cosmetics giant Max Factor and Company. 
     Harold Halbohm was always a dangerous player, but in this tournament he found the time limit too fast and was in time trouble in several games. He drew Lasker, lost to Factor and Beckner and won the rest. 
     Norman T. Whitaker (1890-1975) was awarded the IM title in 1965 (after ten years of hounding authorities) based on his results decades earlier. At the time of this event he was already an established thief, con man and pedophile. He lost two games, to Lasker and Hahlbohm. His game against the latter was an exciting affair and involved an incident that was nothing short of astonishing. 
     Leon Stolzenberg (1895-1974) had been a medic in the hospital at Tarnopol in World War I. In the summer of 1916 Alekhine served in the Red Cross on the Austrian front and in September of that year he played five people in a blindfold display at a Russian military hospital at Tarnopol. That's where he allegedly played a famous blindfold game against an “M. Feldt.” Some historians have disputed this, claiming the game was actually against a Dr. Fischer. After moving to the US after the war, Stolzenberg became one of the leading national and international correspondence players. He won the Michigan state championship several times and won the US Open (at the time the Western Chess Association Tournament) in 1926 and 1928. This was his first tournament since moving to the US. He lost to Lasker, Hahlbohm and Whitaker, drew with Factor and defeated the others. 
     The time limit was found to be a bit too fast for some of the players and in the second round against Whitaker, Hahlbohm barely made the time limit, but Whitaker, who had lost to Lasker in the first round, didn't think so and tried to claim the win, but his claim was disallowed and he ended up losing the game. 
     Undismayed, Whitaker somehow managed to convince Hahlbohm that they should replay the game from move 21. The officials left the decision up to the other players who unanimously consented. And so the game was replayed and Hahlbohm again managed to win the complicated position. This time Whitaker manned-up and admitted he had been fairly beaten. In view of the fact that he lost his first two games, his final finish was impressive. 
     There was also a minor tournament with eight entries that was won by Dr. Joseph Furtos of Akron, Ohio with a perfect 7-0 score. Other players were the 80-year old George McClure of Youngstown, Ohio and Clevelanders A. Cohen, Lewis Garvin, J.S. Hosterman, Manuel Levine, A.S. Loeb and C.S. Williams. 
     It was shortly after the start of this tournament that Celia Niemark, the 17-year old daughter of a farmer in West Austintown near Youngstown, gave an abbreviated simultaneous exhibition against six opponents that was witnessed by most of the participants. 
     Here is the odd second round game, or should I say games, between Whitaker and Hahlbohm.
 

Did Chess Player William Wallace Murder His Wife?

Wallace being arrested

     The case of William Wallace has long been the subject of speculation and has generated many books, being regarded as a classic murder mystery and the case may never be solved.
     William Herbert Wallace (August 29, 1878 – February 26, 1933) was convicted in 1931 of the murder of his wife Julia in their home in Liverpool's Anfield district. His conviction was later overturned by the Court Of Criminal Appeal, the first instance in British legal history where an appeal had been allowed after re-examination of evidence. 
     Wallace worked for a large insurance company and was a good chess player who was active in various chess events. On the evening of Monday January 19, 1931 he went to a meeting of the Liverpool Central Chess Club to play a scheduled game. While there he was handed a message which had been received by phone at the club about 25 minutes before he arrived. The message requested that the next night, at exactly 7.30pm, he was to arrive at the given address to discuss insurance with a man who had given his name as “R.M. Qualtrough”. 

Julia Wallace

     The next night Wallace made his way by tram to the address located in Menlove Gardens East in the south of the city, intending to be on time for the requested meeting. After he arrived he discovered that there were Menlove Gardens North, South and West, but no East. Wallace made inquiries and spoke to a policeman, but no one was able to help him locate the address or knew of a Mr. Qualtrough. Whenever he inquired about directions witnesses claimed Wallace had made a big show of mentioning what time he was due to meet Mr. Qualtrough. Was it an attempt to make sure he had a watertight alibi, or was he simply flustered at not being able to keep his appointment on time? 
     After searching for about 45 minutes he returned home where his next door neighbors, who were going out for the evening, ran into Wallace in the alley; Wallace complained that he couldn't get into his home at either the front or the back. While they watched, Wallace tried the back door again, which now opened. Inside he found his wife Julia had been brutally beaten to death in their sitting room. There was blood all over the parlor, pools on the carpet and splashed on the walls and pictures. After discovering his wife's body, Wallace stepped outside and told the waiting neighbors, "Oh come and see, she's been killed. He also told them, "They've finished her, look at her brains." 
     Back in the kitchen, Wallace noticed the locked cupboard where he kept his insurance collection money had been forced open and the four pounds had been stolen. The house had not been ransacked and nothing else had been taken, including the money from Julia's handbag which was on the kitchen table. Was this a robbery that had turned to murder? 
     At this point the neighbor, Mr. Johnson, took charge and ordered his wife and Wallace to stay in the house and not to touch anything while he summoned the police and a doctor. The first police on the scene made a cursory search and it looked like someone had rifled around in the bedroom, but the rest of the house appeared undisturbed. 
     When John MacFall, a lecturer of Forensic Medicine at Liverpool University, was called in as the police's forensics expert, he determined, based on the stiffness of the body, that Julia had died at about45 minutes before Wallace returned home. Even in 1931 using rigor mortis alone to determine how long someone had been dead was out of date and MacFall would later change his mind on the time of death despite no other tests been conducted. 
     A more thorough search of the house, yard and surrounding area uncovered no trace of a murder weapon. The Wallace's cleaning lady told police that a fire poker and an iron bar from the parlor were missing. Were they the murder weapons? 
     Wallace, a cold, aloof man, and his wife were described as a strange couple; he was frequently ill with kidney problems and she was described as “fastidious and peculiar.” Their marriage was described as strained and lacking in feeling. 
     Police were suspicious about how Wallace claimed he couldn't get into his house, but had suddenly been able to do so when he neighbors appeared. They quickly established that the telephone booth used by “Qualtrough” to make the call to the chess club was situated just 400 yards from Wallace’s home. They also confirmed that the person in the club who took the call was quite certain it was not Wallace's voice on the phone. Nevertheless, the Police began to suspect that “Qualtrough” was in fact Wallace, or possibly someone he had paid to make the call. 
     They quickly became convinced that it would have been possible for Wallace to murder his wife and still have time to arrive and board his tram for his 7.30pm meeting. However, one witness, a milk delivery boy, claimed he had seen Julia Wallace alive minutes before her husband left to catch the tram. The police were convinced that the murder could have taken place in just minutes and they attempted to prove it by having a fit young detective go through the motions of the murder and then run all the way to the tram stop...something an ailing 52-year-old Wallace probably could not have accomplished. 
     As mentioned, the forensic expert had originally put the death at around 8 pm, but later changed it to just after 6.30 pm, although there was no evidence to prove it. Did he do it to conform to the police theory? 
     Examination of the crime scene had revealed that Julia Wallace’s attacker was likely to have been heavily covered in her blood, based on the brutal nature of the crime. Wallace’s suit, which he had been wearing on the night of the murder, was examined but no trace of blood was found and it determined that Wallace had little or no time to clean up and change clothes. The Police then theorized that a full length raincoat belonging to Mr. Wallace, which was inexplicably found under her body, had been used by a naked Wallace to shield himself from blood spatter. Examination of the bath and drains revealed that they had not been recently used and there was no trace of blood there either, apart from a single tiny clot in the toilet, the origin of which could not be established. 
     Nevertheless, Wallace was arrested and charged with his wife’s murder. Wallace strongly and consistently denied having anything to do with the crime. The evidence against him was purely circumstantial yet he was found guilty after only an hour’s deliberation and sentenced to hang. 
     In an unprecedented move in the UK at that time, the Court of Criminal Appeal reversed the verdict on the grounds that it was not supported by the evidence and Wallace was freed.
     After his release, Wallace returned to his job in insurance but public opinion was of the view that he had been guilty and had gotten away with it. As a result, many of his previous customers shunned him and he was subject to hate mail and threats. In the end, he had to move and take a clerical job at his employer’s head office. While still employed by the insurance company he died of uremia, an elevated level of waste compounds that are normally eliminated by the kidneys and pyelonephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys and renal pelvis caused by bacterial infection. No other person was ever charged with the murder and the case remains officially unsolved. 
     Since then, many new theories have developed. It has been suggested that Wallace was involved in the discovery of an insurance fraud cover up which implicated some of his coworkers. This led to Richard Parry, a 22-year-old insurance clerk who was also a suspect in the original inquiry. The theory is that he made a prank call to Wallace, sending him on a wild goose chase in retaliation against Wallace who had caught him tinkering with the books at the insurance company and resulted in his getting fired. If it was a prank call then this would lead to the conclusion that Wallace's wild goose chase was not for the purpose of establishing an alibi and Mrs. Wallace was murdered by a person unknown. 
     It has also been speculated that Wallace knew he didn’t have long to live and didn’t want to spend his last years with his wife and so persuaded someone to make that phone call which provided him with an alibi. He then blackmailed a man named Marsden to do the actual murder. You see, Marsden was about to marry into money and a very well-connected family and Wallace knew his wife had been paying Marsden for sex and used that blackmail him. Marsden’s name, despite being mentioned in a statement given to the police by Wallace, had been eliminated as a suspect in the original investigation. 
     No weapon, no suspects, no witnesses and the body found in a locked house; whoever had killed Julia appears to have pulled off the perfect crime.

Tacking Strategy

     My guess is that unless they are familiar with the writings of Nimzovich most players have never heard of “tacking strategy” even though we see it all the time. In sailing “tacking” is steering a vessel with frequent changes of direction to sail into the wind. 
     Tacking is a term that was popularized by Nimzovich. He described it as playing against an enemy weakness, such as a weak Pawn, where it is attacked in two ways which forces the opponent to place his pieces in an unfavorable position. Then the weakness can be exploited.
     In Chess: An Encyclopedic Dictionary the following definition is given: Tacking is a strategic device which involves maneuvering the pieces with the aim of creating and utilizing weaknesses in the opponent's camp. 
     Writing in Modern Chess Strategy Ludek Pachman thought the definition should include every positional maneuver in which the enemy position is alternately subjected to various tactical threats. 
     Whatever definition you choose, we most often see tacking employed where, for example, one side attacks on the K-side and forces his opponent's pieces into unfavorable positions and then decides the game in a breakthrough in the center or on the Q-side. 
     Nimzovich's My System was originally a series of five brochures from 1925 to 1927. The book itself was first published by G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. in 1929, but the term tacking was in use before that. For example, in a game from the 1908 British Championship Gunsberg described white's strategy as tacking in one game I saw, so the term actually pre-dates Nimzovich. 
     Even though the following game has been used as an example of the tacking maneuver, like many pre-engine game annotations, there is a fly in the ointment. White really didn't need to resort to it because he could have continued his direct K-side attack, but it would have involved calculating some heavy tactics that the pre-engine masters simply missed. But, the point is that the game illustrates an IDEA that we need to be aware of. 
 

An Interview With Reuben Fine

     Reuben Fine (1914-1993) was an interesting fellow. He grew up in the East Bronx during the Depression and his father deserted the family when Reuben was two years old.  Raised by his mother, his early life was marked by great poverty which he overcame and went on to have two distinguished careers; one as a psychoanalyst and the other as a chess player. 
     Fine was a formidable player with a solid and sound style that had been compared to Maroczy, Euwe or Karpov. Arnold Denker even went so far as to compare Fine's play to that of Fischer.  Fine's play was rarely flashy and he was always prepared to make a passive, unspectacular move just to bide his time. He was always confident that an opportunity to gain the advantage would inevitably arise because he always thought he was the better player. 
     In his notes to one game Fine described his approach: My chief objective was always precision, wherever that would take me. When he needed to win, he didn’t take risks in order to avoid the draw and seek critical positions. Instead he simply intensified the accuracy of his positional play – and scored win after win with surprising persistence. 
     Fine’s style of play won't appeal very much to most players because his games often appear to be dry. But, in reality they often contain many subtle and fine points that make them a model for positional play. And, it was his positional understanding and technical ability that accounted for many of his victories. Fine was an all-around player as demonstrated by the many books he wrote on all aspects of the game: openings, the middlegame and endings. 
     His Basic Chess Endings is, even now, probably the best single-volume work on the endgame in the English language. Considering the fact that Fine put the original book together in about six months in the pre-computer age, it was a remarkable achievement. I would like to see a modern day Grandmaster accomplish the same feat without a computer to store, catalog and analyze the material! Obviously, over the years errors have been discovered, but even the task of revising the book, which endgame expert GM Pal Benko has done, has not succeeded in correcting all the known errors...that's how monumental the task is and it shows how great a player Fine was that he was even able to accomplish what he did.

Youtube has an interesting rare Fine interview for television HERE.

Fischer at Bled 1959

     The 1959 Candidates Tournament for the selection of the next challenger to Botvinnik was hosted by three cities in Yugoslavia: the first 14 rounds were played in Bled, rounds 15-21 in Zagreb, and rounds 22-28 in Belgrade. The tournament was held from September 7, 1959 through October 31, 1959 with the support of dictator Marshal Josip Tito. 
     Tito (May 7, 1892-May 4, 1980) was a revolutionary and dictator, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death. His presidency was criticized as authoritarian and questions regarding the repression of political opponents were raised, but some historians consider him a benevolent dictator. He was a popular public figure in Yugoslavia and his internal policies maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He was also an avid chess amateur. 
     Thus exciting tournament had eight of the biggest names in chess participating. It consisted of 28 rounds with each competitor facing the others four times. It was the tournament that catapulted Tahl on his road to become the youngest-ever world chess champion. 
     According to Chessmetrics, in June, 1959 just before the start of this tournament the highest rated players in the world were: 1) Tahl 2782, 2) Botvinnik 2755, 3) Smyslov 2752, 4) Petrosian, 5) Keres 2745, 6) Gligoric 2738, 7) Taimanov 2726, 8) Spassky 2725, 9) Geller 2722 and 10) Korchnoi 2721. Fischer was ranked number 14 at 2701 and Olafsson was in the 21st spot at 2701. Benko was number 24 at 2660. 
     Each player had at least one second and Fischer’s was Bent Larsen who was paid $700, or about $6,000 today. They didn't get along particularly well. Larsen reportedly told Fischer that most people thought Fischer was unpleasant to play against, walked funny and was ugly. Fischer didn't think Larsen was joking and the insults hurt. Fischer called Larsen “sulky and unhelpful.” 
     Tahl’s seconds were Yuri Averbakh and Alexander Koblentz. Keres’s was Vladas Mikenas. Petrosian’s was Isaac Boleslavsky. Smyslov’s was Igor Bonderevsky. Gligoric’s second was Alelsandar Matanovic. Olafsson’s were Klaus Darga and Ingi Johannsson. Benko’s was Rudolf Maric. 
     In those days it was common for the players to wear suits and ties, but not Fischer who had dropped out of high school to play.  He played in his customary garb for those days, a sweater and wrinkled pants. Fischer lost his travelers checks and was short on money during the entire tournament. 
     Tahl was recovering from an appendectomy that had been performed less than two weeks before the tournament. Tahl recounted that he was not much troubled by the effects apart from the fact that during a game he didn't feel inclined to walk around. However, during round 5 Harry Golombek wrote that it was an “impressive sight” to see Tahl get up after he made what he thought was a winning move and pace around “like a man-eating tiger." Fischer also complained that whenever Tahl got up to walk around he'd begin talking to the other Soviet players and they enjoyed whispering about the games in progress. Fischer made the observation to Golombek, who had remarked about how many Caro Kanns the Soviets had been playing, that "they are all just chicken; they just don't want to face Bc4 against the Sicilian.  
     Benko, living in the US but not yet a citizen, qualified as a Hungarian  but was playing stateless. His play was hampered by the fact that he had been working long hours at a US brokerage firm and said he didn't prepare at all.

     The biggest surprise was the lackluster play of ex-World Champion Smyslov, causing Golombek to remark that Smyslov seemed to be struggling, not only against his opponent, but against himself. 
     With one round to go, Tahl only needed a half point against Benko to win the tournament. Benko, as a joke, showed up wearing dark sunglasses to avoid the famous hypnotic Tahl stare. Tahl forced an early draw and earned the right to face Botvinnik in 1960. 

1) Tahl 20.0
2) Keres 18.5 
3) Petrosian 15.5 
4) Smyslov 15.0 
5-6) Fischer and Gligoric 12.5 
7) Olafsson 10.0 
8) Benko 8.0
 

Eliot S. Hearst

Hearst in 1962

     Hearst (born July 7, 1932) is a psychologist with a Ph. D. from Columbia University and a USCF Senior Master. In the 1960s he wrote a very popular Chess Life column titled Chess Kaleidoscope in which he covered a wide variety of subjects. 
     Hearst won the New York State Championship in 1950 and went on to become one of the best players in the US in the 50s and was participant in the US Championship tournaments in 1954 and 1961. 
     His 1977 contribution Man and machine: Chess achievements and chess thinking in Peter W. Frey's Chess Skill in Man and Machine evaluates the status of computer chess at that time from the perspective of someone very knowledgeable with the game. 
     His book, along with co-author John Knott on blindfold chess was the winner of the Fred Cramer Award for the Best Chess Book of 2009. 
     Hearst's first appearance in the US Championship was is 1954. The USCF planned a "candidates tournament" for Philadelphia that was open to anyone with an Expert (2000 Elo) rating and who was willing to part with the entry fee of $25. That's the equivalent of about $225 these days. The whole idea was unpopular, but that meant little to the USCF.
     Because there was 23 players the event had to be a Swiss and worst of all according to the players, the first prize was only $250. That was offset by the fact that for those who did play in Philadelphia there were six places in the 1954 championship up for grabs. The main player showing up was Arthur Bisguier who was 23 years old and just out of the Army. Bisguier had been an up-and-comer a few years before when he won the 1950 U.S. Open and his first international tournament, at Southsea, England. 
     As things turned out, USCF didn't have the money to hold the championship tournament! As a last resort the Marshall Chess Club offered its rooms to the 14 players. Bisguier, who attended college classes during the day, ended up sleeping at night in one of the Marshall's upstairs apartments. 
     Rating-wise the tournament wasn't particularly strong. Bisguier was eighth on latest rating list and Evans, the defending champion, was only tenth. The top five top rated players, Reshevsky, Robert Byrne, Kramer, Donald Byrne and Denker declined their invitations. Still, recent French emigre GM Nicolas Rossolimo, Manhattan Chess Club champion Max Pavey and the Marshall Chess Club junior star, 20-year-old James T. Sherwin, ranked only 24th in the country, plus members of the old guard, Sidney Bernstein and Herbert Seidman, could hardly be considered weak. Bisguier won undefeated. Evans finished a point back, losing only one game...to Hearst who scored +5 -6 =2 to finish in tenth place. 
     Hearst's next US Championship was in 1961 and even without Fischer and Reshevsky it was a strong one. The favorites were Evans and the most recent US Open winners, Robert Byrne (winner in 1960) and Pal Benko (1961). The remaining field had a few players who had been largely inactive. For example, Hearst, who hadn't played since 1954 because of school work, Geroge Kramer and Donald Byrne, whose recent absences from the championship were no doubt due to his declining health. By this time Evans was approaching 30 and claimed he was playing chess "for the spirit of competition…And sometimes because I run short of cash." When it was all over Evens finished an undefeated first and Robert Byrne, also undefeated, was a half point back. Hearst finished in 7th place with a score of +2 -2 =7. 
     Although Hearst is a Life Member of the USCF their web site lists him as a National Master, but he is listed as unrated with the comment, "This member is not present in the Rating Supplements since January 1, 1991,"

Sadly, Hearst passed away January 30, 2018 in Tucson, Arizona. Obituary