Chess in 1967

What a year that was! If you weren't around, you missed a lot. 
 
     Monte Carlo was won by Bobby Fischer ahead of Smyslov (2nd) and Geller and Larsen (=3). The rest of the field was Matanovic, Gligoric, Lombardy, Forintos, Mazzoni and Bergraser. There was also a 21 player “B” open event won by Nikola Karaklajic and Rudolf Maric. Unfortunate circumstances prevented it from being even stronger. French master Pierre Rolland died in a car accident, Klaus Viktor Darga canceled for business reasons, Florin Gheorghiu was invited but couldn't get a visa and Wolfgang Unzicker telegraphed at the last minute that he could not come. In addition, the current world champion Tigran Petrosian withdrew at the last minute. He objected to Fischer being granted an extra $2,000 appearance fee.
     Following the rebuilding of the Macedonian capital Skopje, Yugoslavia organized the first in a series of international tournaments to be held in Skopje, as well as the two nearby villages of Krusevo and Ochrid, in 1967. The first "Turnir solidarnosti" featured a field of twelve Yugoslav masters headed by Milan Matulovic. Others were Peter Dely from Hungary, Luben Popov from Bulgaria, and Bela Soos from Romania. The Soviet Union participants were Efim Geller and Ratmir Kholmov. Fischer had just recently returned to competition and Skopje would be an important stop on his road to the Sousse Interzonal.
     After nine rounds Fischer was tied tied for first with Kholmov ahead of Geller, but then Booby suddenly announced he would withdraw unless the chess sets were modified and the spectators removed from further rounds. Fischer forfeited his tenth round game, but a compromise was reached and Fischer was allowed to replay his tenth round game. He continued play and went on to score a clear first.
     The Sousse Interzonal took place from October 15 to November 16, 1967. Fischer was, again, acting like a snot face. This time it was over the tournament rules which had been bent for him and Reshevsky to meet their religious practices of not playing on Friday and play to begin after 7 pm on Saturday. They also would not play on four Jewish holidays. When Fischer threatened to withdraw over a scheduling dispute the secretary of the US Embassy in Tunis reminded him to think himself a representative of the Unites States, Fischer's reply was, “I am here as a representative of Robert Fischer!” He ended up walking out. You can read complete details in the Sports Illustrated article HERE. Bent Larsen ended up scoring a decisive victory ahead of Korchnoi, Geller and Gligoric with Portisch taking fifth place. 
     There was a three-way tie for the final spot between Reshevsky, Hort and Stein. Their playoff was held in Los Angeles that ended with all three scoring 4 points; Reshevsky had the better tie-break at the Interzonal and advanced to the Candidates matches.
     Maribor was won by Unzicker a half point ahead of Reshevsky. Palma de Mallorca was won by Larsen ahead of Botvinnik and Smyslov who were followed bt Portisch and Gligoric. Dr. Anthony Saidy took the US Open ahead of Robert Byrne with Rossolimo and Benko tying for 3rd-4th. Venice was won by Donner ahead of Larry Evans and Tigran Petrosian. Vrnjacka Banja (a Zonal tournament) was won by Ivkov ahead of Matanovic and Barczay. Canada celebrated the 100th anniversary of their Confederation and arranged a GM tournament, the first of its kind in Canada. Organizer was Abe Yanofsky who also played in the tournament. Larsen and Klaus Darga of West Germany tied for first. They were followed by Keres and Spassky who tied for 3rd-4th. Others were Benko, Gheorghiu and Szabo, Matanovic, Yanofsky with IM Shimon Kagan finishing last.
     Reggio Emilia was won by Matulovic ahead of Saidy with third place going to IM Ladislav Mista. Furman took the Rubinstein Memorial in Polanica Zdroj ahead of Wolfgang Uhlmann and Vlastimil Hort. Invov and Stein tied for first at Sarajevo while at Sochi Nikolai Krogius, Vladimir Simagin, Boris Spassky, Leonid Shamkovich and Alexander Zaitsev all tied for first. Matulovic won the Yugoslav championship. 
     The Capablanca Memorial in Havana was won by Larsen ahead of Taimanov and Smyslov. Florin Gheorghiu took first at Bucharest. The Asztalos Memorial at Salgotarjan ended in a tie between Istvan Bilek and Leonid Shamkovich. Henrique Mecking won the Brazilian championship in Sao Paulo. Ratmir Kholmov took first in Belgrade.
     The Hoogovens tournament in Beverwijk was won by Spassky and the IBM tournament in Amsterdam was won by Portisch. The Halle Zonal was a tie between Portisch and Hort. Szabo took the Hungarian championship. At Hastings Alexey Suetin, Hort, Stein and Gheorghiu all tied for first. Fischer won the US Championship.
     Lost in all this was a small tournament at Dundee, Scotland. The tournament was held in the Caird Hall. The event was marred by the withdrawal of Arturo Pomar who became ill during the tournament and had to withdraw after three rounds, so his score was canceled. Also, the legendary Paul Keres and Mikhail Botvinnik had expressed a desire to play, but due to political events going on in the Soviet Union (especially the Six Day War), they were unable to play. The tournament was controlled by Harry Golombek. Gligoric won without much difficulty. His only challenger was Olafsson, but he lost to Larsen in the last round with the result that they ended in a tie for second. Penrose was the only undefeated player, but only manged two wins, against Larsen and Wade.

1) Svetozar Gligoric 6.5
2-3) Fridrik Olafsson and Bent Larsen 5.5
4-5) Jonathan Penrose and Alberic O'Kelly de Galway 5.0
6) Cenek Kottnauer 3.0
7-8) R.G.Wade and Alexander Davie 2.0
9) Craig Pritchett 1.5

Buffalo 1894

 

    There was a lot going on in the chess world in 1894. Here are some of the highlights according to Bill Wall.
     Alfred Binet had done a series of experiments to see how well chess players played when blindfolded and reached the conclusion that masters retained information differently than amateurs. James Mason published his famous The Principles of Chess.
     Emanuel Lasker almost died of a fever and a broken blood vessel in London, but his brother, Dr. Berthold Lasker saved his life.
     Charles O. Jackson, who said he was a former President of the Indiana Chess Association, advertised that the Terra Haute Chess Club was hosting a Great Masters’ Continental Chess Congress and sent fliers to players encouraging them to send him a $25 entry fee. It was a scam and it was discovered he had run fake tournaments in the past. A women's chess club that lasted until 1949 was formed with 30 members in New York, by Eliza Foote.
     The original agreement of the world championship between Lasker and Steinitz was signed. The match was for $2,000 a side and the match began in March. Lasker won. Albert Hodges defeated Showalter 5-3 and became recognized as US champion.
     Steinitz won th New York International tournament and in December, Showalter's wife, Nellie, and Harriet Worrall played a match for the women’s championship. No one was admitted to the playing room, except the referee. Worrall won after Showalter had to quit due to illness.

     There was also an unheralded double round tournament held in Buffalo, New York in August. The players were Jackson W. Showalter, Harry N. Pillsbury, Horatio Albin and George Farnsworth. The first two players are well known and need no introduction, but the other two are lesser known.
     Adolf Albin (September 14, 1848 – February 1, 1920) was a Romanian player best known for the countergambit that bears his name and for authoring the first chess book written in Romanian. He was born in Bucharest, Romania to a wealthy family. After completing his studies in Vienna, he went back to Romania, where he ran the Frothier Printing House in Bucharest. Soon he became associated with Dr. Bethel Henry Baron von Stroussberg, working as a translator for the influential railroad tycoon who was nicknamed "The King of Railways." Stroussberg's financial bankruptcy in 1875 led to Albin's exile in Vienna once again, together with his wife and 3 children. He died at age 72 in a Vienna sanatorium.
     Albin came to chess relatively late, only learning how to play in his 20s and he did not play in international events until his 40s. Albin was famous for his originality and his eccentric and dashing, aggressive playing style. He spent a brief period in New York from 1893-1895. In a tournament in New York in 1893 Albin finished second behind Emanuel Lasker and ahead of Showalter and Pillsbury. He also played in the very strong tournaments at Hastings 1895 and Nuremberg 1896. His tournament results on the whole were spotty, but they included wins over many strong players. According to Chessmetrics his best period was in 1895 when his 2643 rating ranked him number 15 in the world.
      George Farnsworth (1851 – October 17, 1896, 45 years old) is much less well known. He is probably best known for the Farnsworth Cup given by his widow for competition in class tournaments. The American Chess Magazine called Farnsworth, “one of the most active and earnest supporters” the NY State Chess Association ever had. Farnsworth, who died prematurely of a heart condition, was rated by Chessmetrics at 2541 on the September 1895 rating list, placing him at number 39 in world. His performance rating at Buffalo was 2535.

1) Showalter 4.0-2.0
2) Pillsbury 3.5-2.5
3) Albin 2.5-3.5
4) Farnsworth 2.0-4.0

Cinnamon Chess Engine

  

   The other day I decided to download the Cinnamon engine and try it out in my Fritz 12 GUI just to see if it played a reasonable game and could it be used to practice against. It does and it can. It's rated 2031 on the CCLR 40/40 list.
     Cinnamon (formerly known as Butterfly) is a chess program for Windows, Linux, Mac OS, ARM and Android, that can be used with with Xboard, Arena, Tarrasch, Chess for Android or any UCI-compatible GUI. Cinnamon is also a javascript library to play with chessboardjs or any js GUI. It was developed by Giuseppe Cannella, an Italian software developer, software engineer with a degree in computer science from University of Palermo and computer chess programmer.
     The below game was a casual one which I played while my wife was watching the Lifetime Movie network which carries movies aimed at women; usually they end up murdering their husbands or their kids are kidnapped, or some such. As you can see, the engine actually seems like a good one to practice against because it's not so strong that you can't defeat it and at the same time if does not seem to make gross tactical errors then play like Grandmaster. In this game it made some small positional errors and only one tactical error (at move 33), so it plays very much like a reasonably strong human might.

Shortsgate – the Kovalyov Affair

 In case you haven't heard.... 

     On September 9th, at the start of the third round of the FIDE World Cup 2017 Canadian GM Anton Kovalyov showed up before the round began wearing striped shorts, the same one that he had worn while playing rounds one and two. He was asked by ECU Preisdent Zurab Azmaiparashvili to adhere to the players' contract which mentions a dress code. After that Kovalyov ended up forfeiting his game. As usual, there are two sides to the story. 



Washington Post Story
Zurab Azmaiparashvili's statement on Youtube 
Kovalyov's statement

Monday 9-21-17 Statement from Association of Chess Professionals

George Sturgis, First USCF President

Reuben Fine-George Sturgis-L. Walter Stephens in 1941

     George Sturgis (May 31, 1891, Boston, Massachusetts - December 20, 1944) was a founder of the US Chess Federation and served as its first president from its formation in 1939 until his passing in 1944. He was also president of the Massachusetts State Chess Association in 1932. The George Sturgis Memorial Trophy was donated in his honor, for the US Open from 1945-1963. He was an early promoter of scholastic chess and brought chess to the Boston City Club, a center of high society in the early to mid-1900's. Sturgis was a nephew of the Spanish philosopher George Santayana and worked as an investment broker in Boston.
     He died shortly after returning from his honeymoon on Thursday, December 20, 1944 in Boston. The previous day he had been at his desk all day, spent the evening with friends and seemed in good health when he retired for the evening, but was discovered the following morning having died of a heart attack. He was cremated at the Story Chapel, Mount Auburn Cemetary in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his ashes were sent to Gray Ledges Farm and Christian Conference Center in Grantham, New Hampshire, which was owned and operated by his widow, Carol A. Sturgis, until 1977 when the Conference Center was sold.
     It's hard to say exactly how strong Sturgis was because there was no rating system in effect at the time. As for his opponent, Dr. Bela Rosa, he won the Oklahoma championship 10 tomes between 1946 and 1963 and on the 1955 USCF rating list he was rated 2101.
     Sturgis played in four US Opens: 1940 in Dallas, Texas; 1941 in St. Louis, Missouri (This was a bad tournament. He qualified for the round-robin finals and finished dead last with a single draw and 8 losses); 1942 in Dallas, Texas and 1943 in Syracuse, New York. 
     He did better in the 1942 US Open. Due to the war and conflicting tournaments the US Open drew only 18 players that year. Herman Steiner beat Al Horowitz, Horowitz beat Abe Yanofsky, Yanofsky beat Steiner and nobody else was even close to being in contention. The only exception was when local master J.C. Thompson nicked Horowitz for a draw which resulted in Horowitz failing to tie for first with Yanofsky and Steiner.

1-2) D.A.Yanofsky and Herman Steiner 16-1
3) I.A.Horowitz 15.5-1.5
4) John C. Thompson 13-4
5) Erich W. Marchand 12-5
6-7) William H. Janes and Al Lipton 11-6
8) George Sturgis 9.5-7.5
9) Frank H McKee 8.5-8.5
10) Robert Potter 8-9
11) Ted Rozsa 6.5-10.5
12-13) Don Kilgore and Dr. Bela Rozsa 6-11 
  14) Jack Hudson 5.5-11.5
15) Lee Roy Norton 4-13
16) Keller Watson 2.5-14.5
17) James A Creighton 2-15
18) Clarence Rosenfield 0-17.  Rosenfield withdrew after 7 rounds and all of his games were counted as forfeits, including a win against Potter.

Sturgis' opponent in the following game, Bela Rozsa, was born in Hungary in 1905, was a concert pianist, composer, and professor of music theory at several southwestern United States universities, primarily the University of Tulsa (Oklahoma). A relative latecomer to chess who did not learn how to play until 1939, he progressed rapidly by winning the North Texas Championship in 1940 and twice (1942 and 1948) tying for first place in the prestigious Southwestern Open. In 1952 won the Tenth Grand National Correspondence Chess Tournament, a ten year event in which over 1,000 players competed. He passed away in 1977.

The Immortal Willi Schlage

 

    Willi Schlage (December 24, 1888 – May 5, 1940 in Berlin) was a German chess trainer who has been described as a minor master although the term seems a bit unfair. According to Chessmetrics, on the August 1923 rating list his rating of 2517 placed him at number 31 in the world. At that time he ranked ahead of guys like Frank Marshall, Georg Marco, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky and David Przepiorka. Of course, that was nowhere near as highly rated as Capablanca (2801), Alekhine (2785), Lasker (2750), Rubinstein (2712) and Bogoljubow (2693), but it was still pretty good.
     In the early 1900s he played in friendly matches that pitted Berlin against Prague and Holland, The Netherlands and Sweden.  Schlage won the Berlin City Championship in 1921 and 1926. Between 1921 and 1937 he participated in numerous tournaments held in Germany, usually finishing near the middle.
     In 1935, he became the Chief Trainer of the German Chess Federation and along with Alekhine and Bogoljubow trained the German national team for 3rd unofficial Olympiad at Munich 1936. In August 1939, he trained the best young German players. Among others there were: 15-year old Klaus Junge, 14 year old Wolfgang Unzicker and 17 year old Edith Keller.
     When Stanley Kubrick died in March of 1999 there were many articles mentioning his interest in chess and he was supposed to have been a pretty decent player in his younger days, reportedly playing for stakes in Washington Square Park in New YorkCity. He was also known to have played on his movie sets.
     But the main interest concerned his famous movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Early in the movie, a character named Dr. Smyslov who appeared briefly and later and astronaut named Frank Poole played a spacecraft's computer named HAL.
     You don't here much about Schlage any more and you are only likely to come across his name in old German books on tactics where more often than not he was on the receiving end, but for a moment he was famous because of the movie.
     Kubrick came out with his move in 1968 and 11 years later, and 38 years after Schlage's death, the African Republic of Mali issued a set of four chess stamps with the title “Grandmasters of Chess.” The four were: Janowsky (100 francs), Alekhine (140 francs), Schlage (200 francs) and Bogoljubow (300 francs). Obviously, Schlage was not a famous GM, so it's curious that he was included with the other three players. I found the stamps in an old catalog and they were selling for around $20 apiece.
     In this game from the Burger-Schutzen-Gesellschaft played in Berlin, 1928 black's 5...Ng4 is only satisfactory IF, and it's a big if, he knows theory so he can navigate his way to equality. Judging from the games in my database, a lot of players have jumped at the chance to play the move and most of them ended up losing very quickly

Final standings:
1) Nimzovich (10.0)
2) Bogoljubow 9.5
3) Tartakower 8.0
4) Johner 7.5
5) Helling 7.0
6-8) Reti, Brinckmann and Lajos Steiner 6.5
9-10) Ahues and Saemisch 6.0
11-13) Stoltz, Leonhardt and Schlage 4.5
14) Koch 4.0

Upsetting the Dragon Apple Cart With the Levenfish Variation

 

    If you ever face the Dragon Sicilian you need a way to tackle it and the Yugoslav Attack is a good method. But, the problem is a well booked up opponent won't let you open the h-file and those devastating attacks you see in the books never materialize. 
    The Levenfish Variation (6. f4) is named after Grigory Levenfish who recommended it in the 1937 Russian Chess Yearbook. Today, it's almost disappeared as black has found ways to exploit the slight weakening of control of e4 which can no longer be supported by a P.
     Nevertheless there are many traps, and if black doesn't know theory, disaster comes quickly in a variety of ways. White prepares 7.e5 attacking Black's f6-knight and it used to be that 6... Nc6 or 6... Nbd7 were considered mandatory. 
     However, it has transpired that after the frequently seen 6... Bg7, which was originally thought to be a serious mistake, black's game is quite playable. Even so, while technically sound, it almost always turns out disastrous. Black does much better not to let white play his P to e5.  For an interesting comparison of the statistics on the Levenfish go to Chesstempodotcom and Chessgamesdotcom.

John Rather

 

    His death received little attention when he died at the age of 93 on July 25, 2013 at the Heron Point retirement community in Chestertown, Maryland, where he had lived since 2004. The cause of death was complications of Alzheimer's disease. During his lifetime Rather was a highly respected chess editor, bibliophile and bookseller. He won the CCLA's Class A North American Class Championship in 1967 and the Washington DC championship in 1973.
     Rather was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 31, 1920 and attended Erasmus Hall High School, the one attended by Bobby Fischer and dozens of other well known people. Rather had learned to play chess at the age of 15 and by the time he attended college, he was proficient enough that he was able to play and defeat three of his professors in a simultaneous blindfold exhibition.

Rather in 1944

     He graduated from Amherst College in June of 1942 and joined the Army, serving for three-and-a-half years. He served as a specialist in cryptography and cryptanalysis. His first duty station was Allahabad, India, best known as the hometown of that country's emerging political leader, Jawaharlal Nehru. The four men in his group sent and received coded transmissions regarding the movements of the Air Transport Command, the American planes flying "over the hump" to and from Burma. In his free time he immersed himself in the local culture. He also contracted polio but did not suffer severely and remained in India until he was cured.
     After his release from active duty, he worked in trade magazine editing for five years which included travel magazines, Medical Economics and Chess Review before deciding he needed a change. During his time as Chess Review staff writer he ghosted material published under Samuel Reshevskys name. He moved on to a library career, but never gave up his fascination for the game and played regularly in tournaments.
     In 1951 he received a Masters in Library Science from Columbia University and was accepted into the Library of Congress Intern Program and subsequently worked as a cataloger and then as Assistant Chief of the Library's Descriptive Cataloging Division. He was heavily involved in the automation of the Library's bibliographic collections, rising to the position of Director of its Technical Processes Research Office. He retired from the Library of Congress in 1976 and devoted his energies to his first love, chess.
     He married his first wife in 1953 and had two children, Susan and Bruce. She died of cancer shortly after their 10th anniversary. He remarried in 1964. This time to a librarian with the Library of Congress. She subsequently became head of a Library of Congress division, with 700 employees, and retired in 1991. In retirement, they enjoyed traveling, particularly to Great Britain, while he devoted a lot of time participating in backgammon tournaments. After his retirement, he also became a book dealer in Kensington, Maryland, specializing in old and rare chess books which he sold to collectors and libraries all over the world. He specialized in chess, magic and mountaineering and continued this occupation into the early 2000s.
     In this game his opponent was Kenneth Clayton (born July 26, 1938). Clayton won US Amateur Championship in 1963. He attended Harvard University but did not finish. His picture was on the cover of the June, 1963 issue of Chess Life magazine. He was stationed in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and is credited by Paul Truong with teaching him chess.
     The game was played in the Washington DC Chess Divan championship for 1963‐64. The championship was won by the unheralded Bob Gauntt, who scored 7.5-2.5. Clayton and Rather both scored 7.0 with Claton getting second on tiebreaks. Most of the top players in the area, Eliot Hearst, Hans Bereliner, Herbert Avram and Larry Gilden did not compete in the event, which usually drew a strong field.

A Simple Example of an Important Strategic Principle

 

1931 US team

    The 4th Tournament of Nations (aka the Chess Olympiad) was held in Prague from the 11th to the 26th of July in 1931; there were 19 nations and 93 players participating. Originally there were 22 teams scheduled, but three withdrew.
     The players' list was impressive: Alekhine, Gruenfeld, Kashdan, Marshall, Flohr, Vidmar, Bogoljubow, Stahlberg with only Euwe, Capablanca and Nimzovich missing. Poland, the previos winner, was a favorite even though their top player, Rubinstein, was already showing signs of mental illness. Other favorites were Austria and Yugoslavia which was lead by Vidmar. The US team, lead by Kashdan, had a mix of veterans and young players and so was dangerous. Germany was another top team. The Hungarians were also expected to a strong threat, but only Lajos Steiner played well and the rest of the team did poorly.
     In the final round six top teams played with each other. Poland and the USA competed for a Championship. Poland was one point behind but their tie-break record was superior so they needed a win to retain the title. In the end, the US won. They lost 3 matches in the early stage but they were simply the strongest as a team with all of the players scoring at least 60 percent. The Great Depression produced strong US teams that dominated the Olympiads, winning gold medals in Prague 1931, Folkestone 1933, Warsaw 1935 and Stockholm 1937. At Prague the US team was I.A. Horowitz, Frank Marshall, Isaac Kashdan, Arthur Dake and Herman Steiner.
     This game by two minor masters is simple, but instructive, because it illustrates an important strategic principle that Pawns must advance on the wing where they are supported by their own Bishop. A more famous example of this is the game Reti – Gruenfeld, Semmering, 1926.       
     Dr. Karel (Carlos) Skalica was born November 1, 1896 and died at the age of 83 December 10, 1979. He was Czech master who remained in Argentina following the outbreak of World War II. At the Prague Olympiad of 1931, he won the individual gold medal on the first reserve board with a score of +9 -2 =3. His opponent was Johannes Hermanus (Joop) Addicks, a Dutch master. Addicks (January 4, 1902-1961) as a member of the famous clock-making family in Amsterdam.