A Double Bishop Sacrifice by Tarrasch

     I guess just about everybody has seen Lasker's famous double B sacrifice against Bauer at some point, but here's another one played by Tarrasch.
     The combination here is what Euwe called a break-up combination meaning it breaks up the opponent's King's position and the main line leads to mate. Euwe points out that before playing such a combination one must compare the relative value of the material that is available both before and after. You need to make sure that the remaining material (and/or position) is favorable!
     Euwe gives some guidelines to take into consideration before embarking on a double B sacrifice:
1-One R must be immediately available
2-The enemy must not have a defensive resource
3-The K can't escape via the Bishop's file
4-Refusal of the second B sacrifice must have serious consequences
5-If the combination does not lead to mate then the material situation must be favorable.

Once you have determined all five criteria are met, then the sacrifice of both B's is sound and it's safe to embark upon it. Simple! The route most of us would take is even more simple...just play the sacrifice (assuming we even saw the possibility) and hope for the best...after all, "they" say chess is 99 percent tactics.

Wesley So Followup

See the Star Tribune article HERE. It appears So has had family troubles, including a couple of incidents during the tournament. It's alleged that So’s former chess coach at Webster University, Susan Polgar's husband Paul Troung, who was angry over losing So on his team had a hand it it. Funny...the name Truong pops up again and it involves another unsavory incident.

For more incidents involving rule violations and arbiter decisions, etc. check out Chess News.

The Wesley So Affair

 

    By now I reckon everyone is aware that Wesley So was forfeited after 6 moves in his game against Varuzhan Akobian after Akobian approached chief arbiter Tony Rich and complained that So was writing something down on a piece of paper underneath his scoresheet.
     Earlier in the tournament Rich had twice warned So about his habit of writing notes to himself even though they were not in any way "analysis." The second time So was warned that what he was doing was illegal and he was also warned that the next time he would be forfeited. Apparently So didn't believe they would do that to him, but they did. Even then he got a break...they did not have to warn him; he could have been forfeited the first time.
     I think it's a stupid rule that says you can't write down your move before you play it. The rule was put into place some years back because some whinning ninny claimed it constituted consulting notes which is, and always has been, illegal. 
     I can remember players writing down their next move then covering it with a pen so their opponent couldn't get a peek at it and then continuing to think. Sometimes they would changed their minds, cross out the move and make another one. Nobody thought anything about it. But note taking is wrong. I never saw anybody writing down variations though. 
     Apparently So wasn't writing anything that directly related to the game; supposedly he was writing himself encouraging notes and advice on a piece of paper under his scoresheet. Sounds innocent, but the fact remains it's against the rules and if you want to play in a tournament, especially one as big as the US Championship, you MUST obey the rules.
     Aside from that, So was wrong on another count...the rule that forbides you from annoying your opponent. I've been involved in a couple of those. Once the State Champion got irked and had some harsh words (actually he used some curse words) for me because while sitting at the board I was rocking back and forth and it disturbed him. I quit rocking. Another time my opponent kept grabbing the piece he wanted to move and "trying it out" by placing it on different squares without letting go just to see how it looked. When I politely asked him to stop, he ignored me. When I complained to the TD he told me that as long as the guy moves the piece he touched he wasn't doing anything illegal. Fortunately I was able to invoke the rule about annoying your opponent and he was forced to stop making trial moves.
     That's the second point. So was annoying Akobian by making notes. Akobian told the arbiter it annoyed him and I can understand that...it's a distraction. One site mentioned the fact that So was shocked because he apparently believed it was OK to take notes as long as they were not written on the scoresheet. I don't believe it. I think So knew he was not supposed to be taking notes or writing on anything. Really...what is the difference between writing notes on your scoresheet or another piece of paper?
     Apparently this is not the first time So has done this because one player said So had done it against him at the Millionaire Open. Akobian said he felt sorry for So (yeah, right!), but "this might be a good lesson for him. I've never seen anybody [making notes] like that before." I don't feel too bad for So myself. He knew the rules and was warned twice, but chose to ignore the warning and keep violating the rule. What else could he expect?!

DroidFish

 

    As noted below I have Aart Bik's chess app and it's good for playing blitz, but after some research I downloaded DroidFish to use for those times I want to do some serious analysis.
     DroidFish has to be one of the strongest free chess programs available because it uses the Stockfish 6 engine. You can adjust SF's playing strength from 0 to 100% but I have no idea what its estimated playing strength might be if it's set to, say, 50 per cent. You will just have to experiment.
     DroidFish allows you to do the usual stuff you find in other full-fleged chess programs: show thinking lines, adjust thinking time, enable a time increment added after each move, display book hints, adjust pieces, square colors and font sizes, save games into pgn files and include comments. You can also load previously saved games.
     DroidFish has an opening book, but it can also can use external opening books which can be stored in the internal memory as well as on a card. Position set up is also available just in case you want to analyze a particular position.

Complete Features List:
- Opening books: Internal, polyglot, CTG
- Clocks
- Analyze mode
- Two player mode
- Edit board
- PGN import/export/edit
- FEN/EPD import
- Adjustable playing strength
- One Touch Moves
- Blindfold mode
- Color themes
- Animated moves
- Scid DB support using "Scid on the go"
- Highly configurable
- Third party UCI engines
- Configurable UCI engine options
- Support for "open exchange" engine apps, such as texel and komodo 8.
- Gaviota endgame tablebases
- Syzygy endgame tablebases
- Free, GPLv3

It does lack a few important features like the ability to use multiple engines for analysis and automatic annotation, but for a free Android app, it looks to be the best available.

Aart Bik's Android Chess Program

I recently purchased a Lenovo Android Table and immediately added a chess program to it. I didn't put any research into the available programs and just downloaded the first free program I found. It's by Aart Bik and it does what I want it to do...it plays a decent game using the default engine without being unbeatable, so it's good for playing a quick blitz game during idle moments. I'm not sure what the rating is supposed to be, but I seem to remember  reading that it's around 2100 which looks about right because it frequently misses tactics for both sides and like the earlier engines, it likes grabbing material. Here's an interesting position at 10 seconds per move from a game where, playing white, I made what turned out to be an unsound sacrifice of a N on b5 for two P's in a Sicilian Defense. Instead of capturing the dangerous B with 24...Nxc5 which would have left it with a slight advantage it has just grabbed a P with 24...Qc2xb2??.

     White has only ONE move that doesn't lose and that's 25.Bd6 which according to Komodo would have left me with a 1-1/3 Pawn advantage after 25...Rb6 and 26.Qa8+
     What I actually played looked more dangerous to black: 25.Rfe1 which rated "??" from Komodo. Still failing to realize the B had to be eliminated with 25...Nxc5 yielding near equality, the engine played 25...g5 which also rated "??" from Komodo.
     After 26.Qa8+ (26.Bd6 was a little better) white's advantage was almost 4 Pawns and I won without difficulty and neither side was awarded any more question marks by Komodo.
     Of course playing against me isn't a very good indication of how good the engine really is so I pitted it against Komodo 8 (using a single core) at 10 seconds a move and the result was a total disaster for the app. It may play considerably better with more thinking time, but at 10 seconds per move it's good for those moments when you want a quick game and actually have some chance of winning. If you don't like getting crushed by really strong engines then this app looks to be OK because it gives you a chance to win without it playing GM moves then tossing away a piece before switching back to GM mode! 

Meyer's Defense Against the English Opening

     For those who like radical openings, check out Hugh Meyer's 1.c4 g5; it is worth looking at. It can't be too good but white's advantage is not overwhelming.
     Myers was a connoisseur of obscure openings and he made an extensive study of this defense. 2.d4 Bg7 is the unsound Myers Gambit and is not based on a sound foundation. It weakens the K-side and gives up a P for no real reason. When you play a gambit, or any sacrifice for that matter, you want to get some kind of compensation for the sacrificed material. 
     2.d4 h6 has been referred to as a reverse Macho Grob. After 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 white has a dominating position.
  

Barcza

   Here's a game between Barcza and van Geet to get you started. Gedeon Barcza (August 21, 1911 in Kisújszállás – February 27, 1986 in Budapest) was a Hungarian Grandmaster. In addition to many successes in international tournaments, Barcza won the Hungarian Chess Championship eight times (1942, 1943, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1955, 1957, and 1958) and played for Hungarian team in seven Chess Olympiads (1952, 1954, 1956,1958, 1960, 1962, and 1968). He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1954.

van Geet

     Dirk Daniel van Geet of The Netherlands was born in 1932, was an IM and a correspondence GM. He was was among the best Dutch correspondence players as well as a strong over the board player. He was awarded the correspondence GM title in 1990. One of his best results was winning the 40 Jahre BDF tournament (1986-1992), ahead of English GM Simon Webb and Dutch GM and later World Champion Gert Jan Timmerman. In over the board play, van Geet became Dutch youth champion in 1952. One of his best achievements was winning the 1965 Master group of the Hoogovens tournament. This also earned him the IM title.
     However, he is probably best is known for the opening 1.Nc3 that was named after him. Well known for his unconventional opening play, after defeating GM Arthur Bisguier over the board in 1961 with his trademark opening he said in a Dutch newspaper interview: “I employ guerilla tactics. I know little chess theory. If I want to be successful I have to systematically try to get my opponent out of his preparation. An unexpected and unusual move sometimes does magic.” He also successfully employed his opening in correspondence play defeating Danish GM Erik Bang in the HJ Mostert Memorial Team Match (2006-2009).

2015 U.S. Championship

  

This is just a reminder that you can watch the games live HERE and if you miss them you can catch up on Youtube. Today is a rest day. Rounds start at 13:00 local time (GMT-5)

The commentary (5 hours long) from round 6 is HERE (as are the other rounds) Commentary by Maurice Ashley, Yasser Seirawan and Jennifer Shahade.

The Men: Nakamura, So, Kamsky, Onischuk, Shankland, Robson, Naroditsky, Akobian, Gareev, Sevian, Troff and Holt

The Women: Krush, Paikidze, Abrahamyan, Goletiani, Nemcova , Sharevich, Foisor, Melekhina , Ni, Yu, Virkud and Wang.

My Proposed New Title for Correspondence Players

 

    My April Chess Life just arrived and there was a long article on the Thoresen Chess Engines Competition (TCEC) that I found quite interesting. For those not familiar with the TCEC competition it is an engine tournament held twice a year between the best engines with the games played on high end computers. For those that understand such things, two 8-core Intel Xeon E5-2689 processors which, according to the article, will set you back over $1,700 are used. So, my quad core Toshiba Satellite (around $500) is pretty useless when it comes to serious analysis such as is required by professional players and serious correspondence players at the GM level. But, I already knew that.  For more information on TCEC please read Christopher Chabris' interview with Martin Thoresen HERE.
     The author of the Chess Life article, IM Erik Kislik, makes the statement that at 3329 Stockfish 6 probably really does deserve a rating that high even though it has never faced any human GM-level opponents in a real tournament. His claim is that Magnus Carlsen playing a 40 minute game with a 40 second increment would score about 1 point in 10 games. There are other factors involved like opening choice that could alter the results a tad, but the author points out Carlsen has said he gets no joy out of playing engines and Kislek hints at the fact it's because Carlsen has probably lost a lot against them.  Kislek adds that there are still a few situations where humans can offer some helpful input, but those instances must be rare.
     Kislek gave some recent examples of games played in the TCEC between Komodo 8 and Stockfish 6 (Komodo 8 won by 3 games) and just out of curiosity, I checked out one of the more interesting positions on my laptop just to see what the result might be.
     In this position which Kislek describes as “incredibly complicated,” because “it is far from obvious how to deal with white's Pawn advantage in the center” he says both engines got it wrong because human intuition might have given a clear cut solution.

     So, what did my puny laptop come up with? First, the actual game continuation: 1.e4 Re8!? Kislek says the plan is ...dxe4 and ...Nbd7 so white has to try and consolidate his center by pushing the e-Pawn. 2.e5 Kislek says this is the obvious try because it is necessary for white to get the biggest center he can. 2...Nfd7 3.d4 Na6 (?!) Kislek says this move is "pretty inexlpicable since the obvious human attempt at striking back at the center with 3...f6 has no flaw."
     Now, from the starting position I let both engines run on three cores and the results were:

Stockfish 6 Main Line after 10 minutes: 1.e4 Re8 2.exd5 cxd5 3.h3 Be6 4.Nd4 Nc6 5.Nxe6 fxe6 6.Bf4 Evaluation 0.08

Komodo 8 Main Line after 10 minutes: 1.e4 Nbd7 2.exd5 Nxd5 3.Nxd5 cxd5 4.h3 Bh5 5.Re1 Rc8 6.Be3 Evaluation: 0.21

     Clearly, on my laptop the two best engines in the world don't come up with the same moves as the same engines do on dedicated computers costing three times as much, so I have about as good a chance competing at the highest levels on places like ICCF and Lechenicher SchachServer as I do playing over the board against Carlsen, Anand and others of that ilk.
     As one poster of advice on playing engine assisted chess points out, unless you just want to dabble in it or don't care about results or ratings, it's not for you. Maybe they ought to create some new correspondence chess classes: Beginnng Dabbler, Intermediate Dabbler and Serious Dabbler. Above us Dabblers are the titled players...those guys with a couple of thousand dollars to spend on hardware/software and a LOT of patience.

Chess Praxis by Nimzovich

     Nimzovich's largely forgotten classic, Chess Praxis (practical application of a theory), was written as a followup to My System and was designed to provide games that showed how he applied the ideas he described in My System. It should probably be read after reading My System, but if you just want some practical examples of positional play or a good collection of games (109 of his games), then this is an excellent book. In fact, Nimzovich says as much in Chess Praxis when he wrote that no knowledge of his previous book was necessary. In this book the ideas he covers will never go out of date. Nimzovich covers what is today a forgotten aspect of the game, positional play.
     In the preface he observed that positional play is founded on technique that can be learned. And he states he will attempt to “explain lovingly and in depth” the strategy he hinted at in My System. He begins by discussing control of the center and says it is a strategic necessity, adding that flank attacks will succeed only if the center is closed or is stable.
     Here's an instructive game he played at Ostend 1907 against Theodor von Scheve.  I always like how simple the great players make these positional battles look!

von Scheve

     The tournament was divided into two sections: the Championship Tournament and the Masters' Tournament. The first section was for players who had previously won an international tournament.The Championship Tournament took place in the Casino of Ostend from 16 May to 14 June 1907. David Janowsky, Siegbert Tarrasch, Carl Schlechter, and Frank Marshall had accepted the invitation for the tournament. Emanuel Lasker and Géza Maróczy declined and were replaced by Amos Burn and Mikhail Chigorin. Tarrasch won the event and Schlechter finished second. Janowsky and Marshall tied for 3rd and 4th followed by Burn and Chigorin. The Masters' Tournament was a twenty nine-player round-robin and was won by Ossip Bernstein and Akiba Rubinstein. Jacques Meisis and Nimzovich tied for 3rd and 4th. His opponent, von Scheve , finished tied for 23rd and 24th (out of 29 players). Theodor von Scheve (11 June 1851 – 19 April 1922) was a German chess master and writer. Scheve was born in Cosel in the Prussian Province of Silesia and was an army officer by profession. He lived in Breslau, where he co-founded the Schachverein Breslau Anderssen, and later in Berlin. His best achievement was 3rd–4th place at Monte Carlo 1901. He wrote a philosophy essay Der Geist des Schachspiel (The Spirit of the Game of Chess), published in 1919.

Oliver Perry-Smith, a Colorful Amateur

     I did a post on Perry-Smith's opponent, Emil Kemeny, HERE. Perry-Smith is long forgotten, but in his day his name often appeared in the Philadelphia newspaper society pages. His son of the same name was a mountain climber and skier of some renown. 
     Perry-Smith, the father, was an athlete who demonstrated prowess in rowing, boxing and skiing. He was a member of the First City Troop of Philadelphia and when the Spanish-American War broke out he was commissioned as a captain in the Commissary of Subsistence (Supply Corps) in Fitzhugh Lee's 7th Army Corps. 
     He died in 1899 at the age of 38 of nephritis while aboard the USS Missouri which was anchored in Havana. His widow remarried and moved to Germany. His son later returned to the US and lived off his trust fund.
     Chessplaying Perry-Smith played in all of the Franklin Chess Club Championships that were played between 1893 and 1898 and in several rapid tournaments. According to the Philadelphia Ledger of May 1898 Perry-Smith played in a continuous tournament of the Mercantile Library Cup and received a prize for the most wins. The paper added that there was no prize for the most losses or Perry-Smith would have received that one, too.
     Our Folder, a monthly magazine published in Philadelphia by the Good Companion Chess Problem Club, had an article describing a dinner in 1923 that had a table decoration, the Oliver Perry-Smith silver plate, upon which was engraved the final position of his win against the Turkish Ambassador. A big deal was made of that game, but the Ambassador played horrible chess and allowed Perry-Smith to mate in 7 moves. The game is included in the score of his game against Kemeny below. According to the Edo rating site his rating was between about 1900-2000 in the 1890's.

Buying Chess Players!

  

   Would you move to a foreign country to make more money? Apparently some are trying to entice Grandmasters to do just that.
     The New York Times had an article some time back titled Your Move, Grandmaster which appeared on the front page of the sports section that described an effort behind the scenes to beef up the U.S. team for international events. The article speaks of a program and a clandestine effort to recruit top players from other countries to switch their allegiance to the United States. According to the article top grandmasters are offered tens of thousands of dollars in payments to play for the U.S.
     Someone tried to persuade Fabiano Caruana to switch from playing for Italy to playing for the United States. Last year Caruana said he was approached and offered a large sum to switch federations. Caruana, it will be remembered, was born in the U.S but moved to Italy along with his parents to enhance his chess career and he holds dual U.S. and Italian citizenship. Caruna turned down the offer.
     Switching federations isn't easy because the player and his new Federation has to apply to FIDE and then pay a fee of over $5,000 and if the player hasn't lived in the new country for two years, his old Federation gets paid a fee - it could be well in excess of $50,000 - as compensation for the "loss" of the player. As a result it doesn't happen often but Wesley So switched to the U.S. last year.
     It's not that there hasn't been foreign-born players representing the United States in the past, but the whole thing reminds me of baseball's George Steinbrenner trying to buy the Pennant. See the spoof that appeared in The Onion back in 2003. In the past, players played for the U.S. because they moved here for a variety of reasons, most of which had nothing to do with their chess careers.
     If you are good enough you can earn money by finishing in the money in tournaments, appearance fees where the players get paid to show up and play, scholarships where promising players get paid, advertising sponsorships (though in the U.S. you don't see any Grandmasters advertising sports drinks or athletic shoes or even chess sets for that matter), coaching, being a second and assisting a better player, simuls and writing books are the most popular ways they earn money.
     It wasn't always that way. Spassky’s prize money for winning the world championship amounted to $1,400 (maybe $9,000 in today’s dollars), the winner of the Tarrasch-Mieses match in 1916 got a half-pound of butter...a war was on and butter was a real treat. In Berlin, a tournament winner received a keg of schmaltz herring and Reshevsky once said his prize was, as he put it, "a few kind words." Most top players had regular jobs because they couldn't make enough money to sustain themselves by playing chess.
     If a guy can make a living playing chess, I'm all for it, but somehow the whole idea of buying players to play for your country just doesn't seem right. Personally, I don't care whether Fabiano Caruana plays for the U.S. or Italy nor do I care what country Wesley So plays for. After all, if the U.S. lineup for the chess olympics consisted of Carlsen, Caruana, Nakamura, Topalov, Grischik and Anand (the top 6 in the world as of April) would that really prove anything? Only two of them were actually born here and one of them moved away.
     The University of Texas at Dallas has been recruiting chess players for years. I'm not sure why. The chess team can't possibly be making millions for the university like some college football and basketball programs do. So, why do they do it?
     Maybe it's going to end up like professional sports. When basketball star LeBron James was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers he was adored by Cleveland fans but when he switched to Miami he was vilified and you couldn't give away a LeBron James jersey. I know one young admirer who ripped James' poster off his bedroom wall in disgust! After four seasons with the Miami Heat James returned to Cleveland and was hailed a hero as if nothing happened. That's one reason why I don't follow pro sports too closely...the guys that were being cheered this year will have on different uniforms next year and will be booed.
     It's not unusual for pro athletes to change uniforms every year as they follow the money and lots of people take jobs in other cities, states and even countries, so I have to wonder, is chess coming to the same thing where top players will go anywhere if the price is right? Anyway, I applaud Caruana because if he's happy in Italy why move just for money?

Tragic Story

     In Dumont, New Jersey on Marth 6th, a 10-year-old fifth-grader died after he jumped head first out a second floor window onto the concrete. The reason: a dispute earlier in the morning with another boy over a chess game.  Story    Follow-up
     I don't know the story behind this unfortunate kid but it reminded me of an incident I witnessed several years ago. I was spectating at a local tournament that also had a junior section. After the first round was over I left for the parking lot and on the way I witnessed a mother grasping a little girl who looked to be 8 or 10 years old by the arm and screaming at her, "How could you lose like that? You wouldn't have lost if you had played the opening like I showed you!"  The poor kid was sobbing her eyes out. 
     I thought it's just a chess game and the odds are a million to one this little girl will never be a good chess player or make any money at it. It's the same with other sports kids play. Sometimes parents are living vicariously through their kids. It's a shame and it can also be dangerous.
Pressuring Kids to Perform 
Five Signs You Are a High Pressure Parent 
When Parents Pressure Kids to Play Sports

The Best Advice I Ever Got

 

    I was just reading Kevin Spraggett's January 2014 reprint of an article he wrote back in 2011. In it he referenced Nigel Davies article on the same thing where the practice of "computer analysis dumping” was the subject. Both are must read articles.
     Spragget says, "I REFUSE on principle to fall for the commercialized or chess-engine processed information put out by those who want me to later buy their products." He goes on to point out that he sees no sense in buying chess products on openings that promise to make one a better player. "Memorizing why a chess move is good (or not so good) is not evidence of chess skill. It never was, and it never will be." He added, "I limit myself in my chess work to a good data-base program and a free chess engine."
     At the end of the article Spraggett quotes David Bronstein in Zurich 1953 - "The author has tried to avoid weighing down his book with variations. Variations can be interesting, if they show the beauty of chess: they become useless when they exceed the limits of what a man can calculate; and they are a real poison when they substitute the study and clarification of positions in which the outcome can only be decided by intuition , fantasy and talent.” Makes sense.
     I was just looking at the hot new best sellers on Amazon:

Conquer Your Friends with 4 Daredevil Openings: A Cheat Sheet for Casual Players and Post-Beginners. The author (Maxen Tarafa) says "an Opening is the single most important thing you can learn to improve your game. He says he went from a rating of 600 to 1300 in three months using the four move opening he describes in his book. I don't know what those four moves are...if you want to find out, you'll have to spend $2.99 to buy the Kindle edition. This is good for a chuckle, but the same stuff is being pimped on a more sophisticated level to average players.
    Amazon lists books on the Bogo and Q-Indian, acclaimed author John Watson has jumped on the opening book band wagon with a book titled Taming Wild Chess Openings: How to Deal with the Good, the Bad and the Ugly over the Chess Board. He teamed up with Eric Schiller on this one...enough said. Other books are on 1...b6, the Killer Dutch Defense, the Killer Sicilian, the King's Indian (not a Killer) and a complete repertoire against 1.e4, as well as against 1.d4 when White continues with c4 and e4. Also, for added flexibility, both a modern line and a Pirc line are given just in case your opponent plays the "critical Austrian Attack."
     Then there is a book on The Polar Bear System which is said to be dangerous and strong. What's the Polar Bear System you ask? It's the Bird Opening followed by the fianchetto of the King's Bishop (1.f4 and 2.g3).
     There is the Sveshnikov Against the Anti-Sicilians, one on how to play against the Sicilian, and there is a series of what may be the best chess books ever written...for starters there is The Halloween Gambit. This book is the first of a series of eBooks on openings called "Five Minute Chess Openings." Become an expert on openings in FIVE MINUTES and win!!! How great is that?  Other Kindle books in this series are the Fajarowicz Gambit, the Cochrane Gambit, etc.
     There is a book on the Pirc-Modern, the Blackmar-Diemer, The Even More Flexible French (not sure what that is), how to play 3.f3 and 3.e5 against the Caro-Kann, the Sicilian Dragon, and what is my favorite title, A Cunning Chess Opening for Black - Lure Your Opponent into the Philidor Swamp and the list goes on.
     About 45 years ago I had an extensive chess library that was like most average players of today - mostly opening books - and decided to make the push from around 1700 to master. I followed the advice of a local master, ditched the opening books and played over GM games by the thousands and studied K and P and R and P endings and got to around 2100 before having an epiphany. 1) reaching 2200 required more time and effort than I wanted to devote to it, 2) I hated OTB tournament chess, preferring postal chess as it was known in those days because we played using postcards and 3) improvement was no longer a goal; just enjoying the game was enough.
     Anyway, the point is the improvement of 400 points came from playing over games from GM game collections and match and tournament books. Match and tournament books are almost unheard of these days, but they are a great source of instruction.
     Zurich 1953, The Hague-Moscow 1948, San Remo 1930, Fischer-Spassky, The World Chess Championship 1951, AVRO 1938, Trophy Chess, First and Second Piatigorsky Cups, San Antonio 1972, New York 1924 and the best games collections of Tartakower, Reshevsky, Tahl, Fischer, Botvinnik and Smyslov, to name a few, were all great books and I learned more from them than from any opening book. Not that the opening books by Barden, Gligoric, O'Kelly and others were bad.  They were nowhere near being the trash that's published today, but they didn't teach you anything about chess. What learning the openings DID do was get me through as many opening moves as I could remember before blundering.
     National Master Jim Schroeder was watching my game one time and I had played some offbeat opening. When I walked away from the board Schroeder approached me and said, "What are you playing that (expletive deleted) for? Play chess (expletive deleted)!" Best advice I ever got!

Lester Samuels

     Samuels, a prominent New York attorney of a bygone era, was mentioned in the introduction to Arnold Denker's The Bobby Fischer I Knew. Denker described him as a casual player who was a frequent visitor to the Manhattan Chess Club and who once beat Herman Steiner in a match in 1931 without the loss of a game. That sounds like a pretty strong casual player!  
     Hermann Helms in the March 19, 1931 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, wrote, “Samuels who rates high among the many acknowledged experts at the Manhattan Chess Club has again given demonstration of his ability by winning two exhibition games in succession from Herman Steiner, State champion in 1929 and fresh from his recent triumph in the Berlin sextangular masters tournament. It was to have been a series of three, but the brilliant work of Samuels in taking both games makes a third unnecessary.” I was going to include the first game from the match as published by Helms, but it wasn't very interesting. Early on Steiner missed the move ...Bxh7+ that left Samuels up a P after he regained the piece and he then ground out a precise, if boring, win. The second game wasn't given.       
     I did some research on Samuels, but not much turned up...some old newspaper chess columns which mentioned his name and a case where he was charged with perjury in a legal case and it appears he was found guilty but the verdict was reversed upon appeal. 
     He graduated from Columbia University where he appears to have been quite active in the chess club, serving as manager in 1922. In 1925 he was one of two Columbia representatives in a meeting of the a Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton chess league which was having a squabble over eligibility. Samuels and the other representative offered to concede a slight change in the eligibility rule, but the representatives of the other colleges felt that the question could not be satisfactorily settled. At the conclusion of the meeting the league was dissolved. 
     In 1930 Samuels won the Manhattan Chess Club Championship and defeated Isaac Kashdan in the process. Remember, this was at the time when Kashdan was at his peak! In 1934 he won the Brooklyn Chess League Championship with a score of +11 -1 =2.      
     Beyond that I didn't discover much except for a few of his games published in old newspaper columns and below is a nice win over an opponent named Rosenthal that was played in the preliminary rounds of the Brooklyn Chess League Championship. One wonders just how good Samuels would have been had he been more than a “casual player!”