Cosmonauts, Prisoners, and Chess

Source: Chess Life, vol. 19 no. 11, p. 281.

Another item from Mr. Herbert Halsegger, this time - cosmonauts and prisoners both play chess - not against each other, unfortunately - and the prisoners even win their match. 

Henry Wittenberg, from Chess to Swimming to Wrestling

Source: Southern Jewish Weekly, 25 August 1950, p. 6.

The above cutting - from here - was provided to us by Herbert Halsegger. It notes an interesting example of a Jewish sportsman, Henry Wittenberg, who started as a chess player... moved to swimming... and from there to wrestling. While Wittenberg's chess achievements don't seem to go beyond being an amateur player in high school (the text implies that he was not strong enough to make the team at city college, still less in a stronger field), it is interesting that he moved on to, of all sports, wrestling. In particular, he participated in the Maccabiah. 

Fischer not Playing in Tel Aviv, 1964

 

Source Chess Life, vol. 19 no. 9, p. 214

Our frequent correspondent, Herbert Halsegger, had recently sent us a significant number of interesting information relating to chess in Israel. One is above: a detailed discussion of Fischer's famous refusal to play in the Olympiad in 1964.  

Who Says there are no New Chess Clubs?

 

Above are two quick snapshots I made of a chess club which just opened as part of a new youth education center in Herzliya. It is on the second floor of the building, as the Hebrew sign notes, and the entrance also has a large, open-air chess board near the entrance. 

Does anybody ever have pieces of the correct size, or ever plays, on these "boards," or are they just there for decoration?  

The Dangers of Machine Translation

A colleague of mine is researching the life of the Zvi (ne Henryk) Kahane, 1906-1983. He was a strong player (a candidate master) in Israel in the 1950s to 1970s as well as a composer of problems. For consistency's sake, I use in the blog Gaige's preferred spelling "Kahana", although this does not mean "Kahane" is wrong (it is just a variant spelling). 

Not speaking Hebrew, he sent me the Hebrew sources as well as - for my edification - the machine-translated version of what they said for comments. I emphasize that my colleague does not rely on the machine translation to be accurate but only to give a general idea of what the Hebrew text is about - and for good reason. Here, is for example, the "translation" given to an article in La'merchav, 27 October 1957, p. 1, with my corrections in red: 

The same machine translation also helpfully decided to auto-translate Al Ha'mishmar ("On the Guard") as both "On the Impaler" and "On the Improver." I suppose that's one way to encourage people to improve in chess. 

Chess and the Jewish Refugee Camp in Landsberg

We have already noted in this blog Siegfried Schoenle's book about the chess activities in the Landsberg refugee camp, on February 25th. In particular we noted there is a German language review of the book by Konrad Reiss. Terje Kristiansen now notifies us than an (AI-generated) English translation of the article here (from which the book's cover's photo is taken). 

Science Fiction and Chess - Once More

Source: here.

We often noted in this blog the relationship between chess and science fiction. We note here another blog post of many such books, from the "science fiction" side - that is, a science fiction web site that has a post about science fiction books and chess (one is reminded of Nabokov's Pnin, where there is a fight between a historian of philosophy and a philosopher of history...). 

Above, I add another book that is not in the list given by the science fiction web site: Gerard Klein's Starmasters' Gambit. Klein, I add, is a well-known French writer many of whose work, says the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, features "an imagery and even a structure influenced by chess." 

It should be noted that sometimes - although by no means always - the alleged "chess" in the science fiction book is a mere plot device, where (for example) a "genius" who learned the game a week ago somehow manages to checkmate (in five moves or so) an unbeatable computer in a game on which hangs the fate of humanity. One such example is Barry Malzberg's Tactics of Conquest, witheringly reviewed by Edward Winter in Chess Notes 5355. 

Photos of Ephraim Kishon Playing Chess

Source: Kishon's memorial web page

Despite his love of the game, there don't seem to be many photos of Ephraim Kishon playing chess, except occasionally in simultaneous displays or the like (as opposed to tournament games). In particular, two black and white photos of him doing so are found on his memorial web site (link above). The same site also has a note about his chess computer, the talking chesster. There was also a chess set in his office, as seen in, for example, the following detail from the photo of his office on the Hebrew wikipedia web page about him: 

Above the chess set, by the way, is a framed death notice lamenting the death of Stalin, which the pro-USSR Israeli party, Mapam, published at the time. Another example is on his official web page (in the Hebrew version):

Ephraim Kishon and Chess II

 

Credit: Tel Aviv Municipal Government

Ephraim Kishon was a chess player, and his life was in fact saved by chess, as we saw before in this blog. It is therefore only fitting that a memorial for 100 years for his birth was arranged last year in - the Chess House in Tel Aviv, in Tagore St., Tel Aviv, by the Tel Aviv municipal government.