Monday, July 25, 2011

How many can you Identify?

Here are more candid photos by Itzhak Bar-Ziv of the 1964 olympiad. For non-Hebrew speaking readers: how many of the players can you identify ? For the answer highlight the area below.

Top left photo, 1st to 4th board, left team (FRG): Unziker, Darga, Schmid, Pfleger. 1st to 4th board, right team (NED): Kuijpers, Bouwmeester, Langeweg, Zuidema. Top right photo, left team (NED), 1st to 4th board: Kuijpers, Langeweg, Prins, vs. (HUN) Portisch, Szabo, Bilek. Bottom photo, left team (YUG), 1st to 4th board: Gligoric, Ivkov, Matanovic, Parma vs. (HUN) Portisch. 

Candid Camera

Itzhak Bar-Ziv was a young chess player in 1964, and he was one of the staff in the chess Olympiad held in Israel that year. He shot quite a few candid photographs of the players. Above is one such photo, showing (l. to r.): Keres, Eshel (Israeli Chess Assoc.), Botvinnik, Smyslov (back to camera), Ben Gurion (Israel's prime until 1963, holding a scroll and the cup), Darga, Petrosian.

(Thanks to the reader J. K. for correcting two mistakes in the original post.)

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Czerniak Ending

According to Ha'aretz (18.3.38, chess column editor Moshe Marmorosh), Moshe Czerniak won the Jerusalem championship of 37/38 (Jewish year 5698) -- for the fourth time -- with a clean score (10/10). On 11.3.38 Marmorosh, in the same newspaper, gives an interesting pawn-and-knight ending which Czerniak won against Zilberman (ph. spelling):


This position is, objectively, better for Black: not only is he a pawn up but the White king is not in the best position to stop his pawns.  On  the other hand White's most advanced pawn is already on the sixth rank. 1. Ke2 [Fritz] is best, leaving Black better. But Czerniak always preferred to play actively, and probably didn't cherish his chances of holding the ending with defensive attempts of this sort. So he set a practical trap with...

1. Kd4! [Marmorosh's annotation] h5?? [Fritz]. 

Very natural -- and losing! Now White is winning despite the three advanced outside connected passed pawns. 

2. b5 h4 3. c5 h3 4. b6 cxb6 5. cxb6 h2 6. a7+ Kb7 7. Nc7 h1=Q 

Black even queens first, but...

8. a8=Q+ Kxb6 9. Nd5 Kb5 10. Qb7+ 1-0

 It is mate next move.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Incorrect Array Mafia Strikes Again


My photo of a board found in a store's display window. How many mistakes can you spot? (Click on the image for a larger view).
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