Chess by Phone

Source: Davar, Jan. 4th, 1952, p. 22

We have previously noted in this blog that chess was occasionally on the radio in Palestine (possibly) and (the early years of) the state of Israel. As the article in Davar notes (in Hebrew), another version of "distance" chess was a match by telephone, which took place on Dec. 27th, 1951, and arranged by Kol Israel, where, as we saw before, Hon was employed at the time.

The games are reported (verbally) in the article. The summary is (from first to fourth board):

Jerusalem                      Tel Aviv

Czerniak        0            Aloni                1

Dyner                           Kniazer            'Adjourned with Kniazer a piece up'

Porat             0.5          Mandelbaum   0.5

Glass                            Hon                   'Adjourned in a drawn position'

Hon, who wrote the article, adds that the success of the telephone match means also that one should arrange "pure" radio matches between Israeli and other teams abroad. He adds the interesting point that such matches are difficult for the players since they cannot see the opponent's expression, which is often very important.

Another interesting point is that the photographs of the players are arranged by board and team as in the list -- i.e., Czerniak's photo is at the top left, Kniazer's second from the top on the right, etc. The two bottom photographs show Yochanan Maroz (l.) and Y. Ish-Horowitz (ph. spelling), who were the communication men in Tel Aviv, and David Carmeli (ph. spelling) who received and sent moves in Jerusalem.

Finally, these photographs were taken (notes the article) in Tel Aviv by S. Frank (ph. spelling) and in Jerusalem by W. Brown (ph. spelling). It is of some importance that these very same photographs were often re-printed in numerous Israeli-printed articles and books for years afterwards.