Saturday, December 24, 2016

Israel's 4th Women's Championship, 1961

Source: see below

In Israel Chess Championship 1961/62, (Ed. Eliyahu Shahaf; Hebrew) there is a report on pp. 99-102 on the women's championship, as well as crosstables on p. 97 (above) and a progress table on p. 98.

The results were, in 13 rounds, the winners were Clara Friedman (10.5) and Miriam Haimovich (10.5), followed by the and Genia Gevenda (10). Liza Blumenkranz (ph.) (9), followed by Yehudit Akerman (Kahana), Tzvia Goldberg (ph.), Anna Frank, and -- two whole points and more below -- Ada Zakaria (ph.), Frida Kopperberg (ph.), Dr. Helena Landau (ph.), Naomi Peretz (ph.), Miriam Hofman, Nehama Margalit, and Hinda Shiloni (ph.).

The report notes that Gevenda, a previous Israeli champion (in 1959, according to Wikipedia), did especially well, and that Friedman was declare the champion after winning a playoff with Haimovich 3-0. It notes that if Gevenda had not 'written a faulty sealed move' in her game against Haimovich, the result may well have been different. The report shows some disappointment of the relative low quality of the games in the women's championship: 'if the women's championship is not to be a mere formality, we need to seriously develop this branch of chess'.

Note: the English spelling of all names followed by 'ph.' is phonetic: as Gaige seems not to have any of the players listed in his Chess Personalia, we have transliterated from the Hebrew. When the book does spell the names in English, we followed its spelling. The first names -- not appearing in this crosstable -- are also as listed in the book. Below, is a photo of the game Haimovich (right) - Margalit, from p. 102:


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