Gelfand during the World Championship, 2011

Source: see below

Ram Soffer and Moshe Slav's book, mentioned in the previous post, also has this informal but nice picture of Boris Gelfand from the world championship match against Anand (p. 341)

Chess Fashion

Boris Gelfand. Source: Ram Sofer and Moshe Slav, Parashim Be'kachol Lavan [Knights in Blue and White], p. 75.

Above is a picture of Gelfand in a fashionable hat, Russian world cup, 2009. Sofer and Slav also note (same page) that this qualified him to the candidates' matches for the world championship, but that he noted he never knew during those matches if he would actually win them. As is well known, he did, and indeed played a match for the world championship against Anand. 

Von Weisl Playing in the Latrun Detention Camp, 1940s

Source: Niva von Weisl's collection

Ms. Niva von Weisl had shared with us a candid photo of her grandfather, Binyamin Ze'ev Wolfgang von Weisl, playing chess with an unidentified opponent. 

According to Niva von Weisl, the setting is probably the Latrun detention camp in Mandatory Palestine during WWII. This detention camp was used to detain both enemy subjects (i.e., Germans and Italians) and to detain prominent activists of the Yishuv. 

Chess and Stamps - Part VIII

 
Credit: ebay.

Our long-time acquaintance and chess player, Itzhak Bar-Ziv, was already featured in this blog concerning both the chess olympiad and stamps (searching for "Bar Ziv" or similar terms will find the posts). We note now that he had told us he expanded his interest in chess stamps and is making a serious collection of it. We "made a date" to see it, hopefully some will be posted on this blog soon...

Finally...

At long last, the book Shahar Gindi and I have been writing for years - whose goal is supposed to be coming out. Let's hope there are no last-minute issues! The cover shows a photo from Yochanan Afek's collection: Czerniak (right) vs. Dobkin, 1952 masters' tournament, as previously mentioned on this blog.

on this blog

Haifa - Baltimore Postal Chess Match

 
Source: Davar, 10 April 1953, p. 26 (Davar Ha'shavuah supplement)

The same correspondent as in the previous post noted that in 1953, a postal chess match was arranged between the Haifa's Youth Department's Chess Club in Israel, and Baltimore College's chess club in the USA. The article notes that each team has ten players, and that the (average?) age of the Israeli players is only 16.

The "Youth Department" was a government department which, at the time, took care of the interests of young Israelis, especially those who had to go to work to help with the family's finances. It was quite important at the time, with many new immigrants facing great economic hardship. 

"The Game of Queens"

A frequent correspondent notes that in 1977, the Israeli film service produced a short (29 min.) film about the 1976 Israeli women's team to the Haifa Olympiad. The team (Alla Kushnir, Ljuba Kristol, Olga Podrazhanskaya, and Lea Nudelman) won first place. The above still from the movie shows the four of them (from left to right, Nudelman, Kushnir, Podrazhanskaya and Kristol) with their trainer, Eliyahu Levant. 

The title is a pun on "the game of kings" (mishak ha'mlachim), a poetic Hebrew name for chess. The movie has many candid shots of the players, including during the award ceremony, and is well worth watching even if one doesn't speak Hebrew, to see the people behind the game. 

Source: Robert Leonard, Von Neumann, Morgenstern and the Creation of Game Theory, p. 9

Often, chess is credited with rather interesting developments in other fields. This is sometimes done by people who are not particularly good at chess, but it is interesting to note that it is also done by serious researchers, as in this case, about the history of von Neumann, the well-known mathematician. The author dedicates an entire chapter to the effect of chess on the intellectual scene of von Neumann's youth - 1920s Hungary - and credits it with much intellectual stimulation of Jews in Hungary in general and von Neumann in particular. 

It is claimed that Emmanuel Lasker's Kampf (Struggle) - his philosophical thesis - was highly influential, indirectly, in developing game theory. Lasker attempted to generalize the struggles in the game of chess to decision-making in life, and used terms later used by game theorists - "domination" and "equilibrium" for example - to argue that, like chess, in life too the seemingly near-infinite number of possible strategies does not preclude finding out, by logical thinking, the best or at least the few reasonable strategies (Leonard, p. 13).

This, claims Leonard, raising the possibility - later examined by Zermelo, who knew Lasker - of a completely objective analysis of chess, for example, mathematically defining a "winning position" by looking at the existence of a set of future moves that allow the player to mate no matter what the opponent does (Leonard, p. 17). Zermelo's paper was the first time (1912) that winning in chess was defined purely formally. From there, claims Leonard, it is not surprising that the idea of a general game theory along similar formal, purely mathematical principles for life, not just for chess, would occur to von Neumann.

I am somewhat skeptical, not of Zermelo's pioneering work, which very likely influenced von Neumann, but whether Lasker's Kampf was of such great influence on Zermelo. After all, one need not read Lasker's philosophical works to know Lasker, be interested in chess, and attempt to describe it mathematically. I am not convinced that it was Lasker's Kampf that gave to Zermelo, or von Neumann, the idea of the possible analogy between chess and life that led to game theory.

H. Wolf and S. R. Wolf - Cable Match, Vienna - Berlin

 

Source: Neue Wiener Schach-Zeitung, June 1911, p. 167

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us of a large photograph (above) of a cable chess match between Vienna and Berlin, 1911. Of special interest are two of the "wolves" just mentioned in the previous posts: H. Wolf (no. 2) and S. R. Wolf (no. 14), as the captions on the next page in the magazine make clear. One can click on the image for a larger one. 

The Five Wolves of Vienna

Source: Herbert Halsegger's collections, from the Neue Wiener Schach-Zeitung, ca. 1923.

Thanks to our correspondent Herbert Halsegger, we have noted in this blog before that there were two Jewish "Wolfs" in Vienna in the early part of this century: Alfred Emil Wolf and his father, Siegfried Reginald Wolf. 

A while ago, Mr. Halegger notified us that S. R. Wolf was one of the "three wolves" of Vienna at the time. The WSZ (probably) noted, according to a German chess message board given to us by Mr. Halsegger, that the other two were Heinrich Wolf and the third was Siegfried August Wolf. They added (link in German) that, as Mr. Halsegger translated: 

HEINRICH WOLF …..der „reißende“ Wolf……the „killing“ Wolf

SIEGFRIED REGINALD WOLF…..der „reisende“ Wolf….the „travelling“ Wolf

SIEGFRIED AUGUST WOLF…….der „reizende“ Wolf……the „lovely“ Wolf

Can anyone find the exact source of this quote? 

Of the three, Heinrich Wolf was probably the strongest; among other achievements there is this very nice game, defeating Bardeleben. Tragically, Heinrich Wolf was a victim of the Holocaust, deported from Vienna in 1941 (if the link does not work, go to the main web page search and enter his name). 

Mr. Halsegger now notifies us of another Jewish player with the same name: Mrs. Paula Kalmar-Wolf (link in German) who was one of the forgotten chess masters of the time, and Heinrich Wolf, her teacher (along with Reti!) and later, her second husband.

The three Wolfs, with S. R. Wolf's son and H. Wolf's wife, make five "Wolves", all strong Jewish players in Vienna at the same period. 

Titles

 

Source: Shahmat, vol. 3 no. 5, back cover

It is odd, but it turns out that the English-language title of the ICF journal was actually badly chosen. Instead of the Shachmat or Ha'sachmat, which would fit well with the Hebrew term שחמט, the title in English is Shahmat - which in Hebrew would be something like שה-מט...

Why? The problem is that the Hebrew chet (ח) in שחמט has no exact equivalent in English (or other European languages). English h is less close than ch but is still reasonable. The editors, presumably, therefore preferred a literal translation. שחמט means "the shah [שח] is defeated [מט]." So they preferred to use the English shah, the name of the Persian ruler, rather than the phonetically closer shach. 

Herzel Sigalov, 1927-2025

 

Viktor Korchnoi giving a simul in Jerusalem, 1986(?)

Teddy Kollek (in fur hat), in a street chess event, 1980s

Moshe Czerniak giving a simul in Jerusalem, 1980s

The recent death of the well-known Jerusalem player and organizer Herzel Sigalov lets us note a few points about his life. He was well known as an organizer and player. He was constantly involved in organizing tournaments, events, and more. Above, from his personal collection, are a few photos from Jerusalem chess events; undated, but the ages of the persons in the photos, as well as the background(s), suggest the period. Korchnoi, in particular, participated in a 1986 tournament in Jerusalem, and it is likely that this is when the photo was taken. 

Graphic Design

 

Persitz and Keniazer's Ha'derech Le'nizachon Be'sachmat [The Way to Chess Victory]. Credit: Yakov Zusmanovich.

Van Amerongen's 133 Malcodot Ba'ptichot [133 Opening Traps]. A. P.'s photo.

 

Van Amerongen's 222 Tachbulot [222 Combinations]. A. P.'s photo.

Above are covers of three chess books printed in Israel, respectively, in 1959 (Ha'derech Le'nizahor Be'sachmat), 1973 (133 Malcodot Ba'ptichot, 2nd edition) and 1963 (222 Tachbulot, 1st edition.) The publication dates and more information are found in the links above. 

It is obvious that the same graphic design cover was used in all three books, and indeed, a similar shade of green was used in the 1959 and 1974 books. Are there other similar cases of unrelated chess books - not even, in this case, all from the same author - using the exact same graphic design? 

Israel Zilber

Roman Dzindzichashvili as Israel's champion, 1978. Source: Shachmat vol. 17 nos. 6-7 (June-July 1978), front cover. 

We already mentioned in this blog the case of Soviet Bloc Jews who came to Israel and, from there, moved to the USA. We mentioned in particular Jacob Yuchtman. Another, more famous, player who did the same was Roman Dzindzichashvili. A third, tragic, case is that of Israel Zilber. 

In Fred Waitzkin's Searching for Bobby Fischer, Zilber (pp. 21-22 of the 1993 Penguin edition) was known as the "sheriff" (due to his odd clothes) and lived as a homeless man in Washington Square Park. Waitzkin notes Zilber had beaten Tal "who would soon become world champion" in a famous game - probably in the Latvian championship, 1958. (Tal became world champion in 1960.) Zilber also beat Tal in the 1952 Latvian championship and lost to him in the 1953 one. 

Presumably, these are the games that Zilber meant when he said that he had beaten Tal "two out of three times" (Waitzkin, ibid, p. 22.) Zilber and Tal played other games. Two are given by Hanon Russell in "The World's Chess Archives" (Chess Life, August 1998, pp. 48-52, 55-56). Russell presents a win by Zilber in 1949, and a loss in 1950, both in youth events. Tal was 13 in 1949, Zilber 16. 

An international master, Zilber was the strongest player in the park - until Dzindzichashvili arrived, when, no longer being to be the strongest player in the park, he moved to a smaller one (Waitzkin, ibid, pp. 173-174). In Israel, Zilber had played in the 1978 Israel championship, ending in 4th place - a tournament his later "nemesis," Dzindzichashvili, had won. 

Zilber, from Waitzkin's commentary, was mentally ill, suffering from hallucinations and showing odd behavior. Perhaps he even froze to death as a homeless man in New York in the 1980s - although this is an "unconfirmed report," like other stories about Zilber. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to find reliable information concerning Zilber's life since the 1980s. 

Austrian Refugees in Switzerland

Source: see link below.

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notified us of a 1938 video of presumably Jewish Austrian refugees in Switzerland, where they are seen, among other things (at the 06:30 mark) playing chess.

Postcard from Oren to Barav

 
Credit: Prof. Ami Barav

Prof. Barav presented us with the following postcard, to his father (Israel Rabinovich-Barav) from Menachem Oren, with the signatures of the Soviet team in the Amsterdam Olympiad. 

The signatures, as identified by Mr. Kosimov, are:

1. Botvinnik

2. Smyslov

3. Bronstein

4. Kotov

5. Keres

One of the signatures in black, just below Smyslov's, is that of Igor Bondarevsky. The other member of the Soviet team not represented here is Geller. 

A Chess Set Made in Hiding

 

Source: Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us of a new exhibit in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews: a chess set made in hiding by Pola Najder during the war. The details are in the link above. 

A Good Photo of the Soviet Team, Amsterdam 1954

 
Credit: see below

Prof. Ami Barav notifies us of the following good photograph of the soviet team, Amsterdam, 1954. From right to left: Bronovski (administrator, holding the cup), Botvinnik, Keres, Bronstein, Smyslov, Geller, Kotov. 

Chess Poem

 

Source: see below

The same book mentioned in the previous post, Eliahu Shahaf's Israel Chess Championship 1961/62, also has a chess poem by H. Ben Shlomo on p. 104. The readers of this blog have done nothing to deserve a translation of this poem, although, to judge by the scenes described, it is not a poem about this tournament, but about the Amsterdam Olympiad, 1954. 

The poem mentions in particular the game Botvinnik - Porat and the international scene, and the claim that the whole Olympiad was really an "internal Jewish battle," despite the various flags, due to the large number of Jews on the leading teams. The poem ends with the claim that the prize "stayed in the family": that is, with the USSR team, three of whose players (Botvinnik, Bronstein and Geller) were Jews. Perhaps the author believed that Smyslov was also Jewish.

Chess Advertisements, Continued

 

Source: see below

Advertisements in old chess books - using a chess theme, of course - are quite common. Here is one, from the inner back cover of Eliahu Shahaf's (editor), Alifut Israel Be'shachmat 1961/2 (Tel Aviv: Mofet, 1962). It is an advertisement for the Egged bus company: "The right move - a trip in Egged." 

The book has quite a few advertisements, in both Hebrew and English. A large majority of the advertisements, for some reason, were for banks or insurance companies.

Photos

Itzchak Aloni

Yosef Porat

Menachem Oren

Eliahu A. Mandelbaum

Israel Yosef Keniazer

Yosef Dobkin

Moshe Czerniak

Shlomo Smiltiner

Source: see below

Sometimes, it is good to remember that chess players are also people, and to find photos of how they looked - or at least, how they looked to the public. Above are photos of the Israeli players of the 1952, 1954, and 1956 Olympiads as given in Mandelbaum and Perstiz's Israel Be'olympiadot Ha'shachmat [Israel in the Chess Olympiads] (Tel Aviv: Mofet, May 1958). They all seem - to judge by the sets and clocks - from the olympiads in which they participated, but this is tentative. 

Photos are, respectively, from the following pages:

Aloni - 90; Porat - 93; Oren - 89; Mandelbaum - 92; Keniazer - 95; Dobkin - 91; Czerniak - 94; Smiltiner - 92. 

Why this order? The photos are from a section of endings they played, and are arranged by the Hebrew alphabetical order, with Oren first and Keniazer last.

A Nice Combination by Macht

 

Source: see below.

This ending, from an undated tournament game between Alexander Macht (White) and Moshe Blass is given by Moshe Czerniak in his Book of Chess, p. 77. The annotations are Czerniak's, illustrating the issue of a critical square:

1.Bxg6+ fxg6 2.Qxg6+ Kh8 3.Nf5 Bd4! 

This move seem to stop White's attack. After 4.Nxh6 Rxe1+ 5.Rxe1 Rf8 6.Nf7+ Rxf7 7.Qxf7 Qxg3+, White will have to work hard to draw. 

4.Re5! 

The winning move. If 4...Bxe5 3.Rd7 and mate in a few moves. If 4...Rxe5?? 5.Qxg7#. The fatal critical square e5 decided the game.

4...Ne6 5.Rxd4! cxd4 6.Rxe6 Black resigned (0-1).

Czerniak's Opinion of Bishops vs. Knights

Source: amazon.com

From Moshe Czerniak's Book of Chess, 1967 edition, p. 186 (my translation):

"It is usual to consider the knight and the bishop as equal in value. But it is known to all that in the opening, the knight is slightly better, while in the ending, the bishop is. The knight is therefore the most active piece in stormy attacks, especially when both knights cooperate." 

Any dissenters? 

Multi-Lingual

 

Source: Czerniak's Book of Chess, pp. 350-351

We have already noted in this blog (see link above) Moshe Czerniak's Book of Chess. One more interesting tidbit is Czerniak's well-know linguistic abilities. The book contains a six-language chess terms dictionary - in Hebrew, English, French, Spanish, German and Russian. Czerniak did, indeed, speak all of these languages. 

The Squares of the City - and Its Predecessors

Source: Wikipedia

An interesting science fiction novel about chess, by John Brunner, is The Squares of the City. This particular book is interesting for three reasons. First, it was nominated for the Hugo award in 1966. Second, it is based on an actual game, to wit, a game between Steinitz and Chigorin in 1892, as Wikipedia (see link above) notes. 

A third point of interest is that the idea of using a particular chess game for a science fiction novel is not quite new. One example that predates Brunner is Beyond the Void by "John E. Muller" (R. Lionel Fanthorpe), a notorious hack writer who turned out most of the novels for the notorious "Badger Books" series, as detailed in Down the Badger Hole by Debbie Cross. It is a retelling of The Tempest on an alien planet. Cross notes: 

But lazy old Shakespeare couldn’t provide enough plot for the terrifying needs of a Badger novel, even after eleven pages of small print detailing every single move of the chess game between Darmina and Ferdin[and].

In a 1961 novel, The Forbidden Planet (no relation to the famous movie), the chess metaphor is even more obvious, notes Cross: 

The “sixty-four habitable planets federated to the Intergalactic Convention and explain the spacegoing capabilities of certain alien races, with Garaks able to teleport only along diagonals and Pralos along grid lines”, while “Anything a Pralos or Garak could do a Gishgilk could do”, and Zurgs not only leap askew through hyperspace but have horse-like faces, and... One can only admire, and even more so when in Chapter Ten the human pawns realize that the situation strangely resembles a forgotten Earth game – enabling the author to have them explain the moves to each other all over again... 

It should be added that Edward Winter's "Chess in Fiction" article also gives other examples of awful science fiction use of chess, in particular Barry Malzberg's Tactics of Conquest, in which the chess content might have been, a reader points out, deliberately bad, as a literary experiment. 

The same, to a degree, can be said of Fanthorpe: he never took his Badger novels seriously and used them as a joke, for example having in one novel "Suessydo" and his wife "Epolenep," with the novel ending with "Suessydo" using a heavy blaster, instead of a bow, to get rid of Epolenep's unwanted suitors.  

Science Fiction and Chess, Again

Source: see below

The above is the opening of "the Chessmen," a short story by William G. Shepherd. It was published in The Best of Omni Science Fiction vol. 2 (1981), with the painting by Rene Magritte. 

It is a story of a special set of chessmen where a set of chessmen - Soviet-style, with workers vs. capitalists - take on (in effect) a life of their own so that the capitalists always win, no matter what the skill of the players, with interesting results. 

The Old Tropes Again

Bobby Fischer in 1962 (credit: Wikipedia)

Edward Winter had noted, for example, in his 'once' article, many cases of unsubstantiated chess stories and rumors. A common target for these rumors is Bobby Fischer. His notorious behavior and, later in life, apparent insanity, made him a common target. 

The following web page, for example, has both suggestions that Fischer's antisemitism was due to his discovery that his presumed father, Hans-Gerhart Fischer, who divorced his mother and abandoned the family, was Jewish. (It is now known that Fischer's biological father was probably Paul Nemenyi. Nemenyi was also Jewish but he took interest in Fischer and helped his mother financially.) This is done without any evidence, apparently on general "Freudian" grounds. 

To add to this, the web page also repeats the story about Bernstein facing being rescued at the last minute from execution after playing a game of chess for his life against the officer in charge, a story that is also doubtful.

This would be understandable if the web page in question was that of a private person or a hobbyist, but the web page belongs to no less than the Museum of the Jewish People, perhaps the most important museum for Jewish history in the world.

Chess Book Covers, Redux

Credit: see here.

We discussed art and chess in Science Fiction before, for example here, but here is an interesting example of a futurist non-fiction chess theme. The work is by the well-known computer technology artist Robert Tinney, best known for his cover art for Byte magazine. This cover is from October 1978. 

Chess, the Musical

 

Image credit: CHESS | Official Broadway Site

Chess - the musical - is enjoying a revival on Broadway right now. Reviews seem mixed. The New Criterion's review (February 2026, by Karl Smith) notes that "its story has always been a clunker despite many attempts at reworking it over the past forty years. And yet it continues to thrive because of its many top-notch songs." Certainly the songs, as Edward Winter notes in his review, are the high point.  

Smith considers the lyrics themselves "flat" because the story is a clunker, but "Ulvaeus and Andersson exhibited a thrilling breadth, saluting Italian opera in “Merano” and devising the appropriately soaring and well-titled “Anthem.”" 

Not knowing much about chess history, Smith misses much of the subtlety of the lyrics, with their many ironic references to chess history, fables about its origin, famous players, and so on. But while such knowledge is necessary for fully appreciating the songs, the lyrics are not obscure or insulting - or "flat" - to the general audience. Tim Rice, after all, was not writing the musical for the exclusive enjoyment of chess historians! 

Smith's bottom line? "In an era when most Broadway shows fail to deliver even one memorable number, Chess offers easily half a dozen. Intermingled with the soggy drama is an enthralling concert." Agreed about the memorable songs; as for the "soggy drama," I quote Winter again for the defense: Chess is "no less ‘fun’ than earlier musicals about such rib-tickling subjects as Argentine dictators and crucifixions." 

Perhaps it's significant that it is just these two musicals (Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar) that Smith compares to Chess in his review. He thinks that in all three the plot is a mere excuse for the musical numbers. But even if they are, all three also deserve their success for their memorable songs alone. 

Unexpected Discoveries

 

Aron Nimzowitsch. Credit: Wikipedia.

Sometimes chess discoveries just happen. A close relative (who shall remain nameless for privacy reasons) regularly visits an old woman (ditto) every second weekend. The old woman keeps speaking about how she had a "famous chess player" in her family. 

Since "famous" and "chess player" are very relative terms - especially when, as in this case, the old woman is from Eastern Europe - I paid no particular attention but asked the relative to ask on her next visit, just in case. 

The relative sent me a message the other day. "He was her grandmother's brother. He had a weird name... something like 'Nimzowitsch'?! Does that mean anything to you?" The relative also mentioned the old women showed her a book the player wrote, in case that helps me out. 

The Second(?) Jewish Chess Periodical

Source and details: see below

Our correspondent, Terje Kristiansen, notes that the latest (February 2025) 64 has a very interesting article about a discovery by Ilya Pechenin: "Unfinished Opening: The First Chess Newspaper in Yiddish." (pp. 86-89). The front page of the first issue is reproduced above, taken from p. 86. 

This seems to be indeed an important discovery. Keats' Chess in Jewish History and Hebrew Literature ends in 1840, and the first newspaper column (as opposed to magazine) in Hebrew, to our knowledge, is from 1888, and this magazine is not that long afterwards. However, as it is from 1913 (as Pechenin notes) another Yiddish-language magazine - which only lasted one issue - must take the prize. 

It was published in New York in 1906, and was published by Charles Jaffe, as discovered a while ago by our frequent correspondent, Moshe Roytman. The details can be found at the end of Edward Winter's feature article about Jaffe, or in Chess Notes #11875. 

More on Chess Caricatures in Israel

Our frequent correspondent, Philip Jurgens, had pointed out a few mistakes in our previous post about caricatures. We use this post to thank him, and to note a few more points about chess and caricatures in Israel. 

Unsurprisingly, in Israel, a country in a constant state of political and military turmoil, caricatures about chess deal almost exclusively with political or military issues, where the players are politicians, generals, or figures representing Israel or other nations. 

For example, from Ha'aretz, we have the following caricature (by Amos Biderman) illustrating an article by Yossi Klein (28 May, 2025) about Netanyahu's political dilemma with the IDF generals (the piece he is holding) and his right-wing coalition partner, Itamar Ben Gvir (on the board):

Or, here, a caricature of a "simultaneous game" by Shlomo Cohen (1 February 2024) for Israel Ha'yom, with Netanyahu playing both against Hamas and Ben-Gvir: 

Shlomo Cohen, incidentally, is apparently a chess player, as the chess motif is often seen in his caricatures. For example, one caricature has Netanyahu as the king and everybody else as a pawn in the Likud conference (Netanyahu's party); another has Trump starting a simultaneous game with the middle east leaders - with the boards set up correctly, the single player playing white, and both the board's orientation and the pieces being set up correctly...