Sunday, December 14, 2008

Najdorf - Czerniak Match, 1929 (Part II) - Introduction

As said before, Yochanan Afek had kindly let me copy Moshe Czerniak's notebook of his games in Poland in the 1920s. The notebook includes a match between Czerniak and Miguel Najdorf, which I mentioned before -- see the previous post on this blog about the Najdorf-Czerniak match.  

Marek Soszynski had kindly agreed to transcribe the games and the annotations into 'Chessbase' format. He, together with Tomasz Lissowski, encouraged me to contact chessbase to see if they might be interested in publishing it. They have just contacted me and said they'll add it to their upcoming mega database 2009, and that I 'need not delay' in publishing it on my blog. Therefore, I am finally doing so. 

Mr. Soszynski notes: 'All the games and the variations [in the chessbase format, which I reproduce in this blog - A. P.] are Czerniak's. I have added practically nothing', although some annotations were omitted as 'flawed or uninteresting', and others (the majority) due to the illegibility of the original manuscript. 'The standard of play was high. All the games, without exception, were interesting - with a rich combinational thread. The second game of the match merits particular attention'. 

The match took place in the Chessplayers' Association, Warsaw, Poland, Oct. 14-28, 1929. (3 games a week). The time control was 20 moves per hour, and the winner was the first to win five games, draws not counting. Najdorf won by the convincing score of +5 -1 =2.

In the following posts I will enter the games one by one. 

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