Sammy Rubinstein, a Simultaneous Display by his Father, and the Need for Sources

 

Boylston Chess Club shield. Source: see below.

Terje Kristiansen points out to that the Boylston Chess Club posted on its blog (see link) an interesting history of Akiba Rubinstein's family. In particular, it notes that Samuel "Sammy" Rubinstein also was a strong player, with a FIDE rating of 2380, being champion of Brussels in 1949. 

It should be added that while the blog post attempts to give sources and be accurate, some of the information or photos are unsourced and there are some mistakes. For example, Akiba Rubinstein did not visit Palestine twice, in April and May 1931, but only once - in April and May. Also, the photo included as a "simul in Palestine" is - probably - not from Palestine, despite appearing as such in Donaldson and Minev's book on Rubinstein (The Life & Games of Akiva Rubinstein, vol. 2, p. 370). 

As it happens, I was asked about this very photo by Philip Jurgens in an email from 27 September 2021. He noted the similarity of the photo to the following one, which was taken in Palestine. I wrote back that I am skeptical for reasons that may be worth repeating here. Mr Jurgens agreed, but pointed out that my skepticism is circumstantial (i.e., there is no exact location known that proves it is not from Palestine).  

Rubinstein gives a simultaneous display. Source: see above.

Here is a version of my reply to Mr. Jurgens, noting the reason for my skepticism. It had been shortened and edited for clarity.

1. While superficially similar, the photograph here is not actually in the same room. 

2. The people in the photo are dressed in conservative black - not how people would dress in Palestine back then (although the difference is somewhat subtle). Similarly, golden watches and pipes, while not unknown, were not common in Palestine. In short, the Palestine simuls were much more "working class" than this display.

3. All the sets are matching sets, of the same size/making. This would not be typical of Palestine of the time, where it was customary for players in simultaneous displays to bring their own sets. Local chess clubs simply didn't have 50 or 100 matching sets available.

4. The demonstration board in the back seems to be in German or another European language, not Hebrew. 

5. I do not recognize any of the players/personalities in your photo. 

6. In many of Rubinstein's simuls in Palestine, the players were mobbed and assisted by their neighbors/onlookers - very typical of the time in Palestine, but not in Europe (to the great chagrin of Palestine chess column editors, who tried to uproot this "uncivilized" practice...). Here the onlookers are not doing so.

The Boylston Chess Club's blog post is sloppy with sources for its photos. It mentions Donaldson and Minev's book but does not give the exact location of the photograph from it (this was given to me by Mr. Jurgens). 

Why does this matter? Because this is how mistakes are perpetuated. That Donaldson and Minev made a mistake about a photograph in their two-volume work is not the issue. No book is free from mistakes, and their two-volume biography and game collection of Rubinstein is a very serious work with a great deal of original material. But when a photo from their book is posted elsewhere, as in the blog in question, without giving the exact source, then the mistake sticks and becomes a "fact" that is hard to eradicate. 

"Fancy" Sets

 

On a recent visit to London, I noted that chess sets are popular as gifts in tourist shops; one in the gift shop of The Shard (top), and another in a gift shop dedicated to Harry Potter (bottom).

Does anyone ever actually play on such chess sets, or are they merely for show? 

Graves of Non-Masters

 

Above is a photo I took of the grave of Vladimir Ze'ev Shteinberg, 1965-2024. He is buried in the Ganei Ester Cemetary, Rishon LeZion, Israel. He was not a chess master, but he was a good amateur player, with a FIDE rating of 2180. He also held the Israeli chess rank of senior candidate master, according to his ICF player's page (in Hebrew). 

Graves of chess masters often have a chess theme, as Edward Winter's article on the subject shows. But I am not aware of many graves of non-masters having such a theme. Does any reader know of similar chess motifs on the graves of non-masters? 

Fischer in Reykjavik... in 1961

 

Source: Chess Life, vol. 16 no. 2 (February 20, 1961), p. 37

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us that Fischer was in Iceland, winning in Reykjavik... already in 1961, in a small round-robin tournament against the Icelandic players, including the GM Fredrik Oalfsson. 11 years before his rather better known victory against GM Boris Spassky in the same location... 

Source: See below

Terje Kristiansen notifies us of a book, published in Lithuanian, about Jewish chess players from Lithuania. The book, in pdf format (1442 pages) is available on the blog of the Lithuanian Correspondence Chess Federation. Kristiansen notifies us that Eugenijus Paleckis started working on the book in 2008 and published with the help of Boris Rositsan (see full names above). In particular, Alexander Macht is often mentioned. 

We thank Kristiansen for the information and add that, as noted in their email, the blog in question contains a great deal of archival material, including also a compendium of Lithuanian chess history that is nearly 3500 pages! 

More About Yuchtman

 

"Victory in Be'er-Sheva - Mated in Rome," by Aharon Dolev. Source: Yamim Ve'leylot (Days and Nights), Ma'ariv's weekly supplement, 7 September 1973, p. 4 (article on pp. 4-5, 45).

A frequent correspondent sends us this additional information about Jacob Yuchtman, in particular about his time waiting in Rome - like many other Soviet Jews who arrived at, and then left, Israel in the 1970s - in order to enter the USA. The article is very critical of those who left Israel in general and describes their life in Rome as semi-criminal (!), but also notes the blundering treatment of the new immigrants to Israel which led some of them to leave. 

In particular, Dolev gives Yuchtman's own reasons for leaving - to wit, that he was offered "300 Israeli Pounds a month" (a very small sum) as a trainer, which deeply insulted him, especially since he couldn't find any other job except in chess. Dolev is highly critical of the ICF's treatment of Yuchtman and the apparent lack of any reforms after the loss of this talented player. 

Jacob Yuchtman

Source: Shachmat, vol. 12 no. 1, p. 10 (above) and cover (below)

The player Jacob Yuchtman emigrated from the USSR to Israel, and then to Germany before finally settling in the USA. His life and his biography as a "forgotten artist" on the "Tartajubow On Chess II" blog had been brought to my attention by Mr. Herbert Halsegger. 

Yuchtman was never Israel's champion, but he was a (joint) winner of the third Israel Open Championship in December 1972. This is not to be confused with the invitation-only Israel Championship. He is seen as a joint winner with Czerniak in the two photos above, where (on the cover) he is described as a "new hope" for Israeli chess. 

His later life was not successful, chess-wise. He is described in the movie (and the book) Searching for Bobby Fischer as playing all comes in Greenwich village, advertising himself (truly) as a player who beat Tal. 

Ross' Caricatures

Source: Chess Review, March 1965, p. 81

We have noted in this blog Ross' caricature of Itzchak Aloni. Now, Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us that the caricature, together with those of many other masters - see list in the bottom of the post under "תוויות" (subjects) - are found in a Chess Review article of the 1964 olympiad, March 1965, pp. 78-81. Two are given above; the rest can be found in the article itself. In particular, there are caricatures of the entire USSR team. 

P.S.

Trying to find more information about Ross, I googled in Hebrew "רוס מאייר" - "Ross illustrator." As it happens, this is the way you spell in Hebrew the independent (if that is quite the word) film maker Russ Meyer, which google gave me a lot of, how shall we say, educational information about (link goes to Wikipedia's biography of him). 

Alla Kushnir

 

Source: Chess Review, April 1964, p. 124

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notes the following nice photo (part of an article by Panov for Chess Review) about Alla Kushnir being "Woman Chessplayer no. 2" in the world. 

Nice Photo of Porat

Source: Chess Review, August 1964, p. 249.

The following photo of Yosef Porat (variant English spellings, as one can see, abound) was brought to our attention by Herbert Halsegger. We note that the same page has the game Gligoric-Porat, where Porat won due to Gligoric's blunder. It happens to us all...

Orang-Utan

 

Source: Chess Review, Sept. 1964, p. 276

Mr. Halsegger also notifies us that, in the same issue noted in the previous post, there was also the following game from "Haifa, 1962." This could not be the Israeli championship (which took place in odd years) nor, of course, the olympiad, and the names of the players are not those of any of the masters in Israel at the time. Presumably, this was a game in a local tournament. Can any reader provide more details?

Chess Olympiad Package

Source: Chess Review, Sept. 1964, p. 258.

Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us that Chess Review had a full-page advertisement for a round-trip visit to Israel for the chess olympiad of 1964. Are there any other examples of such "package deals"? 

Right to Left

 

Source: Doar Ha'yom, 17 September 1922, p. 4

A frequent correspondent sends us a note of Doar Ha'yom's column from the early 1920s. A specific point of interest is that, as we have noted before, the chess notation was from right to left, with the first Hebrew letter (aleph) donating the h-file, not the a-file, the second Hebrew letter (bet) the g-file, etc. 

Naturally, this caused significant confusion! 

(Not) Being There

Itzhak Aloni. Full credits and details at this post.

A close family member mentioned, from the days of the old Lasker club in Tel Aviv, what must have been a common occurrence among chess players. The club had a small kitchenette / cafe, where members could buy tea and coffee. For the older, constant club members, such as Aloni, the kitchenette's owner would also offer meals - cooked by the cafe owner's wife in their apartment next door. 

The kitchenette also had the club's phone. One day the owner comes out of it and asks Aloni: "are you here? Your wife asks." Aloni said that he was not there. The owner goes back to the phone, returns and tells Aloni: "Your wife says that, when you finish not playing the game, come home." 

Wartime Chess

Source: Jabotinsky Institute in Israel

A frequent correspondent notes the following picture in the Jabotinsky Institute's archives. It is photo #6582, from 1943 Italy, showing "an international chess tourney with the participation of Jewish soldiers from England, Palestine, and Poland." Note the wartime "We shall win" (in Hebrew) poster on the wall, featuring Churchill.

Uzi Geller, 1931-2024

 

Credit: Almog Burstein.

The late Uzi Geller, Israeli champion (1971) and member of the Israeli chess olympiad team (1972), had passed away at the age of 93, as I was notified by the Israeli Chess Advancement Center, managed by Almog Burstein. Burstein's email added a link to a long obituary (in Hebrew) in a blog by those who knew him well.

Geller is typical of his time: he lived in a kibbutz all his life, and got his start in chess in the "glory days" of the communal settlements' chess "boom" of the 1950s and (especially) 1960s.

Schahmuseum

The Chilean museum of pre-Colombian art. Credit: wikipedia.

Mr. Halsegger notifies us of the Chess Museum in Switzerland, which is well worth a visit. It has many Jewish-ralted items, such as a Jewish-themed glass chess set and a set created in Auschwitz. 

Chess Gift

Credit: Jewish Museum, Vienna

The above chess set, a gift to captain William H. Barker, was presented in 1947 to him by those whom he took care of in a DP camp after the second world war. It is found on the Facebook site of the Jewish Museum in Vienna, as Mr. Herbert Halsegger notifies us. 

Persitz Making an Impression

 

Source: Chess Review, December 1954, p. 356 and 370, respectively.

Mr. Halsegger also notes that in the same issue, the rising star of Israeli chess - Raafi Persitz - was making an impression in England. In particular, the article by Bruce Hayden reports, he managed to play two tournament games in one day... 75 miles apart. First he played in the Oxford University vs. Cambridge University match in London. Then he was in time to catch the train to Swindon in order to play in the Oxfordshire vs. Gloucestershire county match (playing against no other than C. H. O'D. Alexander.)

Aloni Making an Impression

 

Source: Chess Review, December 1954, p. 360

The game between Aloni and Kotov in the 1954 olympiad made quite an impression, since Aloni won, leading the Israeli team to a 2:2 draw with the all-powerful USSR. One example, given to us by Herbert Halsegger, is crowning the game as "game of the month" by Chess Review in December 1954, with annotation by no other than Dr. Max Euwe. 

Baron, Banker, Chess Master - and Grandson of a Rabbi

 

Credit: Herbert Halsegger

Mr. Halsegger sends us these two close-ups of Ignaz von Kolisch's grave. He was a baron, a financier, and a chess master, and his coat of arms also shows two chess pieces. But the Hebrew part of his grave notes little of that. It says that he was a "famous wise man," and the name mentions that he is "Baron von Kolisch," but his most important achievement noted is the fact that he was... the grandson of the rabbi "the late just man Kaufman Kolisch," the rabbi and "head of the rabbinical court of the holy community of Stampen" (ph. spelling). 

By the way, "head of the rabbinical court of the holy community of" takes five letters only on the tombstone, using the acronym אבדקק - אב בית דין קהילה קדושה. 

"The Flower of Youth"

Source: Chess Review, June 1949, p. 181

Many old stories about past masters are fables, as Edward Winter and other reliable chess historians often note. Indeed, as Winter points out, the need for sources is crucial. 

But, just occasionally, the old stories about past masters are true - as reliable contemporary sources tell us. One example is given to us by Herbert Halsegger. The old story about Mieses (then 84) commenting that "youth had been victorious" when he beat an even older player, van Foreest (then 86), is actually true - as witnessed by Mieses himself. 

Another example is the story of a Jewish master telling himself that his opponent, a ganef ("thief" in Yiddish) had "stolen" the game, and the opponent asking whether a "ganef" can be a gentleman, to the Jewish master's assent. Surprisingly, this story is possibly true after all: see the other side of the story. 

Mosheh Oved

 

Source: Chess Review, November 1948, cover.

Mr. Herbert Halsegger sends us the following interesting photo of a Jewish collector of antiques - including chess. According to page 2 of the same issue, the person in question is:

Mosheh Oved was quite an interesting person. He wrote an autobiography, Visions and Jewels (London: Ernest Benn, 1925), and three items in his collection - not the chess set in the picture, alas - eventually found their way to the British Museum. It is remarkable that in his autobiography he spells his name based on the Yiddish pronounciation of his name, that is, "Moysheh Oyved." 

Samuel Schweber

Source: Chess Review, July 1955, p. 198

The above note was brought to our attention by Herbert Halsegger. It should be noted that Samuel Schweber had also played in the 1964 Olympiad in Tel Aviv, and in a first-day postcard signed his name in Hebrew, as noted previously in this blog. He also signed his name in Hebrew in Eliezer Pe'er's notebook in the 1960 Olympiad. Mr. Halsegger also notifies us of a game between Petrosian and Schweber with notes by Najdorf, found (in Spanish) on this web page, with nice photographs of both.

 

"What Time's the Next Swan?"

 

Source: Chess Review, June 1955, p. 165

Herbert Halsegger notes another example of actors playing chess, in this case Walter Slezak. The title of this post is that of Slezak's autobiography. According to the entry on Wikipedia, this refers to the story of Slezak's father - also an actor - who, playing Lohengrin, missed entering the swan-shaped boat on which he was supposed to leave the stage. He reacted by asking, "what time's the next swan?" Mr. Halsegger notes that Slezak also featured on the cover of the July 1953 issue of the same magazine:

Chess and Sex

 

The British Foreign Office. Credit: Wikipedia. 

In foreign office document FO 371/168255 from 5 June 1963, sent from the Havana embassy, Sir Herbert Marchant, then the British ambassador in Cuba, sent his superiors in the foreign office a review of the state of culture in Cuba after the revolution. He noted that "Havana has very few book-shops" but nevertheless there is a "plentiful supply of paper-back text books on Chess and Sex, both popular with Cubans."

The popularity of chess is understandable, due to Capablanca, of course, but why on earth would the other activity be popular in Cuba? 

Dobkin vs. Czerniak in the Foreign Press

 

Source: Chess Review, September 1956, p. 283

Mr. Halsegger, in his deep dive through old American chess magazines, also notes the following rare (for the time) report of an Israeli game - from the Israeli championship of 1956 - in the foreign press. The game Dobkin - Czerniak (0:1). 

 

Source: see below

The same issue Mr. Halsegger pointed out to us in the previous post also has, in other news, a report from the Moscow, 1956, Olympiad - with a photo of Zhgder (left) of Mongolia playing Czerniak in the Olympiad. It is on p. 356 of the issue. 

Bobby and Friends

 

Source: Chess Review, December 1956, p. 375

Herbert Halsegger notifies us of the "Game of the Century" issue of Chess Review, featuring Bobby Fischer (then 13) at play, with other famous chess friends, of which one was no other than Edward Lasker. Reshevsky is also mentioned. 

It was in this issue that Fischer's famous "game of the century" against Donald Byrne was published, with the cover amazingly showing Fischer just before he played the famous 17...Be6!! that won the game. Apparently, this is not a re-enactment, as noted in the following chessbase article: The game that shook the world | ChessBase.  

Chess Booms

 

Source: Nu, March 2012, p. 28

Our frequent correspondent Herbert Halsegger notes an article from a Jewish magazine for politics and culture about the chess boom in Israel in 2012 when Boris Gelfand played for the world championship with Viswanathan Anand. 

This made us think about previous chess "booms." The recent one due to The Queen's Gambit is well known (and still ongoing) and so was the Fischer boom in the USA after Fischer won the world championship in 1972. 

Are there any other examples of such "booms" in history? Did chess, for example, become noticeably more popular after the first international chess tournament, London, 1851? 

Palestine Tournaments in Chess Review, 1947

 

Source: Chess Review, March 1947, p. 9

In Chess Review, 1947, there is a short - but detailed - report on three tournaments in Palestine. One was the Tel Aviv championship (held, we add, in the "Lasker" chess club), mentioning in particular - with slightly variant spellings - A. Labounsky, Mandelbaum, Keniazer and Porat [Foerder]. It also mentions the "Jewish settlements" tournament - presumably the one of the communal settlements - and the upcoming 1947 championship, which eventually did not take place (the next championship, of the new state of Israel, took place in 1951) but mentions Hon, Aloni, and Rabinovich-Barav, as well. 

As Others See Us

 

Sofonisba Anguissola, Portrait of the artist's sisters playing chess, 1555. Source: wikipedia.

It is annoying that posts that mention chess to the general public often have inaccurate information. One example is the following article, "Game On," by Paul Dickens, from The New Criterion. It notes Anguissola's work and is a book review of Frank Lantz's new book, The Beauty of Games. It is a high-brow, erudite review, but it starts with...

The story goes that in 1923 Marcel Duchamp finally abandoned his “hilarious picture” of psychosexually contorted glass and wire, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, to spend more time playing chess. He was certainly obsessed with the austere beauty of the game, famously pronouncing that “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” For most of us, however, if we are minded to consider the aesthetic value of games at all, it is usually only in a derivative sense. We can appreciate the Art Deco elegance of Duchamp’s own custom-made chess set, for instance, without sharing his passion for obscure variations on opening d4.

"The Story goes." "Famously pronouncing." "Obscure variations on opening d4." Why is it that books or articles that mention chess are so often lacking in accuracy and sources? 

On Edward Lasker, by Mona Karff

 

Source: Chess Life and Review, January 1976, p. 7

Biographical articles about chess players by other players are, of course, very common, but Herbert Halsegger notes an interesting example. Not only are both the subject and author Jewish - which is hardly surprising in chess! - but the author of the article about Edward Lasker is a female master, namely the Jewish Mona Karff. We should note that as we mentioned elsewhere, Edward Lasker had, in the same year, visited the chess olympiad in Haifa, 1976. 

Problemists in Palestine

 

Source: Ha'aretz, 8 October 1939, p. 5

A frequent correspondent notes that a long and detailed chess column appeared in Ha'aretz in October 1939. The most historically interesting part is a long report about the "Lasker" Chess Club in Tel Aviv. In particular (above) it notes that the "problemists' committee" met and decided to create a "composers' club" which will "meet every Thursday at 5 PM" at the chess club. The secretary chosen was Felix Zeidman (ph. spelling). 

Lasker in Church (?)

 

Source: Hearst's Sunday American, Atlanta (GA), 13 September 1914, p. 37

Herbert Halsegger adds to us another "once" stories about chess players - and others - is an article titled "Longwindedness" in the humor section of the newspaper. The story about "Herr Lasker" is extremely unlikely, considering that he was Jewish, and therefore not likely to attend church sermons. Besides, the story has similar "witty sayings" by other notables from other fields, all unsourced... 

Oren and Blass, 1926 Polish Championship

 

Source: (Neue) Wiener Schachzeitung, vol. 4 no. 11 (June 1926), p. 169

Both Blass and Oren (then Chwojnik) played in the 1926 Polish championship. Herbert Halsagger provides us with the crosstable and the complete report of the tournament here. Blass scored 4.5 points and Oren 3.5, but his sole victory was against Blass. 

"Both New Masters, Eliskases and Glass"

 
Source: (Neue) Wiener Schachzeitung, vol. 7 no. 19 (October 1929), p. 289

We have often noted in this blog that Glass, the one-time Palestinian / Israeli master, had never in fact seen himself as anything else than Austrian, returning there after the 1935 Maccabiah and, later, after a few years in Israel in the 1950s. This is undestandable considering his greatest chess triumphs were there, in the 1920s. Here, Herbert Halsagger shows us, is a photo of the players of a tournament on top of a mountain, with "both new masters, Eliskases and Glass" in the middle. They both won the Austrian master title for coming in first and second, respectively, in the Innsbruck Congress of the Austrian Chess Federation. The entire article is here.

The "Polish Immortal"

 
Source:(Neue) Wiener Schachzeitung, vol. 32 no. 15/16 (Aug. 1935), p. 226

Who was the first to call the game between Glucksberg and Najdorf the "Polish Immortal"? Herbert Halsagger suggests that it was Tartakower, the annotator of the game as part of his article, "Chess in Poland," pp. 225-229 of the same issue. The entire volume can be found here. 

Alfred Emil Wolf

 

Source: See below

Herbert Halsegger sends us this very nice photo of Seigfried Reginald Wolf - who eventually emigrated to Haifa - playing chess with his son, Alfred Emil Wolf (1900-1923). 

Tragically, Alfred was killed in a mountaineering accident. He was a promising player in his own right, his obituary appearing in both the chess column of the Illustriertes Wiener Extrablatt (13 August 1923, p. 4) and on the first three and a half pages of the Neue Wiener Schach-Zeitung (vol. 1 no. 6, pp. 161-164), as Mr. Halsegger informs us. The photo is from p. 162 of the latter obituary. 

"Two Brilliancies (Glanzpartien) by Rubinstein"

 

Source: here.

An interesting note about the game below is that it was published in the Weiner Schach-Zeitung, as Mr. Halsegger (see previous post) notes, with another Rubinstein brilliancy - against no other than M. Chwojnik - that is, Mieczysław Chwojnik, better known later as the Israeli player Menachem Oren.