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 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. 

Boris Spassky, 1937-2025

 

Gligoric (l.) vs. Spassky, 1965. Source: see below.

Boris Spassky was the 10th chess world champion. He was also, simply put, a gentleman. He was always generous and gallant. In particular, his willingness to continue the match with Fischer in 1972 after Fischer lost the first game and forfeited the second was one reason the match was not aborted. Edward Winter had updated his web page about Spassky with a link to an "exceptionally fine" obituary by Leonard Barden, from which this photo is taken. Needless to say, Winter's web page is intended merely as a sampler of the great amount of material in Chess Notes about the 10th world champion. 

Almost all the obituaries note that Spassky was, even more than a chess player, a gentleman: generous to other players, including his opponents. To give only examples from Winter's page noted above, Spassky was very generous towards Fischer, pointed out Keres as a "particularly kind and gentlemanly colleague," and his evaluation of Petrosian was higher than that of some other masters, notably Botvinnik, to say nothing of the chess public which often belittled Petrosian (see also Winter's page about Petrosian for more details.) 

It is a bit odd to speak in this way of a world champion, but it seems that in the popular perception among the rank-and-file players, Tal and Fischer - due to their aggressive and perhaps more accessible style - are seen as superior to the "loser" (to Fischer) Spassky and "weak" Petrosian. As if Spassky's 1972 match was the whole of his career, or Petrosian is to be faulted, as Winter notes, for not playing in Tal's style. But in the case of one of the truly great players, like Spassky, I am certain history will remember him more kindly than the often-jingoistic press and potboilers falsely portrayed him.

Interestingly, it was claimed that Spassky is Jewish - but as the Jewish News Syndicate reports, Spassky himself denied this and was "mystified" how this rumor was circulated. It should be noted that, as the same source notes, Spassky rather foolishly signed an infamous 2005 antisemitic petition, but he distanced himself from it almost immediately.

Spassky was in Israel for the 1964 Olympiad. He was occasionally mentioned in this blog (check "Spassky" in the subject list for details). The chess world lost not just a legendary player, but a gentleman. 

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). 

Meetings in Buenos Aires, 1939

 

Albert Becker (left) vs. Paul Keres, 1936. Credit: Wikipedia.

We have noted in this blog before how the Palestinian (Jewish) team in 1939 naturally refused to play with the German team, and that this cause a serious problem until Grau "saved the day." Porat's eyewitness account was reported here.

Porat said that the Palestine team was "not invited to the negotiations" and that "the organizers notified us that the German team objected with the claim that Palestine, as a Mandate, is not in a state of war with Germany, so they see no reason to cancel the match!" 

The master's thesis noted in the previous post (see there for credits) sheds more light on the matter. It refers to a letter from the captain of the German team, Becker, to Max Bluemich, originally posted online by Chessbase in 2008. In it, Becker does indeed inform Blumlich that the German team claimed Palestine "is not a British colony, but a League of Nations mandate" and therefore formally not in war with Germany. 

It is clear from Becker's letter that the real reason for his objection is that a 2:2 draw without play with Palestine would benefit other teams (esp. Argentina) which could expect a better result by playing the relatively weak Palestinian team. What is also clear, and more surprising, is that Becker notes "The Jews [i.e., Palestinian team] came with the Argentinians to our apartment to appeal to our sense of sportsmanship" to convince Becker to agree to the 2:2 draw! 

Porat does not mention any such meeting in his recollections. It may be that he was not part of it, or that he wished to hide any such informal connection with the German team. It is clear, from Becker's letter, that the Palestinian team would not have played the German team under any circumstances. 

Another interesting point, also mentioned in the letter and pointed out in the master's thesis, is that Becker complained that Alekhine, the French team's captain (and of course world champion) was very much against the German team, and forbade "his people" from any contact with them - with the absurd result that the Palestinian Jews came to talk with Becker while Alekhine and the French did not. 

Does this prove Alekhine was not an antisemite? It depends on his motives. He could have been opportunistically trying to harm Germany for the benefit of France's chess team. He could have been angry at Germany's aggression and boycotted the Germans out of principle. Or he could have done so out of protest at the German treatment of the Jews. 

The latter two motives, given Alekhine's later behavior, seem unlikely. But this behavior does support the claim that Alekhine, while an opportunist, was not actually devoted to Nazism - or for any other ideology for that matter - but rather would do whatever he thought would benefit him at the time. 

But how could the Jewish team come to meet a man who ended his letter with "Heil Hitler"? It seems that Becker was no fanatical Nazi. Like all of the rest of the German team, he remained in Argentina during the war. Nothing in his biography suggests particular Nazi sympathies. But he was writing in 1939 to a man who was an ideological Nazi, and the "Heil Hitler" signature was more or less compulsory in such situations. 

Kniazer - Blass, 1952.

From the same sources as the previous post, Israel Kniazer's win agains Moshe Blass. An interesting point is that while the tournament was called a tacharut amanim (masters' tournament) by Fasher and most others, Kniazer always insisted that the tournament, in which he did quite badly (2.5/9), was actually a tacharum immunim (training tournament). The two are very similar in Hebrew. 

'Training tournament' is also the name under which the tournament it also appears in Kniazer and Persitz's collection of Kniazer's games. Was this merely an excuse for a bad result? Perhaps, but it cannot be denied that Kniazer deliberately used many risky opening ideas in this tournament. 

Curiously, Persitz himself calls the tournament a 'masters' tournament' in his own, earlier tournament book (Tacharut Amanim Be'shachmat [Masters' Chess Tournament], 1953, by Persitz and Mandelbaum). The latter book reveals (p. 23) that the game took place in the third round, and adds that 6. g4?! is Keres' idea. 

Kniazer, Israel Yosef - Blass, Moshe 

Sicilian Scheveningen  (B81)

Masters' (Training?) Tournament, 1952, rd. 3. 

Sources: La'merchav 6.6.58, Ha'derech Le'nitzachon Be'shachmat pp. 83-84.

Annotators: Fasher (also punctuation) and Persitz. 

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 The Schwenigen variation, which gives Black a solid but passive position (Fasher). 6. g4?! Typical of Kniazer's style (Fasher). 6... a6 7. Bg2 Be7 Better was 7... Qc7. White confused his opponents, who makes many inaccuracies (Fasher.) 8. g5 Ng8? An inexplicable withdrawal. The correct move is 8... Nfd7 (Fasher). 9. h4 Nd7 10. f4 Qc7  1. f5 Ne5 12. O-O Bd7 13. fxe6 fxe6 14. Bh3 Qc8? Correct is}  14... Qc4 (Fasher.) 15. Nce2 Bd8 The idea is to clear the e7 square for the g8 knight, but "invites" the following combination (Persitz, p. 84).

16. Nxe6 Bxe6 17. Qxd6 Ne7 18. Qxe6 Qc5+ 19. Kh1 Qxc2 This is Fasher's score as well as Persitz's in Tacharut Amanim Be'shachmat, p. 24. In Ha'dererch Le'nitzchon Be'shachmat, p. 84, Persitz has 18.Qxc2 immediately instead. 20. Qxe5 Qxe2 21. Qe6! and Black resigned (1-0)  since mate is unavoidable without sacrificing the queen (Fasher).

A Postcard from Amsterdam

Credits: see below

Above, is the front and the back of a postcard sent to Israel Rabinovich-Barav from Dr. Menachem Oren when the latter was in the chess Olympiad in Amsterdam, 1954. It was brought to our attention by his son, Prof. Ami Barav. 

On the back there are the signatures of many players. According to Oren's son, the identity of some of the signatures can by identified. It seems to be mostly that of the Soviet team. We have:

Credits: see above

1. Botvinnik

2. Smyslov

3. Keres

4. Kotov 

Can any reader identify more signatures? 

Ben Gurion as a Chess Player, and a Keres Caricature

Source: Maariv, Nov. 18th 1964, p. 4

A frequent correspondent had brought to our attention the following item. In it, it is noted that David Ben Gurion had been absent from the chess Olympiad of 1964 that was then taking place (he was later present, and even gave out the prizes, in the closing ceremony, as can be seen on this blog). It is noted that Ben Gurion is a member of the Sde Boker Kibbutz, where he was living at the time, and that he drew his game on the fourth board with Sodom's chess team, 'after a three hour battle'.

In another report from the Olympiad, on the same page, it adds a new record was set in the Olympiad the previous day: the USSR lost 3:1 to the West German team, the highest loss since it started participating in the Olympiads, in 1952, when Keres surrendered to Schmidt.The paper adds the following well-known caricature of the young Keres:

Chess on the Front Page

Source: Ha'Olam Ha'ze ["This World"], Year 16 no. 820 (July 9th, 1953), front cover.

We already noted in the blog that Moshe Czerniak was mentioned on the cover of Ha'Olam Ha'Ze in 1952. That, however, was the back cover. About a year and a half later, he was there again -- on the front cover, with the title "Chess Master Czerniak -- in the game of kings, the little pawn decides".

The article itself, on pp. 13-14, gives a "standard" outline of chess history -- from the famous legend about its invention in India by a priest to teach the king a lesson about the limits of his power, to the fact that many Jews were champions, to Czerniak's biography. It notes how he studies chess in Paris, where he went to study chemistry, from Alekhine, noting his devotion to spreading and teaching chess in Israel, and his tournament successes.

One point of detail: it notes that Czerniak drew his first game with Capablanca in the 1939 Olympiad. The paper claims that, while Czerniak was a pawn ahead when the game was adjurned, Capablanca analyzed with Alekhine and found a 16-move drawing combination.

In fact, the game only lasted 42 moves so there was no question of a '16 move drawing combination' (as the game score itself makes clear). It was Capablanca who was a pawn ahead, after winning Czerniak's isolated e-pawn in the middle game (17... Nxe4). In any case, it would be extremely unlikely Capablanca would analyze with Alekhine, of all people, given their mutual enmity.

An interesting linguistic point addressed in the article is how to spell 'chess' in Hebrew. This article, and Ha'Olam Ha'Ze's articles about chess in general, deliberately  use the spelling שחמת, claiming the more common spelling שחמט is wrong, since שחמת, means 'the shah [שח, king] is dead [מת]', which is the correct description of the game's purpose, to "kill" the king, as the author explains in a footnote on p. 13.The author is probably wrong on this point. שחמט is preferred today not 'by mistake' but because it means literally 'the king is captured (or more literally, toppled, or defeated - מט).

The article also has (p. 13) a nice photograph of Keres playing Czerniak in the 1952 Helsinki Olympiad, a game eventually drawn in 90 moves after tenacious defense from Keres, a pawn down in a knights' ending:

USSR - Israel, Sept. 14th 1954

Credit: See below.

Ami Barav had generously sent us the following two informal photographs, taken by his father, Israel Barav (ne Rabinovich) in the 1954 Olympiad (Amsterdam), of the match between the USSR and Israel in the third round, Sept. 14th 1954 according to Olimpbase.

The meeting caused a sensation in Israeli chess circles: while Oren lost to Keres, Porat and Czerniak drew with Botvinnik and Smyslov, respectively, and Aloni beat Kotov. 2:2 -- against the world's strongest team, with the "bonus" that one of the draws was against the world champion.

Book Review

Credit: SlavChess Inc. 

In this new book, Israel Gelfer and Boris Spassky -- with the help (as acknowledged in the introduction) of Ram Soffer -- look at the top games of top players and analyze them from scratch. For the book's purposes, 'top player' means those players (whether world champions themselves, like Kasparov, or not, like Keres) who have won serious games against at least 7 world champions -- although not necessarily when they were reigning champions. The book is available online here, or you can go to SlavChess's web site noted above.

In effect this book takes Tim Krabbe's article 'Regicide' (found, e.g., in Heroic Tales: The Best of ChessCafe.com 1996-2001, Ed. Taylor Kingston, pp. 306-310) about those who beat the world champions and expands it. While Krabbe considers only serious wins against reigning world champions, the authors here are willing to consider games won against world champions before or after they became champions: e.g., Keres beating Capablanca in 1938 and Smyslov in 1939.

The book includes (p. 295-296) the list of the 20 players, from Keres to Kasparov, who have beaten seven or more world champions from Capablanca to Anand. They choose 11 of those.

Keres, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Geller, Korchnoi, Beliavsky, Smyslov, Reshevsky, Larsen, Karpov, and Kasparov are in the book. The authors re-analyze some of their victories against the world champions (they also add, but do not count for the purpose of the table, two games won by Beliavsky and Korchnoi againt Carlsen). There is a total of 86 mostly deeply-annotated games.

The games themselves (all being serious tournament games) are, inevitably, well known -- and it is to the authors' credit that they do not pretend to have made some huge historical discovery, but modestly suggest that these good games deserve a re-analysis. What's more, they do not claim that the person who beat the most world champions is therefore the strongest player in the world. Kasparov (unsurprisingly) is at the top, but he himself is quoted (p. 9) noting that the list is unfair to the old champions since it includes wins against those who became world champions under the FIDE "knockout" system.

One could add, as Edward Winter noted in his review of Keene and Divinsky's Warriors of the Mind (in Chess Explorations, 1996, pp. 227-230), that another reason for the unfairness of the list is that the moderns, such as Kasparov, often beat "old timer" world champions who were a generation or more older (e.g., in this book, Kasparov - Smyslov, 1-0, 1984). Unlike Keene and Divinsky, however, this book has three advantages that negate such criticism.

1). First, and as noted above, the authors here do not claim that their selection somehow determines who was the "best player ever".

2). Second, limiting the selection to those who beat the most world champions, the premise of the book makes historical sense: it is interesting to see who beat the most of the "chess immortals" at any time, even before and after they were champions. For example, I was a bit surprised to realize that Beliavsky made the list. He is of course a very strong player, but did you know he beat a total of nine world champions -- every single one (except Botvinnik) from Smyslov to Anand (not counting FIDE "knockout" ones)?

3). Third, and most important, Beliavsky's case is typical of the book. Not only do we get games where he beat the "old timers" when they were old timers (a win against Smyslov in 1983 or Spassky in 1990), but also him beating young rising stars (Kramnik in 1993) or the two K's when they were at, or near, the top of their game (Karpov in 1986 and Kasparov in 1983).

This mix between games where the 'regicider' beat the best when they were at their best, and games where he beat a rising future champion or an old veteran, is also the case for mort other players in the book. Of particular interest is that in many cases, the 'regiciders' not only beat the world champions when the world champions were at their best, or close to it, but when they (the 'regiciders') were older, e.g., Larsen defeating Karpov in 1980.

Finally, there are some interesting historical anecdotes. Spassky (who, incidentally, clearly did quite a bit of work for the book, not merely lend his name to the project) notes (p. 7) that his years as world chess champion were the worst and most stressful of his career, bearing 'enormous responsibility' against the 'scalp hunters' and receiving no support. Keres replied with deep silence when Spassky told him he was lucky never to become world champion...

There are also many photographs, most well known (to those in the field) but some more obscure and interesting, though their sources could have been added -- as well as, while we're at it, a bibliography, which is inexplicably missing.

A spot check didn't find any typos, though an odd blunder was found: Short appears on p. 296 as having beaten 9, and on p. 301 as having beaten 6, world champions; clearly the second list didn't consider the FIDE "knockout" ones (i.e., on p. 296 it is noted that Short beat Ponomariov and on p. 301 Ponomariov isn't counted), but this means the second list was not, in fact, made following the 'same system' of counting the champions as the first, as the book says.

Note: there is a strange "bug" in blogger which "breaks" Larsen's name and forces a paragraph break above, for some reason.

Edited to add: Edward Winter just wrote a short review where he, inter alia, calls Spassky's prose in the book  'turgid'  (C. N. 8921) and the book 'humdrum'. I am not so sure: I agree that the quote by Spassky given by Winter, a rather bland note (p. 7) on why do this book at all, is not high prose, but to repeat, I think that it is clear that Spassky contributed significantly to the book, not just wrote a polite introduction. As for the book being 'humdrum',I think the review above addresses the point: the authors make no particular claim to originality in finding new games, but merely that the concept of collecting these particular games -- i.e., a collection, not of games some player(s) won but the games some player(s) (in this case, world champions) lost -- is legitimate.

The only book I know of which was similar was Reshevsky's Great Chess Upsets, though they may be others.Thinking it over, perhaps the reason the format is unpopular is that when you collect serious games great players lost, the games are almost inevitably well known top-tier games. The reader might thus be disappointed of the lack of new games. This may be an argument against such collections in general; but it is not, however, the authors' fault (in either book's case) that world champions simply do not lose serious games to second-tier opponents or play (let alone lose) such games in secret (with some rare exceptions). 

I do, however, note Winter also complains the photographs in the book lack sources (he adds that some of them were taken from Chess Notes). This, like the absolute lack of any bibliography, is a significant flaw that cheapens the book.

Kibitzers

Source: 64 Mishbatzot, no. 4., p. 69 (May 1956)

Who says strong players don't enjoy being kibitzers? Here are Keres (middle) and Alekhine looking with great interest at a game in the 1939 Olympiad. The picture is from an article about Israel (actually, then, the British Mandate of Palestine) in the Chess Olmypiads. Later made into a book, it was originally a series of articles by Czerniak in his magazine.

Reshevsky and Marmorosh

Moshe Marmorosh's recollections of how he learned to play chess -- and how he first met Reshevsky (Davar 23.7.1937).

In 1937, Reshevsky won a strong tournament in Kemrey (together with Flohr and Petrovs, before Alekhine, Keres and many other strong players.) As Moshe Roytman notes, on 23.7.37 Marmorosh, Davar's chess editor, wrote a long column about Reshevsky to commemorate this event, including a photograph of him.

Of particular interest is Marmorosh's autobiographical note about when he learned chess and met Reshevsky (circles in red) from that column:

I was then [1916] a 13-year-old boy, whose uncle only recently attempted to teach the beauty of the "royal game". After many appeals I managed to get tickets to the simultaneous game, which caused an incredible interest in all chess circles in Vienna. It is hard to convey the great impression the little boy made in his appearance. Full of pride and confidence, he rushed from board to board without thinking much. His speed of perception [of the positions] was amazing -- and he defeated one player after another. The wonderkind's name, Samuel Reshevsky... 

It is not often, I think, that we see chess columnists give, not only a description of a wonderkind in action, but also of how he got them to become fans of the game, as (implicitly) happened in this case.

Candid Camera

Itzhak Bar-Ziv was a young chess player in 1964, and he was one of the staff in the chess Olympiad held in Israel that year. He shot quite a few candid photographs of the players. Above is one such photo, showing (l. to r.): Keres, Eshel (Israeli Chess Assoc.), Botvinnik, Smyslov (back to camera), Ben Gurion (Israel's prime until 1963, holding a scroll and the cup), Darga, Petrosian.

(Thanks to the reader J. K. for correcting two mistakes in the original post.)

Paul Keres Photograph

Photo Credit: Davar chess column (editor: Shaul Hon), p. 26, 16 4 1948.

The above picture of Paul Keres seems surprisingly little known. I stumbled upon it by chance, looking in the old Hebrew-language chess press. (Yes, I know Keres wasn't Jewish...)