Saturday, June 11, 2011

Chess in the 1935 Maccabiah -- two "Mystery Players"?

Credit: wikipedia 
The 1935 Maccabiah's chess tournament was, in fact, finished, giving the winner -- Moshe Blass -- the first prize. Davar reported on the tournament on 4/4 and 12/4/35. Perhaps surprisingly, no other paper from Palestine seems have noticed the Maccabiah's chess contest, despite many papers (e.g., the Palestine Post) devoting a lot of space to detailed examination of all other events in the Maccabiah. This report combines both sources.

Blass got 7.5 points (out of 10, since there were 11 participants altogehter). After him came David Enoch and Yosef Porat (then Foerder) with 7 pts., Yosef Dobkin and Esra Glass (Jeremy Gaige's spelling from Chess Personalia: a Biobibliography) 6.5, Victor Winz, Moshe Czerniak, and Sigmund Beutum (Gaige's spelling) with 5, and Weil (no first name given) with 4.5.

From the 4/4 and 12/4 reports all that can be concluded about the crosstable is that in the first round (colors not given; first player might have been Black) were:

Beutum - A. Wilberseitz 1-0
Blass - Enoch 1-0
Glass - Czerniak 1-0
Dobkin - Weil 1-0
Porat - Winz 1-0

Also, we are told on 12/4 that in the last round Blass defeated Glass, 'his most dangerous opponent': both had 6.5 points after nine rounds, in that case, and the game decided the winner. We are also told Czerniak 'lost many games where he had the advantage' and that Winz was the only player to defeat Blass.

The Jewish writer, Akim Lewit, from the Weiner Schach-Zeitung, came to cover the tournament; perhaps more information about it can be found in that periodical. 

It is interesting that there were two players, presumably brothers -- Aryeh and Yaakov Zilbershats (preferred English spelling of Yaakov's grandson, Boaz Zilbershats, from the original Polish name Zylberszac) from the Luxemburg team. Their participation is noted on 4/4, but their scores are not given on 12/4. If the scores of the other participants are correct, it is easy to show that they lost all their games to all the other players: In a round robin tournament of 10 rounds (11 players), there are 55 points (11*10 / 2) to be divided among all the players. All the other players together gained 54 points. Which leaves the brothers a single, solitary point between them -- which is the absolute minimum they could have gotten, since they had to play one game between themselves!

As there is no mention of them as chess players anywhere else to my knowledge, perhaps these "players" -- a modern version of were in fact amateurs who, fearing Hitler's growing power, used the Maccabiah as a "cover" to gain entry to Palestine. With their scores, it is not surprising Davar and others kept silent about them, and their defeat could only be detected "between the lines"; but perhaps Davar was trying to save them from a fate far worse than mere embarrassment, as Hitler's plans towards the Jews and towards Europe in general, though nobody could have yet imagined the nadir they will eventually reach, were already very ominous.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Maccabiah and the first Palestinian Chess Championship: 1932?

A ticket for the Levant Fair, 1932. Photo credit: Alma7's blog on www.tapuz.co.il

Okay, I am cheating. There was no chess in the first (1932) Maccabiah held in Tel Aviv. There was, however, a whole lot of chess activity in the concurrently-held Levant Fair [Yarid ha'Mizrach] , also held in Tel Aviv at the same time, and opened by the same personality -- Tel Aviv's mayor, Meir Dizengoff.

There was a chess building in the exhibition. Moshe Marmorosh, the editor of Davar's chess column, promised on 31/3/32 that, after the opening on April 9th, we shall see the following:
The fair's exhibition's management began to build a building for chess in the exhibition. Every mail brings with it letters from masters in other countries asking about details and wishing to take part. The Champions Hans Kmoch from Vienna and Louis Steiner from Budapest wish to take part, giving blind simuls against 15 opponents, and do not ask for payment, but only expenses.
There will be a special competition under the sponsorship of mayor Meir Dizengoff for the Palestinian championship. Ten of the best players in the country will participate. For this tournament special chess clocks were installed, with a special buzzer that informs the player when he must move (not moving on time allows the opponent to demand a draw). 
There are arrangements made for blitz games (without time for thought) and simultaneous exhibitions.
The tournament did in fact take place -- sort of. On April 10th, Davar reported:
The Palestinian Champion
Is the title to be contested in the first national championship, which opened yesterday in the chess building in the Levant Fair. The tournament was opened by Meir Dizengoff ... the players are: from Tel Aviv: Marmorosh, Sambeski [ph. spelling], Dobkin, Weisbohr [ph.], Nevtigel [ph.], Levonski Abraham; from Haifa - Kniazer; from Jerusalem -- Fussni [ph.], Pappo. The tenth contestant has not yet been chosen. 

Our frequent coresspondent Moshe Roytman notes that I have significantly mistranslated the names above. As he notes in this link, from Davar 10.4.1932, it is clear that the correct names are Weissbord (ph.), not Weisbohr, Nachtigel (not Nevtigel), and Polani (not "Fussni"). My error! The mistakes are due to the similarity in the appearance of certain words in Hebrew, or the same letter having two different sounds. 

After this, however, Davar, and Marmorosh, had been silent, saying nothing more about chess in the fair, or the championship, or about Kmoch or Steiner, so far as I can tell. No games from the tournament had -- to my knowledge -- ever appeared in any publication (does any reader know otherwise?) What's more, the first recognized "Palestinian Champion" is Moshe Czerniak, in 1936.

Presumably, the tournament fell through and was not finished; the fact that four of the players -- those spelled phonetically -- are unknown (at least to me) even in the small world of Palestinian chess publications of the time, and that a tenth player is "yet to be chosen", makes one suspect as much.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Congratulations to Boris Gelfand

Okay -- this counts as "history" only in the technical sense of having occurred in the past (h'm -- as opposed to what other time, exactly?) but it is an historic achievement. An Israeli chess player, Boris Gelfand, had become the challenger in the coming world championship match with Viswanathan Anand. Needless to say this is the first time ever an Israeli chess player had achieved this. Naturally this was front-page news in Israel.

Chess and Backgammon -- on TV

Photo credit: Online Backgammon
The Israeli player, Shimon Kagan, who won the Israeli championship in 1967 and 1969, had just won the European championship in... Backgammon. (Hat tip: a personal friend who doesn't want his name mentioned.) It is interesting since this was actually noted on Israeli TV's most popular current events program -- London and Kirshenbaum -- on May 11th (link in Hebrew).

For shame! The awful things some chess players will do to get recognition...

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Jewish Chess Players Get all the Hot Girls


Edward Winter gives, in Chess Notes 7076 and 7081, some excellent photographs of chess in Hollywood.

Of particular interest for Jewish chess history are the excellent quality photos of Fine, Reshevsky, Kashdan, Horowitz and others from Chess Review and Life magazine (given as links at the bottom of his post) with beautiful stars and starlets from Hollywood, taken during the 1945 Pan-American congress (see Winter's post for complete details about all the photos).

Above is one such photo, from Life, of Reuben Fine and Jane Nigh.

Mistakes in Books

From Shaul Hon, reviewing the book Amanut ha'Sachmat ba'Krav uba'Kompositzia [Chess Art in Games and Compositions] by Mordechai Rosenfeld (Sorce: Maariv, 26/1/66, p. 20):

We find many mistakes in M. Rosenfeld's book... we shall not note all of them but here is one of the major ones: 
On p. 86 the book says that "in the same year [1922] Alekhine met with the chess player 'Consultants' (קונסולטנטס) and defeated him [sic - A.P.] in a short and beautiful game". Who is this mysterious chess player "Consultants"? You shall look in vain in the history books -- he doesn't exist! The word means "consluting players" in English, when a master plays three of four players who consult among each other. Mr. Rosenfeld transcribed the word into Hebrew believing it's some player's name...
On the same page it says the game took place in the city of "Balle" (באל). Here, too, Mr. Rosenfeld transcribed from the foreign script without realizing that "Balle" is the French name of the city known [in English and Hebrew] of Basel (בזל). 

Monday, May 16, 2011

Najdorf's Love Affair with Chess...

Historia de Amor [a love story] by Jose Criado
The above cartoon, by Jose Angel Diaz Criado, was sent to me by Herbert Perez Garcia (used by permission). Criado is a fried of Garcia, and they presented this cartoon to Najdorf on his birthday in 1987. Garcia notes that Najdorf loved it...

There are many cartoons of chess players -- see here, for example -- but cartoons presented personally as a birthday present to players are much rarer.

But Daaaaaaaaad....!

From Ha'sachmat. ca. 1970 [unfortunately I do not have a good copy of the journal's cover!], by Zvi bar- Shira:
What counts as force majeure in chess? The head of the league committee, Yoel Aloni, was puzzled when he received the following question from the western Galilee: Natan Bronstein won [on time] in a league game because his opponent, the boy Shaul Har-El, was forcibly taken from the tournament hall by his father to prepare his homework. 
Aloni, report bar-Shira, decided that, after all, dad doesn't count as force majeure.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Czerniak the Honest

The following game appeared in the letter section of the Israeli chess magazine, Shachmat, in 1983. The author of the letter, Uriel Zak, notes how he defeated the Moshe Czerniak in 12 moves, adding before the game itself that he hopes this letter will help the student of opening traps by showing that even a "seasoned international master" might fall into such a trap.

The game is notable for a few things:

1). Zak is quite respectful of Czerniak, mentioning his glorious past (a draw with Botvinnik) in the same variation.
2). The game does not appear in the "standard" databases.
3). It is not every day that an IM loses in 12 moves.
4). The editor of the game section of Shachmat at the time -- less than a year before his death? The man who who published this game? The same Moshe Czerniak. 

Czerniak,Moshe - Zak,Uriel [A04]
Be'er Sheva, 1979
[Annotations: Uriel Zak]
Source: Shachmat, 1983, 11-12 [Nov. - Dec.]. Letters to the editor section. 

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.g3 

Closed Sicilian. By the way, with this opening Czerniak drew with the great Botvinnik. 

3...g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.0–0 e6 

Botvinnik played  5...e5 

6.d3 Nge7 7.c3 0–0 

Who would believe the game would end in six moves? 

8.Be3 b6! 9.Qc1 Ba6 10.Rd1 d5 11.Bh6 

Sets a trap, since after 11...Bxh6 12.Qxh6 dxe4 13.Ng5 mates 

11. ... dxe4 12.dxe4?? 


A natural move that loses immediately.  12.Bxg7! Kxg7 13.dxe4 Qc7= 

12...Bxh6! 0–1