Chess Terms Misused, the Continuing Saga.

Credit: Ghost of a Flea blog. Your obedient servant often feels like the player with  the red pieces.

More evidence that not everybody plays chess is found in the definitions of this weekend's (24.2.2012) crossword puzzle in 7 Yamim ("7 Days"), Yediot Aharonot's ("Latest News") weekend section. Yediot Aharonot is Israel's largest daily newspaper.

The definition of "1 across" is "In chess: giving up pieces for positional advantage in the opening". Yes, they mean "gambit"-- which, incidentally, is the term used in Hebrew as well, the word having become an international one, like "Zugzwang" and similar chess-related words.

One is reminded of Edward Winter's article, Who was R. J. Buckley?, where he quotes Buckley's quip about one of his games with Bird: "The next game was a Muzio, in which we sacrificed several pieces, emerging with an excellent position, but no men."

Perhaps that's what the crossword writer meant. But I wouldn't bet on it.

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.

Botvinnik -- then and now

Source: Doar Hayom, 2.3.1928

The frequent contributor Moshe Roytman notes that I was wrong in claiming Botvinnik was first mentioned in the Israeli (or Palestinian) press in the 1930s. Doar Hayom, in fact, mentions the 17-year-old Botvinnik On 12.3.1928, on p. 2, under the headline Jewish Youth a Chess Master in Russia. The article notes Botvinnik's achievements and claiming he began to play chess at the relatively old age of 11, got first prize in a 1st category tournament at age 14, and now got the "master of the USSR" title in a Moscow tournament. His colleagues, it is noted, consider him a chess genius and expect great things from him. 

The same page in Doar Hayom has a note (second headline in the photo above) about "The Nimzowitsch - Alekhine Match", where it is claimed the "Jewish player Nimzowitsch" will play a match against the world champion Alekhine, after he won a tournament in Berlin (the Berlin BSG tournament, where he scored 10/13). As we know things didn't turn out quite that way.

And what about the "now"? The Israeli Museum of the Jewish People has just opened a new exhibition about Jews in sports (no doubt it makes light reading, as the movie Airplane already noted)(*). One of the Jewish heroes of sports who gets his own booth in the exhibition? Mikhail Botvinnik. 

(*) Elaine Dickinson: Would you like something to read?
Hanging Lady: Do you have anything light?
Elaine Dickinson: How about this leaflet, "Famous Jewish Sports Legends"?

Chess and Art, the Continuing Story

Occasionally, I post here about chess in art -- or art in chess. Another example is a contemporary Israeli painter, Boris Dubrov. Below are two pictures from the "Judaica" section of his web site -- "The Chess Game" (top) and "Shah" (bottom). The positions on the boards make sense, as does the design of the chess pieces, and what's more, the bottom right square is white -- which makes one think Mr. Dubrov might be a chess player himself.

Chess in Israel, Early 60s -- What we Can Learn from one Page

Photo: A. P. 

Above we see a picture from Itzhak Bar-Ziv's collection. It is the inside title page of the book he won in a youth ("noar", נוער) tournament, back in 1961. A few notes:

1). The book was given, as a joint 2nd-3rd prize, to Itzhak Barzovski. Bar-Ziv (lit. meaning something like "the son of the shining") is the way he changed his name into an Hebrew one. This was quite common for Jews to do in Israel at the time, much like it was common for immigrants to the USA to change their name to an English one.

2). The book has the Israeli Chess Association's Ex Libris on it. Apparently they couldn't afford -- or didn't bother -- to buy the winners of the tournament new books 

3). On the other hand, they didn't mind giving the winners books actually signed by the author -- in this case, Samuel "Sammy" Reshevsky (probably during his visit to Israel in 1958). 

I find it hard to decide whether the chess association, giving as a prize a used signed book, were being overly generous or overly cheap...

It was Bound to Happen

Credit: thinkquest.org

It has been recorded that players have fallen asleep during a tournament game. In Rishon Le'Tziyon's chess club's web site (link in Hebrew) it is noted that in the 1954 "Ha'poel" championship (where Shmuel "Dugo" Friedman was one of the participants), both players fell asleep during the game due to the heat.

I wonder what the rules are in such a case: is the tournament director allowed to intervene, or does the game end abruptly when the player who fell asleep as it was his turn to move oversteps the time limit?  Would that mean the other player won the game while sleeping?

In theory, it is not legal to "disturb" a player, and waking one up is surely disturbing him. On the other hand if the player snores he is disturbing others, in which case it is theoretically legal for the tournament director to wake him up. So apparently if one does fall asleep during a game, one should hope one snores, since otherwise one would lose on time.

R. I. P. Shmuel "Dugo" Friedman

Photo credit: Rishon Le'Tziyon Chess Club

I have mentioned on this blog Rishon Le`Tziyon's chess activist and player, Shmuel "Dugo" Friedman. He had passed away on 12.1.2012, aged 93. He was active in Rishon Le`Tziyon's chess club ever since arriving in Palestine in 1940 -- more than 70 years -- and organized, as well as played, in hundreds of events and tournaments.

For Hebrew-speaking readers, a good and accessible idea of his importance to Rishon Le`Tziyon's chess can be seen at the club's web site. For the non-Hebrew speakers it can be noted that Friedman appears -- either as a player or as an organizer -- in almost all the pictures in the historical section of the web site, from the first (1945) where he is the middle of the front row, to the last (2001) where he is third from left (next fo Boris Gelfand).

The picture above shows "Dugo" standing on the extreme right. The occassion is the first championship of the club, in 1946. The web site notes that he came in fourth, and that the young man in the front row, Abraham Feldklein, was killed a year later by Arab terrorists during the "troubles" of the end of the British Mandate of Palestine leading up to the 1948 war.

Edited to add: the comment below, which adds a lot of information about the people in the photograph, was authored by our regular reader, Yochanan Afek.

Koblenz in "Doar Hayom"

Source: Doar Hayom (see below)

Moshe Roytman informs me that he had found -- under the sub-title "a letter from Amsterdam" -- a report in Doar Hayom (Jerusalem), on 19.12.1935, concerning the 25th game of the Euwe - Alekhine. In this very famous game, Euwe, who had been trailing for most of the match up to that point, finally took the lead -- defeating Alekhine with the black pieces -- and never gave it up.

The match was (of course) reported extensively in the chess press in Mandatory Palestine at time, and this was by no means the only report on it. The interesting point, however, is that this report is a letter from no other than Alexander Koblenz -- the Latvian Jewish player who was later Mikhail Tal's trainer, among many other achievements.

Some interesting issues about this article are that Koblentz was only 19 when he wrote it, and that -- based on the title -- it was possibly written specifically for the Jewish press (although whether this is in fact the case needs needs further research).

Apart from this, his report is particularly relevant to the famous accusations of Alekhine being drunk during the match. He reports (my translation):

The reporters were greatly intrigued by rumors about a conflict that erupted in Armilla during the 21st game ... when the organizing committee that it will not pay his salary if he continued to drink vodka [יין שרוף]  before every game. 

It cannot be denied that Alekhine is a 100% genuine fonya [Russian -- A. P.],  and likes to have a drink of vodka before every important game, and would play, perhaps, even better than usual afterwards. After the 21st game Euwe explicitly said that he values that game more highly than all the previous ones of the match.

Why, then, you may ask, was Alekhine condemned to give up the drink he so loves?

The answer is: the members of the club where the two masters played the 21st game are supporters of prohibition, and they pressured the members of the match's committee to come out, in a high-handed way, against Alekhine's glass of vodka. 

Koblenz believes, then, that the fight had nothing to do with Alekhine losing the game, or being late for it (as he was), but with "political" pressure.

Death at the Board, Part II

Photo Credit: www.chessvibes.com

Yochanan Afek alerts me to the fact that Vitaly Tsehkovsky, the Russian GM, had also died at the board just a few weeks ago as chessvibes reports. . He had beaten, inter alia, the young Kasparov, Geller, Bronstein, Tal, Smyslov, etc. The obituary in the link has quite a few exciting games.