75 years of Documented Chess Activity -- a World Record? [Edited: Probably not, but...]

Credit: Pixar

What is the longest time a Jewish, or Israeli, or Palestinian chess personality was active? We already saw the case of A. L. Mohilever, who published a letter in a chess magazine as late as 1994 -- 73 years after his first chess publication, in 1921.

A reader notes two more cases.

Shmuel Friedmann, known as "Dugo", who started his activity in the Rishon Letziyon chess club in 1940, and was still active upon his death last year -- 72 years of activity, including 50 [1947-97] as the club's president.

Beating both, however, is Eliezer Pe'er [nee Perelberger], who appears as a solver in Davar on Dec. 10th, 1937 [link in Hebrew] and is still active today, 2013, in the Reti chess club in Tel Aviv. This would make it 75 -- going on 76 -- years of chess activity.

Is this a world record?

Edited to add: various web sites, such as this one, claim the record is held by Walter Ivans, who "started to play chess at age 10" and "died at 98" having "played for 85 years" [i.e., to age 95].

However:

1. It is not clear what the source of this record is. Does any reader have information about Ivans?

2. Pe'er, too, is to be 98 this year [b. 1915], and probably "started to play" chess as a child [most players do]. If we accept that he learned chess before his 13th birthday -- which would be unusually late -- then he already beat Ivans' record.

3. It is not clear of what Ivans' chess activity had been [can some reader enlighten me?], while Pe'er constant activity in Palestinian / Israeli chess is well known. He was, for example, the captain of the Israeli team to the 1962 Olympiad; he was active in the Reti club since its founding in 1952, the reader noted above informs me; etc.

Many people learn the game as children and play occasionally all their lives; any centenarian who plays an occasional game could thus claim 90+ years of "chess activity", beating both Pe'er and Ivans.This is why I attempt to find documented evidence of "chess activity": actually joining a chess club, publishing or solving a problem, etc. Hence I am not claiming that Pe'er has nearly 90 years of "chess activity", nor make similar claims about "Dugo" or Mohilever.

4. Finally, "learning the game at age X" is too vague. For one thing it would add -- as we saw -- quite a few years to the records of Mohilever, Pe'er and "Dugo" as well. For another, it's usually impossible to verify -- how can one tell, nearly a century later, if a player learned to play at age 6, 10, or 14?

More editing: The same reader noted that, for example, Andor Lilienthal and Aron Schvarzman probably had longer documented careers. True, true -- but it is still surely an Israeli record, at least...

Von Weisl and Chess

Binyamin Ze'ev von Weisl [credit: wikipedia]

Von Weisl was known as the "Jewish Lawrence of Arabia". His fascinating life included also a reference to chess. In an article in Doar Hayom on July 18th, 1927 -- long link in Hebrew is well worth reading -- he notes that he played chess with Abdullah of Jordan in 1924, and had also played chess in the "Sassinid  court in Mt. Assir [in Yemen]", through the invitation of no other than Jamal Pesha, then serving as a vizir [chief counsel, prime minister] in Yemen after leaving Amman. Pesha was taught chess by Abdullah and established, says Weisl, a small chess circle in the Yemenite court, where he taught a few ministers as well the crown prince.

After Weisl deliberately lost to the crown prince, the latter started telling Pesha how, despite being his student, he clearly is now a better player then him, and started kibitzing his game with Weisl. When alone, Pesha told Weisl sadly: "Poor Arabia, poor princes -- they never hear a word of criticism, being considered rules by the holy will of Allah, and thus their self-esteem and lack of judgment is like madness, making them unfit to rule."

Some People will Steal Anything.

Credit: www.butterybooks.com [and yes, the board is reversed...]

A constant reader [to use Dorothy Parker's old moniker] of this blog and of the Hebrew Jewish press noted what is probably the first case of stolen chess property reported in Israel, and possibly including pre-state Mandatory Palestine. On 29/7/1949, Ha'Tzophe ["The Observer"] reported that a woman was arrested when in her possession was found a chess clock which was stolen from the Jerusalem chess club a year before.

To whom, exactly, did this woman plan to sell this stolen property -- considering it was highly unlikely anyone who knew what a chess clock was in Jerusalem at the time would probably have been affiliated with the Jerusalem chess club -- is not clear. Perhaps she didn't know what it was, and kept this strange, obviously broken double clock [only one of the clocks works at once, after all] as a novelty item.

This leads us to the question -- by the same reader -- of when, exactly, was the first chess clocks used in Palestine or Israel? Various chess clubs had such clocks by the 40s, but, for example, in photographs from the first Championship of Palestine in the mid-30s it seems most of the games seem to have taken place without clocks. We have already commented on how, in the 1920s and even later, various tools were used instead for speed chess or regular chess -- i.e., using a stick to beat on the floor every 10 seconds or using two wristwatches [see the tags" "clocks" for example in this blog].

Perhaps it should be added that the modern chess clock [with a flag] was already invented in 1899 but rigid insistence on using it for claiming a win on time was not consider sportsmanlike until about 20 years later, according to the Oxford Companion to Chess.

Marmorosh and Przepioka

Davar, 20  9 1935 p/ 4

The above article notes that Moshe Marmorosh returned from the 1935 chess Olympiad in Warsaw. It notes two interesting facts: first, that on his way back in Poland and Romania he played many simultaneous games "which were very successful" -- +70 -8 =4, and that he was praised for his "brilliant style and quick wit". In particular the Georg Marco club in Czernowitz arranged a successful simul, with many visitors.

What's more, the paper claims that Przepiorka, "the general secretary and organizer of the Olympiad", particularly praised the Palestinian team for sending a special correspondent [Marmorosh was not one of the players but came as a reporter] to the Olympiad despite this being their first appearance.

What is a Combination?

Credit: www.amazon.com

To add to Edward Winter's article about "what is a chess combination", there is an interesting definition given by Y. Aharoni [au] and Moshe Czerniak [ed] in the book Shachmat La'Mathchil [Chess for Beginners]:

"A combination is when, by the sacrifice of material, a unified action by a few pieces of the same side, forcing mate or loss of material or the deterioration of his position on the opponent... its qualities: it surprises the opponent, made up mostly of forced moves, and its height is when the 'point' of the combination is revealed."

"There is no combination without sacrifice of material, just like there is no bravery in combat without self-sacrifice. To the average player, the amount of material sacrificed determines the beauty of the combination. He who sacrifices a queen shows more bravery than he who only risks a pawn."

It should be noted that Aharoni does not claim that the beauty of the combination is in fact due to the amount of material sacrificed, only that this is something the 'average player' believes. Implied is the fact that this is not necessarily so for stronger players, but -- again -- the book is aimed at beginners.

Havana, 1966

A short item this time: the 16th Olympiad (Havana, 1966) gave all players, naturally, a place in a hotel. An anonymous donor provides this photo of Yosef Porat's card. Apparantly he was given room no. 20, on the 15th floor.

Memories of a 3500 Player (for New Year's Eve)

(Yes, this post has nothing to do with Jews -- but I am allowed one such post a year, am I not?)

First, I would like to apologize for the lack of updating of this blog for a while, for personal reasons. I hope to get better soon at it.

Second, I am the 3500+ player in question. Well, not really. My rating is, let us say, significantly below 2000. But, if all the chess books I have had fulfilled their promise -- "will raise your rating by 50 / 100 / 200 points" -- then, put together, they should have made me at least a 3500, if not a 5000, player. It is a mystery to me as to why this is not the case.

There really ought to be a law about books that promise such rating increase. It almost never happens. But what is more, it completely misses the point. Suppose there was some simple trick -- say, a sure-fire way to make sure you never ever hang a piece or a pawn -- that made it possible for you to beat all mediocre players, and thus make you by default a "master" player. Would this make you a good player? Certainly not! You would win a lot of rating points, sure -- by waiting for your mediocre opponents to blunder. But you would not really know chess any better.

It is simply absurd that amateur players are so concerned about their meaningless rating. What difference did it ever make for an amateur to be rated, say, 1400 instead of 1800? I challenge anybody to give me one instance where it made any difference, apart for one's ego.

If it were up to me, I would simply cancel the rating system for anybody below FM strength. The advantage -- easier to fit people with similar skill -- seems to me to be far outweighed by the disadvantages, namely, that most amateurs consider actually playing the game to be a bother, a necessary distraction on the way towards the REAL goal, raising one's rating from 1625 to 1677.

Is this not absurd? Would it not be much better if amateur players simply played the game -- and get a lot stronger -- than "protect" their (meaningless) rating? What's more, rating stops improvement. Instead of players trying to learn, say, new openings, or trying to play in ways they are weak in so as to eliminate their weaknesses (say, positional players deliberately going for tactical complications and vise versa), they prefer to settle for the same-old, same-old, so as not to risk losing games and "hurt their rating" -- damning them to never, ever improve significantly... not to mention, never actually enjoying the richness of the game.

After all, the vast majority of us will never play as well as the top players. But surely the whole point is to sample the richness of the game of chess -- even if we risk losing? It is one thing if, say, Bobby Fischer has a "secret weapon" in the Sicialin Najdorf to unleash against other top GMs, or for Petrosian to prefer a prophylactic, positional style. We say they played like that because they could play any sort of position very well, only they preferred specific styles when possible. It is something completely different than for an amateur to be deathly afraid to play the Sicilian (for example) because he simply had no idea about tactics, and thus is afraid to lose rating points!

This is not a player who has a "positional style" -- this is a player who doesn't know how to play chess, period.  Had he learned to play tactically, as well, and then found out that he prefers positional play, even on a lower lever than the top players (of course), that is one thing. But saying your style is "positional" because you don't know tactics, or to claim your style is "aggressive" because you do not know the simplest rook endings and therefore must do or die with sacrificial attacks, is meaningless. It's fooling yourself -- because you are afraid to lose games when you try to improve. And why do you fear to lose games? Because, oh heaven, you might lose rating points.

My new year's wish? Elimination of the rating system for all but the world's top 1%, or 0.1%.

A Game from the First-Ever (1929) "Championship"? Apparently not...

Sometimes, one finds unknown games that are worth presenting. Here is a game played between Stavsky and Gildberg (ph. spelling), published in Doar Hayom on Feb. 8th 1929.

The interesting point, apart from the game itself, is that Stavsky, White, is identified as the "Palestinian Champion". Usually the first Palestinian championship is given as having taken place in 1936 (won by Czerniak; see here for Hebrew-language link.) However, it is sometimes said that there was an earlier, 1929 such tournament took place. If so, it is possible that Stavsky had won it.

As for the game itself: could it be from that championship? Doar Hayom merely notes, unfortunately, that Stavsky sent them the game. No venue is suggested. However, it just might be one of the games played in that championship -- due to the very fact that it was recorded, a rare event in the 1920s in Palestine. If so, then 50 years after an effort was made to find game scores from the tournament without success (as the link above about the 1929 tournament notes), this might, just possibly, the first game of the championship to ever emerge.

Edited to add: a reader notes that Doar Hayom reported Stavsky as participating in the Tel Aviv city championship of 1928 (link in Hebrew) on Oct. 16th, 1928. It seems, based on the dates, that this is the championship in question, and not any "Palestine Championship". Ah well!

The annotations are credited, with thanks, to Shahar Gindi.

Event:  Championship of Palestine (1929)? Tel Aviv Championship 1928
White: Stavsky
Black: Gildberg
ECO: B44
Annotator: Shahar Gindi

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5.Bd3 Not the most popular move, but definitely playable. 5... Nc6 6. Be3 6. Nxc6 is most often played. 6... d5! =  7. Nxc6 bxc6 8. e5 Nd7 9. f4 Be7 Passive. A nice option for Black here is 9...Ba6! using tactics to get rid of his own bad bishop and White's best attacking piece: 9... Ba6! 10. Bxa6 Qa5+ 11. Nd2 Qxa6 =.

10. O-O O-O 11. Nd2 Re8 Passive, but still playable.12. Bxh7+? Too speculative. 12. Qh5 g6 13. Qg4; or 12. Rf3 c5 13. Bxh7+ Kxh7 14. Rh3+ Kg8 15. Qh5 f5 and White at least has a draw. 12... Kxh7 13. Qh5+ Kg8 14. Rf3 g6 15. Qg4 Kg7 16. Rh3 c5  Stavsky gives this move a "?", and indeed it is more to the point to play a defensive move, but it's far from losing. However, 16... Rh8! leaves White with very little for the sacrificed material.

17. f5 exf5 18. Bh6+ Kg8 19. Qf4 Bb7 20. Nf3 20. Bg7 doesn't work: 20. ... Bg5! -+ (20... Kxg7?? 21. Qh6+ Kg8 22. Qh8#). 20... f6?

Now White plays brilliantly to the end. 20... Nf8, bringing another piece to the defense, saves the game for Black: 21. Bg5 f6 22. exf6 Bxf6 -+. 21. Rg3! Kf7 22. e6+! Kxe6 23. Re1+! Kf7 24. Qxf5!! gxf5 25. Rg7+ Kf8 26. Nh4

Now mate is inevitable. 26. ... Ne5 27. Rxe5 fxe5 28. Ng6# 1-0. The final position deserves a diagram:

Curt von Bardeleben and Chess in Palestine

Curt von Bardeleben. Credit: wikipedia

It turns out that chess in Palestine has a connection to (of all people) Curt von Bardeleben. Doar Hayom reports on Aug. 10, 1923 (p. 8):

After various issues which stopped the [Lasker] chess club [in Jerusalem] from operating were solved, we decided to hold a re-opening party on Aug. 14th. ... Mr. Mechlin [ph. spelling] will open in the name of the club, and after a short break we will hold a simultaneous display by Mr. S[haul] Gordon. (Mr. Gordon returned from abroad recently, and played there, by the way, a series of games with the local players with good results; he played a few games with the well known German chess master C. von Bardeleben.) 

The fee was 3 Egyptian piasters (0.03 Egyptian pounds, about $1.50 in today's money). Not a bad deal, for the chance to play someone who played von Bardeleben. It should be added that Bardeleben died on Jan. 31st, 1924. Gordon was, therefore, probably one of the last masters who played him in a serious game.