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. 

A Nice, if Well-Known, Combination

 

Source: Chessgames.com

The above games, Akiba Rubinstein vs. Moishe Hirschbein, Lodz, 1927, was brought to our attention by Herbert Halsegger. In an aesthetic final combination, play continued: 

21.Rxd7! Bxd7 22.Nf6+ Kf8 23.Nd5 Black resigned (1-0).