Chess Notes

Edward Winter

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5543. Pasadena, 1932

This group photograph was published on page 116 of the July-August 1932 American Chess Bulletin. Does any reader have a better copy?

5544. Engels v Kieninger

Pierre Bourget (Quebec, Canada) asks who won this game: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 O-O Nxe4 6 d4 b5 7 Bb3 d5 8 dxe5 Be6 9 c3 Be7 10 Nd4 Nxe5 11 f3 Nc5 12 Bc2 Bd7 13 b4 Na4 14 Re1 Nc4 15 Qe2 Kf8 16 Nd2 Bf6 17 Nxc4 bxc4 18 Bxa4 Bxa4 19 Be3 Qd7 20 Qd2 h6 21 Bf4 Kg8 22 Be5 Bd8 23 Re2 Kh7 24 Rae1 Rf8 25 Qc1 Qc8 26 Qb1+ f5

27 Bxg7 Kxg7 28 Ne6+ Kf7 29 Qxf5+.

Our correspondent took the game from the ChessBase Megabase, which states that it was played at Krefeld, 1938 and that Engels was the victor, against Kieninger. However, Mr Bourget points out that according to the crosstable of that tournament Kieninger won their individual encounter.

The game was indeed won by Engels, but at the Wuppertal-Barmen tournament, held in May 1938. Kieninger, who resigned at move 29, annotated it on pages 167-168 of Deutsche Schachblätter, 1 June 1938.

5545. Counter-attack (C.N.s 5090 & 5148)

The dictum ‘counter-attack is the best form of defence’ was traced back to J.A. de Rivière in 1860 or 1861, but now we note the following on page 30 of The Art of Chess-Play by George Walker (London, 1846):

‘The strongest defence is counter-attack.’

We have had no opportunity yet to ascertain whether earlier editions of Walker’s books contained the same, or a similar, remark. As ever, readers’ assistance will be appreciated.

5546. Knight tours

Wanted: examples of the knight tour in actual play. It will, though, be hard to match the re-entrant specimen (Vilela v Estévez, Holguín, 1984) which a correspondent, Ronald Pearce, presented in C.N. 1446 (see page 20 of Chess Explorations):

Play continued 28…Qxd5 29 Rxd5 Ne1+ 30 Kf1 Nxc2 31 Rd2 Nb4 32 Kg2 Nc6 33 Re4 Ne5 34 Rd5 Nf3, and the game was drawn at move 41.

5547. Hans Frank

Martin Weissenberg (Savyon, Israel) quotes an extract from an article by Hans Kmoch about Nimzowitsch which mentions Hans Frank:

‘My last meeting with Nimzowitsch was also the longest. It took place in 1934, when we were both following the second Alekhine-Bogoljubow world championship match as reporters. The games of the match were scheduled to be played in many parts of Nazi Germany – unfriendly territory for a Jew and not particularly safe for a Gentile either, in view of the tensions immediately preceding Hitler’s bloody purge of his political enemies, among them Ernst Röhm.

Nimzowitsch considered himself protected by three consulates: the Latvian because of his birthplace, the Danish because of his residence, and the Dutch because some of his reports were going to a newspaper in Holland. He boasted of this protection even to Reichsminister Hans Frank, who at that time was in charge of the “protection” of art and later became the governor of Nazi- occupied Poland. Frank followed a few games of the match and sometimes chatted with the masters and reporters, including Nimzowitsch. He even invited the whole chess troupe to his villa for lunch. The Jews Mieses and Nimzowitsch were included in the invitation, but only Nimzowitsch showed up. At the luncheon he demonstrated his usual persecution mania by complaining first about a dirty plate and then about a dirty knife. The Reichsminister, seated directly opposite him, pretended not to hear.

Hans Frank

In Kissingen, where some of the match games were played, I was a guest in the same hotel at which I had stayed during the tournament in 1928. Overcrowded then, it was empty in 1934. At dinnertime, when the restaurant should have been crowded, there were only four people in the room: my wife and I, and, at another table, Frank and an elderly man who I later learned was the composer Richard Strauss. The sinister emptiness of that dining room, which the hotel manager attributed to “bad economic conditions”, should have been a forewarning, but the Nazi leaders understood nothing. Frank himself failed to understand what was going on under his governorship in Poland. He became known as “the butcher of Poland”, and for his war crimes he was hanged in Nuremberg.’

If any reader has Nimzowitsch’s reports on the 1934 world championship match we should be grateful to know whether they contain points of particular interest.

5548. Nimzowitsch and exercise

Aron Nimzowitsch

On pages 128-129 of The World’s Great Chess Games by Reuben Fine (New York, 1951) the following appeared regarding Nimzowitsch:

‘Many other eccentricities are reported of him. At one time a doctor ordered him to do calisthenics; he began to do them in the tournament room. During a particularly difficult situation once, he went to a corner and stood on his head.

Were it not for these unfortunate aberrations, Nimzowitsch might well have become world champion.’

And from page 66 of Fine’s The Psychology of the Chess Player (New York, 1967):

‘Towards the end of his life, (1929-1935), the émigré Russian master Aron Nimzowitsch was advised by his physician to take more exercise. He thereupon proceeded to act on this advice by performing calisthenics during actual tournament play. When it was not his move, he would go off to his corner and do deep knee bends or the like. Several times he astonished spectators by standing on his head. In spite of these aberrations, Nimzowitsch scored his greatest successes around this period.’

Whether any corroboration exists for these claims that Nimzowitsch (‘once’ or ‘several times’) stood on his head we do not know, but when George Botterill mentioned the subject on page 461 of the December 1974 BCM he described Fine as ‘scurrilous’. We can add that the following was published on page 68 of the December 1946 CHESS, in an article by M.G. Sturm:

‘Another good method is to perform physical exercises on the floor. ... If anyone tries to stop you, quote Nimzowitsch, who attributed his success, at some tournament or other, to such a course of physical exercises.’

A further question is whether the story has any connection with the claim that Nimzowitsch ‘once’ broke his leg during a game of chess. This letter from Kester Svendsen was on page 101 of CHESS, January 1948:

5549. Capablanca dressed for tennis (C.N. 4114)

Frederick Dewhurst Yates

C.N. 4114 asked about the earliest sighting of the well-known story about Capablanca turning up in his tennis gear to resume a game of chess against Yates at Hastings, and we offered the following ‘once’ version by G. Koltanowski on page 180 of CHESS, 14 January 1936:

‘Capablanca once turned up to play off an adjourned game against Yates, dressed in white flannels and with a tennis racquet in his hand. Didn’t we chuckle when, four hours later, with the darkness of night outside the congress room, he was still playing – chess, not tennis.’

We added that Koltanowski wrote similarly on page 80 of With the Chess Masters (San Francisco, 1972), whereas on page 24 of Chessnicdotes II (Coraopolis, 1981) he stated that the episode had occurred ‘in the 1929 tournament at Hastings’ in a game between Capablanca and Vera Menchik.

Now an earlier (and, again, different) version by Koltanowski can be presented, from page 122 of the 1 December 1932 issue of his magazine Chess World:

His account in CHESS spoke of ‘the darkness of night’, but now there is a reference to playing tennis ‘this morning’. More substantively, Capablanca and Yates had only one draw in any Hastings tournament, on 4 January 1930. Koltanowski was there, playing in the Premier Reserves event, but since the Cuban’s game against Yates was not adjourned (it lasted only 26 moves), the confusion continues.

5550. Thousand Islands, 1897

A photograph from page 148 of the American Chess Magazine, August 1897:

5551. Lupi and Alekhine (C.N. 4388)

The Portuguese champion Francisco Lupi gave some further observations about Alekhine on pages 204-207 of CHESS, April 1947:

‘With all respect to Botvinnik, I am not altogether convinced that the great master and Soviet champion would have won his match against Alekhine.

I knew Alekhine well during his last years. Throughout many a journey in Spain together, en route to participate in tournaments, I have come to know his every gesture. I have seen him attired superbly and I have seen him, not so much later, looking like a tramp. It has struck me how both in his play and in himself, how extraordinarily his style revealed itself in a capacity to improvize – and a capacity to recuperate. ...

It is true that, when he received here in Lisbon the news of the British Chess Federation’s negotiations for his match against Botvinnik, the great man was at his lowest ebb. But a few days afterwards, I watched him playing so beautifully, so ingeniously in friendly conflict with the well-known English problemist G.F. Anderson – no second-rate player either – that I felt his powers of recuperation were unimpaired.

It has frequently been said that, after his last match against Euwe, Alekhine had never recaptured the fire of his San Remo days. I should answer this by saying, simply, that in his later years he inclined more towards soundness and simplicity.’

On page 205 Lupi discussed Alekhine’s game against Paul Schmidt in the Warsaw-Cracow tournament on 10 October 1941 (game 2311 in the Skinner/Verhoeven book on Alekhine). Before presenting Lupi’s account we reproduce the relevant part of the game from page 171 of the November 1941 Deutsche Schachzeitung (notes by Blümich) and page 173 of the 1 November 1941 issue of Deutsche Schachblätter (annotations by Alekhine).

Deutsche Schachzeitung

Deutsche Schachblätter

Our diagram shows the position before Alekhine played 31 Rc1 h5 32 Rg6 (instead of 31 Rb8+ Qc8 32 Rxc8+ (or 32 Bxc8) and 33 Bf5 mate):

In CHESS Lupi wrote:

To the small number of photographs of Lupi which are available, we add one from opposite page 145 of La vida de Arturito Pomar by Juan M. Fuentes and Julio Ganzo (Madrid, 1946):

5552. Nimzowitsch and exercise (C.N. 5548)

Dan Scoones (Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada) notes that page 24 of Nimzowitsch’s booklet Kak ya stal grosmeysterom (Leningrad, 1929) recommended the practice of gymnastics with ‘Müller’s system’.

Our correspondent identifies the book in question as Mein System: Fünfzehn Minuten täglicher Arbeit für die Gesundheit by J.P. Müller, published at the beginning of the twentieth century.

5553. New Fischer book

Yakov Zusmanovich (Pleasanton, CA, USA) draws attention to the first monograph on Fischer to be published since the master’s death: Vybrané Partie Roberta Fischera by V. Babula, Z. Hráček, R. Biolek, D. Kaňovský and P. Šimáček.

5554. Crosstable wanted

Graeme Cree (Austin, TX, USA) is seeking the crosstable of the 35th USSR Championship (Kharkov, 1967). There were 126 participants (Swiss system), and the tournament was won by Polugayevsky and Tal.

5555. Who?

5556. Leit-motif

C.N. 438 (see page 113 of Chess Explorations) quoted Harry Golombek on page 362 of the December 1968 BCM, in a report on that year’s Olympiad:

‘It is an odd fact that most big chess events seem to have some main theme running through the best games, rather like the leit-motif of a Wagnerian opera. The theme at Lugano was the isolation of the black queen’s pawn and play on the white squares in front of it.’

Examples of tournaments with a theme are still being sought.

5557. Nimzowitsch’s dictum

Aron Nimzowitsch (Schweizerische Schachzeitung, May-June 1931, page 67)

A fresh addition to our feature article on ‘The Most Famous Chess Quotations’ is Nimzowitsch’s dictum ‘First restrain, next blockade, lastly destroy’. It is certainly famous, yet we are struck by how seldom it is to be found on the Internet. Moreover, not a single webpage consulted by us gives the source (My System), and we found no instance on-line of the original German (‘Zuerst hemmen, dann blockieren und schließlich vernichten’).

Below, to provide the context, is the full passage as it appeared in the first German and English editions (Berlin, 1925, page 246 and London, 1929, page 181):

It was in the section entitled ‘Doppelbauer und Hemmung’/‘The Doubled Pawn and Restraint’. Page numbers vary, but in the later editions of My System in our collection the reference is page 133, 151, 207 or 217. The last of these relates to the translation published by Quality Chess, Göteborg in 2007, which had a slightly different wording: ‘First restrain, then blockade and finally destroy.’

5558. Blackburne v Mackenzie

Joost van Winsen (Silvolde, the Netherlands) writes:

‘Immediately after returning from Europe to New York G.H. Mackenzie published the following item in the Turf, Field and Farm (18 October 1878), stating that a game of his against Blackburne had been misprinted in a number of publications:

The game can be found in, for instance, the Illustrated London News of 27 July 1878, the Westminster Papers of August 1878 (pages 83-84) and the Paris, 1878 tournament book (pages 61-63), all with, at move ten, ...

... a different move sequence: 10...f6 11 Rf3 Nxd4 12 cxd4 f5.

After giving Black’s tenth move as 10...f6, William N. Potter wrote in the Westminster Papers:

“If the score be correct, this is an outrageous b[l]under. And were it otherwise, I cannot see any merit in the move.”’

Below is the complete game-score as presented by Mackenzie (with no opportunity for White to win outright by 11 f5):

1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Nxd4 Bc5 5 Be3 Qf6 6 c3 Nge7 7 Bc4 d6 8 f4 Bb6 9 O-O Qg6 10 Nd2 f5 11 Rf3 Nxd4 12 cxd4 Qh5 13 Be2 fxe4 14 Rg3 Qf7 15 Nxe4 Nf5 16 Ng5 Qe7 17 Bf2 Nxg3 18 hxg3 d5 19 Qc2 g6 20 Bb5+ Kf8 21 Re1 Qf6 22 Qc3 Bf5 23 a4 a6 24 Be2 h6 25 Nf3 Qd6 26 Ne5 h5 27 a5 Ba7 28 Rc1 Rh7 29 b4 c6 30 Be3 Kg8 31 Rf1 Rf8 32 Bc1 Be4 33 b5 axb5 34 Rd1 b4 35 Qb2 h4 36 a6 hxg3 37 axb7 g5 and wins.

5559. Chessy words

It is some time since an addition was made to our Chessy Words feature article, but Mark McCullagh (Belfast, Northern Ireland) now supplies a citation for ‘chessophile’:

‘[Ray] Kennedy himself has been a chessophile since the age of nine, and still spends an occasional evening at an all-night chess parlor.’

Source: ‘A letter from the publisher’ by Ralph P. Davidson, Time, 31 July 1972, page 2.

Kennedy was the author of the cover article on pages 32-37 of that issue – a catchpenny thing ‘The Battle of the Brains’ which was mainly about Spassky and Fischer but also leapt gleefully on whatever might serve to ridicule such great players of the past as Morphy, Steinitz and Alekhine. For example (from page 35):

‘Morphy was given to such eccentricities as arranging women’s shoes in a semicircle in his room and prancing around his veranda reciting in French that “the little king will go away unabashed” [sic – an apparent miscopying of ‘all abashed’].’

In short, yet another ‘Fun’ writer for whom Reuben Fine’s The Psychology of the Chess Player was a godsend.

5560. Philidor’s famous remark

To our article on The Most Famous Chess Quotations we plan to add shortly Philidor’s remark about pawns being the soul of the game. For example, to cite page xii of his book L’analyse des échecs (London, 1752 edition): ‘... les Pions. Ils ſont l’ame des Echecs.’ (The modern spelling of ‘ſont l’ame’ is ‘sont l’âme’.)

If a reader has access to a range of editions of Philidor’s book (in French and English) we shall be grateful for information on how the wording of this observation may have varied over the years.

5561. Hypermodern (C.N. 4140)

C.N. 4140 asked when the term ‘hypermodern chess’ was first used and mentioned that an article entitled ‘Das hypermoderne Schach’ appeared in Am Baum der Schacherkenntnis by S. Tartakower (Berlin, 1921). As regards the word ‘hypermodern’ on its own, we now offer passages from pages 253 and 265 of the August-September 1913 Wiener Schachzeitung (respectively the magazine’s introduction to an article by Alapin and the relevant part of that article):

5562. Leit-motif (C.N. 5556)

From Per Skjoldager (Fredericia, Denmark):

‘In the Nordic tournament in Copenhagen, 1916 four of the seven games of the Swedish player S.O. Svensson had the leit-motif Qg5, as reported in Nordiska Schackförbundets Sjunde Kongress (the tournament book which appeared as the 8-9/1916 issue of Tidskrift för Schack).

In his game against P. Johner in round one (page 135) this position arose:

Instead of 18...Kxf7, which led to a quick loss, Svensson could have saved himself with 18...Qg5.

In Svensson’s game against O. Löwenborg (round three) the note to White’s 20th move (page 142) recalled his missed opportunity against Johner and added:

“But every cloud has a silver lining. He solemnly promised that he would never again refrain from Qg5. Thus ...

20 Qg5!”

In his game against G. Nyholm (round four) this position was reached after 35 Rxe3 (page 144):

Missing 35...Nxe4, Svensson played 35...Qg5, which was given two question marks, as was White’s reply 36 Nf1 (instead of simply 36 Qxg3). After 36...Nxe4 White resigned.

And finally, in Svensson’s game against E. Jacobsen in round five (page 148) the following position occurred:

Svensson played 23 O-O-O, planning 24 Qg5. After 23...c5?? the annotation read:

“Mr Jacobsen was, shortly before the game, reminded to be on guard against Mr Svensson’s favourite move Qg5, but in the heat of the battle he forgot the well-meant advice. White now wins a piece.”

Later, for the banquet, a special song was composed which mentioned Svensson and Qg5 (pages 130-131).’

Below is the tournament book’s frontispiece:

Copenhagen, 1916

5563. Who? (C.N. 5555)

Source: Page 502 of Die Hypermoderne Schachpartie by S. Tartakower (Vienna, 1924).

5564. Zukertort odds game

‘Perhaps the most extraordinary finish in the history of the game’, wrote Fred Reinfeld on page 18 of British Chess Masters Past and Present (London, 1947) about this contest, played at the odds of queen’s knight:

1 f4 e6 2 Nf3 Nf6 3 b3 d5 4 Bb2 c5 5 e3 Nc6 6 a3 a6 7 Bd3 Bd6 8 Qe2 O-O 9 g4 Nxg4 10 Qg2 Nf6 11 h4 h6 12 h5 Kh8 13 O-O-O Ne8 14 Rdg1 Rg8

15 Bh7 f6 16 Bxg8 Kxg8 17 Qg6 Kh8 18 Ng5 hxg5 19 fxg5 Ne7 20 gxf6 Nxg6 21 hxg6+ Kg8 22 Rh8+ Kxh8 23 f7 Resigns.

‘Unfortunately, the place and the date of this encounter are not available’, added Reinfeld, whose only information was that Zukertort had defeated an amateur. A couple of years later, however, some details were added on page 218 of Chernev and Reinfeld’s The Fireside Book of Chess: Black’s name was given as Epoureano and the occasion was ‘Berlin, 1874’. The score appeared in the chapter on odds games, and the co-authors commented:

‘To Zukertort goes the honor of producing the finest finish in this type of contest.’

Similar sentiments had been expressed by Francis J. Wellmuth on page 5 of The Golden Treasury of Chess (New York, 1943):

‘This is the finest odds-game ever played.’

Wellmuth did not name Black, and as the occasion he put ‘London, ca 1875’.

In fact, the game had already appeared on page 68 of the April 1874 issue of the City of London Chess Magazine, with Black identified as Count de Kostaki Epoureano:

Zukertort was a contributor to the periodical. The game, placed in Berlin, was undated, but when Blackburne’s notes were reproduced on page 212 of Johannes Zukertort Artist of the Chessboard by Jimmy Adams (Yorklyn, 1989) the occasion was specified as ‘Berlin, May 1872’.

Any further details regarding the circumstances of the game will be appreciated.

5565. Rooks of opposite colours

Harrie Grondijs (Rijswijk, the Netherlands) draws attention to this report by Steinitz on the London, 1883 tournament in the Turf, Field and Farm of 18 May 1883:

We add that in his annotations (The Field, 4 September 1875) to Burn v MacDonnell, Glasgow, 1875 Steinitz commented as follows after White’s 43rd move:

‘Anderssen once dryly observed to an opponent who offered him a draw in a position somewhat similar to this: “True enough, the bishops are of adverse colours, but so are the kings and the rooks.”’

See page 116 of Amos Burn A Chess Biography by Richard Forster (Jefferson, 2004).

5566. Who?

5567. Woodpusher (C.N. 5378)

Dan Scoones (Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada) writes:

‘C.N. 5378 reminded me of the short story “A Strange Simultaneous Display” by Marc Benoit on pages 203-208 of The Best In Chess by I.A. Horowitz and Jack Straley Battell (New York, 1965). The protagonist, Holz Schieber, fresh from a match victory over the Russian player Tolkai Derevyachkou, is induced to give a simultaneous exhibition against two local players in the small Quebec town of Poussebois. Schieber’s opponents conspire to copy the master’s moves so that, in effect, he is playing against himself. To subvert the plot he deliberately makes an illegal move on the first board. The second opponent dutifully follows suit, and Schieber immediately demands that the second opponent correct the illegal move. This allows him to send the two games down different paths, but it is all for nothing because he ends up losing both games. Of course, the names Holz Schieber, Tolkai Derevyachkou and Poussebois all translate (more or less) as “woodpusher”.’

The story had been published on pages 108-109 of the April 1954 Chess Review.

5568. Zukertort odds game (C.N. 5564)

Eduardo Bauzá Mercére (New York, NY, USA) suggests, on the basis of material available on the Internet, that Zukertort’s opponent was Manolache Kostaki Epureanu. He comments:

‘Variations found in the spelling of his name are Manolaki Costaki Epureanu and Manolaki Costaki Epureano, with his dates given as 1824-1880. Whether he was a Count I have not been able to determine, but his daughter, a famous pianist, was “Principesa” Elena Bibescu.’