1.  I won the championship of my country 11 times.  I played in 14 Chess Olympiads, and was 3 times a World Championship Candidate. Who am I?

2.  I was acknowledged as the "Champion of the Free World" for a time.  I also achieved a combined even score against both Botvinnik and Smyslov, but was never granted a world title match.  Who am I?

3.  I played international chess for 50 years, from the 1890's to the 1940's.  Although I won few tournaments, my dashing attacking style won me many brilliancy prizes, as well as many admirers.  As well as playing, I wrote about the game, and was the organizer of the 1911 San Sebastian tournament.  Who am I?

4.  I was a brilliant but inconsistent player whose best results were in the 1950's.  I was also a coach to Boris Spassky.  My nickname was the "g7-specialist", because of my tendency to sacrifice pieces or give mate on that square.  Who am I?

5.  I was my country's best player for 20 years, and in my prime, I was one of the best dozen players in the world. I burst onto the chess scene at the age of 18, winning my country's national championship, an international tournament and competing at a Chess Olympiad. I impressed onlookers at the Olympiad with my fresh, sparkling attacking style, which was at odds with the more positional and cautious play of my fellow countrymen. All up, I won my national championship 8 times, and competed in 11 Olympiads over the space of 30 odd years.

I was at my peak in the decade immediately after World War Two.  My best result was finishing 2nd in an Interzonal tournament, with 5th places in 2 other Interzonals. My best result in the subsequent Candidates tournaments was an equal 3rd.  I continued to play in international tournaments in the 1960's and 1970's. winning several. I retired from OTB play after my final tournament in 1979.

6.  I was a true chess professional , taking part in more than 120 tournaments and 50 individual matches.  I made my international debut prior to World War One, placing in several tournaments, and winning a couple of "thematic" tournaments.  After serving in the Austrian Army during World War One, I commenced my most successful period, winning several major tournaments and matches.  By the end of the 1920's I was considered one of the top 10 players in the world.

I was not a follower of the hypermodern movement that was in "vogue" when I was playing. I preferred open games, with a direct attack against the enemy king.  I had the reputation of being one of the best attacking players of my generation, relying on intuition rather than calculation when sacrificing material.  While this lead to many victories, losses would lead to a loss of confidence, and I could record some abysmal results.  I fled Europe both because of failing health and to avoid Nazi persecution, and spent the rest of my life in Sweden.  I was given the nickname of the "Last Knight of the King's Gambit".

7.  I was born in Hungary, but emigrated to the US at age 16. I improved my play by attending the Marshall and Manhattan chess clubs. I played in 3 successive Olympiads for the US. I won the US Open title once outright, as well as sharing the title on another occasion. I also won the US Championship once. After moving from New York to Hollywood, I wrote a chess column in the "Los Angeles Times" for over 20 years. I also founded the "Hollywood Chess Group", which was patronized by actors such as Humphrey Bogart.  I died suddenly of a heart attack, and I shared my surname with 2 other masters.  Who Am I!?

8.  I learnt to play chess at the age of 4, and made my debut in my country's national championship at age 15. I went on to win my country's title 10 times, including a run of 7 titles in a row. Despite my domestic success, I did not participate in many international tournaments, as I concentrated on my studies.  I became a psychologist, and then a university lecturer on the subject.  My major international competition were the Chess Olympiads, where I represented my country 9 times over a 20 year period.  I played on board 1, and showed that I was equal to the best players in the world. I was the first player to defeat Mikhail Tal after he won the world title in 1960.  The stress of OTB play and poor stamina led to a decline in my play. I took up CC, and for a couple of years I was the highest rated CC player in the world. I led my country to a surprise victory in a CC Olympiad. Who am I?

Just Couldn't Take "No" For An Answer:  In the course of playing Roman Dzindzichashvili during the 1989 US championship tournament, Igor Ivanov made 7 draw offers in the space of just 23 moves.

The Drawing Master Remembered:  42 of the 45 games played in the 1999 Tigran Petrosian Memorial Tournament in Moscow were drawn, with more than half lasting less than 20 moves.

Better than Bobby?:  Bent Larsen played Board 1 for the Rest of the World team against the USSR in the match played at Belgrade in 1970. Bobby Fischer played on Board 2 for the Rest of the World.

Championship Beginnings:  To qualify as an entrant in the 1911 San Sebastian International Tournament, each player must have finished 3rd or better in at least 2 international tournaments.  An exception was made for Jose Capablanca, with the organizers taking into account his victory over Frank Marshall in 1909.  The organizers were proved correct, as Capablanca won the tournament with a score of +6 -1 =7.

"Lucky" Seven:  The "Berlin Pleaides" was the nickname given to a group of 7 German chessplayers of the 19th century who published books, and toured the country giving exhibitions and lectures.  The 7 members were:

1.  LE Bledow (1795-1846)
2.  K Schorn (1802-50)
3.  B Horwitz (1807-85)
4.  TH von der Lasa (1808-1899)
5.  C Mayet (1810-1868)
6.  W Hanstein (1811-50)
7.  PR Bilguer (1813-1840)

Another Seven:  The first round-robin international tournament was held at London in 1851, immediately after the more famous knockout tournament.  The players were Anderssen, Harrwitz, Horwitz, Meirhofer, Szabo, Ehrmann and Kieseritsky, with Anderssen winning the tournament.

Double Winner:  After winning the championship of the Swiss city of Geneva in 1914, Russian player Alexander Ilyin added the city to his name, becoming Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky.  Suffering from shell-shock received during World War One, Ilyin-Genevsky forgot everything that he learned about the game, and had to learn to play again from scratch.

Fischer Beaters:  The only 3 players to have had a plus record against Bobby Fischer in international chess were:

Dragoljub Janosevic (Yug) +1, =2, -0 (2-1)
Efim Geller (USSR) +5, =2, -3 (6-4)
Mikhail Tal (USSR) +4, =5, -2 (6.5-4.5)

Longest Round Robin:  The largest round-robin tournament ever played was the 1869 New York tournament.  There were 48 competitors who played each other twice, which mean 94 games for each competitor!  It seems that the tournament was abandoned before all games were finished.  The best score was by George Mackenzie, with +82, -8.

Longest Annotations:  When Robert Hubner annotated his game against Lajos Portisch for the 1981 Tilburg International Tournament book, the game and annotations went for a full 29 pages, from pages 15 to 44. It is believed that this is the record for the longest annotations to one game.

An Odd Match:  One of the most spectacular displays of "living chess" ever given was held in 1934, at the Stalin Motorworks factory in Moscow.  The players were Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR champion) and Nikolai Riumin (Moscow champion).  The "pieces" were represented in the following way:

Kings - weightlifters
Queens - tennis players
Rooks - athletes armed with machine guns(!)
Bishops - cyclists
Knights - javelin throwers
Pawns - football players

The game ended in a draw after 36 moves.

An Odds Match:  In 1846, Howard Staunton defeated Daniel Harrwitz in a 22 game match by the score of +12 -9 =1. What was interesting was that the match was played with different odds in some of the games. Here are the scores for each type of odds:

Even                           +7 -0 = 0
Pawn and move           +1 -6 =1
Pawn and two moves   +4 -3 = 0

First Correspondence Games:  The oldest correspondence chess games for which the moves have still survived were played in the Netherlands in 1804.  The games were played by army officer in the Hague named Fredrich Wilhelm von Mauvillon, and another unknown army officer stationed in Breda.  Mauvillon won the 3 games in which the moves have survived.

First Correspondence Championship:  Alexander Alekhine was a member of a working party set up in 1936 by the Internationaler Fernschachbund (IFSB) to determine a system for determining a world correspondence chess championship.  Alekhine had played correspondence chess in his younger years in Russia prior to World War 1.  World War 2 put an a stop to the IFSB's plan, and the inaugural World Correspondence Chess Championship was started in 1950, under the umbrella of the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF).