Chess Notes Archive [23]

John Hilbert (Amherst, NY, USA) submits a paragraph about Zukertort by ‘Mars’ (G.A. MacDonnell) in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, 26 June 1880:

‘“Zed” is endowed with a strong memory and a lively imagination; indeed, he can remember facts that never occurred, and paint scenes from nature that have no existence but in his mind’s eye. Hitherto known as a dull and pompous inditer of mystic paragraphs, he has lately essayed to be witty and satirical. I am very glad of this change. I congratulate him upon it. But he does not seem to be at home in this new line, and I fear he will require many lessons before he reaches efficiency in it. “Zed”, your dagger may be sharp, but I don’t think you know how or when to use it. You should use the point of your weapon, if it has any, and you should not strike out in a club room before your host and the assembled guests. “Zed”, you are a puzzle to me – you are an anomaly in the world of chess literature. I am strongly of the opinion that you ought to be abolished. You are, as Kent says in King Lear, an unnecessary letter. And why unnecessary? A commentator replies, Because S answers all the purposes of Z. Yes, and answers them a great deal better. In chess we have a W.S. who for all chess purposes is worth more than double you Zed!’

The unresolved Terrazas mystery arises from a statement by Frank Mur on page 227 of his English translation of A. Alekhine Agony of a Chess Genius by P. Morán (Jefferson, 1989) regarding one of Alekhine’s games at Sabadell, 1945:

‘Alekhine’s victim was 11 years old. Years later he wrote:

“I only recall that the imposing figure of an Alekhine made one play with a deep reverential awe, especially at that age.” – Filiberto Terrazas to Frank X. Mur, letter dated 19 January 1979.’

However, the photographs of Terrazas from Miquel Artigas in C.N.s 4008 and 4015 suggested that Alekhine’s opponent was the adult local player Teodoro Terrazas:

Terrazas at Sabadell, 1945, playing against Ros

Mr Artigas now reports:

‘I have been doing some research in the Arxiu històric de Sabadell, where the local newspaper Sabadell of the time is available. Unfortunately there are only two pieces of information about the tournament preliminaries and no further news about the event, crosstable or scores.

However, the newspaper presented Terrazas as a local player, and in my opinion it is now clear that it was Teodoro Terrazas Elizando, and not Filiberto Terrazas as stated by Frank X. Mur.

Surprisingly, the report also said that the player Glotas [?] defeated Alekhine in Gijón, whereas, according to Morán and Skinner/Verhoeven, Alekhine defeated Clotas and lost only against Medina and Bonet. This would seem to be a mistake by the journalist.’

The full text of the report, on page 2 of Sabadell, 27 July 1945, is given below:

‘AJEDREZ
de la Obra Sindical EDUCACION Y DESCANSO

El Dr. Alekine [sic], campeón mundial de ajedrez y el Maestro Lupi, campeón de Portugal, en el IV Torneo de Maestros de la Fiesta Mayor

Por primera vez en la historia deportiva local, será escenario Sabadell de una Competición internacional de Ajedrez, que por la calidad y número de participantes inscritos, promete resultar la más importante prueba ajedrecística, celebrada en España desde largos tiempos.

En dicho Torneo, nuestros jugadores nacionales tendrá [sic] nuevamente ocasión de aquilatar sus fuerzas ante el actual campeón mundial Alekine [sic] a quien lograron vencer brillantemente en Gijón, el campeón de España Medina, y el asturiano Glotas [sic].

Los jugadores locales Sres. Dr. Mena de la Torre, Ros y Terrazas, inscritos también para el mismo, se preparan activamente para dar digna réplica a sus adversarios de tan magna competición y confiamos que su entusiasmo aumentando sus posibilidades, les llevará al desempeño de un tan brillante papel como el del año anterior.’

C.N. 4387 asked what happened to Pablo Morán’s library and archives after his death in 1995. Mr Miquel Artigas writes:

‘On page 7 of issue 43 of the Spanish magazine Gambito, published in 2000, there is an article by Alfonso Romero entitled “La biblioteca de Pablo Morán” which states that Moran’s library was placed in the Biblioteca Provincial de Asturias “Ramón Pérez de Ayala”. According to Romero there were about 2,000 volumes, but nothing was said about Morán’s private archives.’

How many players have been given, or have given themselves, the title ‘blindfold world champion’? Below are two cases which we have noted recently:

1. Opposite page 74 of the London Chess Fortnightly, 14 January 1893 was a photograph of ‘J.H. Blackburne, Blindfold Champion of the World’.

2. Page 241 of CHESS, July 1946 had an article entitled ‘My Sixth US Tour’ by George Koltanowski (‘World’s blindfold chess champion’).

Around 1640-41, during the reign of Charles I of England, a young man named William left his native land for the New World. Settling in Boston, he took employment as a servant and soon began ‘his courtship of a comely serving maiden’, Dorothy Crosbey. They were married in June or July 1641 and had, between 1642 and 1671, ten children, the third of whom was named Moses.

William, who lived until 1686, was the common ancestor of the Pillsbury family in, to use the modern term, the USA, and in the eighth generation there came Harry Nelson Pillsbury. The direct lineage was as follows.

1. William Pillsbury (died 19 June 1686)
2. Moses Pillsbury (born circa 1645; died 1701)
3. Caleb Pillsbury (born 27 July 1681; died 1759)
4. Caleb Pillsbury (born 26 January 1717; died 7 February 1778)
5. Caleb Pillsbury (born 27 March 1752; died 17 September 1832)
6. Caleb Pillsbury (born 17 December 1786; died 17 March 1874)
7. Luther B. Pillsbury (born 23 November 1832)
8. Harry N. Pillsbury (born 5 December 1872).

All the above details are taken from the remarkable book mentioned in C.N. 4380, The Pillsbury Family by David B. Pilsbury and Emily A. Getchell (Everett, 1898).

In addition to the information quoted in our earlier item, page 162 of the book states that Harry Nelson Pillsbury’s father, Luther, had a second marriage, to Mary A. Libby on 9 February 1895, and the entry contains the following note:

‘Mr Pillsbury was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and for a number of years taught school successfully in different towns of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Of late years has been engaged in real estate and insurance business, in Somerville. Mrs Pillsbury was a teacher before her marriage, and was a writer of pleasant verse for several publications. Harry, the youngest son, has won name and fame as a chessplayer in America and Europe.’

From Tim Harding (Dublin):

‘He was indeed George William (and not Williams) Lyttelton, as is shown by all the regular (i.e. non-chess) reference works (such as Cokayne’s Complete Peerage, Burke’s, Debrett’s, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Alumni Cantab). I have no idea how Gaige made his mistake.’

We now note that in the 1994 (privately-circulated) edition of Chess Personalia Jeremy Gaige amended ‘Williams’ to ‘William’.

No readers identified Alexander Khalifman, in a sketch taken from page 167 of Ruslan Ponomariov Put’ chempiona (Moscow, 2004). For purposes of comparison, a signed likeness of Khalifman from our collection is given below:

‘Considering the general sad state of chess knowledge 200 years ago, and the fact that he made his mark in other fields, Jean-Jacques Rousseau played a respectable game.’

So wrote Irving Chernev when giving, on pages 330-331 of 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (New York, 1955), the score of the game Rousseau v Conti, Montmorency, 1760: 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 c3 Qe7 5 O-O d6 6 d4 Bb6 7 Bg5 f6 8 Bh4 g5 9 Nxg5 fxg5 10 Qh5+ Kf8 11 Bxg5 Qg7 12 f4 exd4 13 f5 dxc3+ 14 Kh1 cxb2 15 Bxg8 bxa1(Q) 16 f6 Qxg8 17 Bh6+ Qg7 18 Bxg7+ Kg8 19 Qe8 mate.

As will be shown below, it was known well before Chernev’s time that the game was not played by Rousseau, but when anything to do with chess is attached to a famous name the two often become indissociable.

Knowledge of the chess activity of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is chiefly derived from his autobiography Les Confessions, published a few years after his death. In the fifth book he described his introduction to the game at the hands of Gabriel Bagueret of Geneva, and in book seven he recorded meeting chessplayers in Paris (‘je fis là connaissance avec M. de Légal, avec un M. Husson, avec Philidor, avec tous les grands joueurs d’échecs de ce temps-là’) and chronicled the lack of improvement in his own play. Book ten described his chess encounters with Prince Conti.

These passages are too familiar to be quoted here, and English translations may be found in many chess books, such as:

• Chess Pieces by N. Knight (London, 1949), pages 131-134.
• The Chess Reader by J. Salzmann (New York, 1949), pages 103-105.
• The Treasury of Chess Lore by F. Reinfeld (New York, 1951), page 271.
• Caissa’s Web by G. Harwood (London, 1975), page 104.
• A History of Chess by H. Golombek (London, 1976), pages 116-117.

Moreover, the complete text of Rousseau’s Les Confessions is readily found online.

The above game allegedly played between Rousseau and Prince Conti (1717-1776) was given wide currency by James Mason on pages 124-125 of Social Chess (London, 1900). He dated it 1759 and stated that the finish was ‘16 f6 and wins’. When the book was reviewed on pages 53-56 of the February 1900 BCM, a full page was devoted to discussing the Rousseau v Conti game:

‘We are not aware of the source from which this has been drawn; the only original treatise on chess published in France during last century was the Traité des Amateurs, 1775, and this was mainly devoted to odds games. Where then was this game preserved? In an age when even the ten match games between Philidor and Stamma were allowed to drop into oblivion, and in a country whose players were even more backward in recording games than were the English contemporaries of Philidor, who would have recorded this one, and with what object? The passage relating to chess in Les Confessions has an interest of its own, but lends no support to the ascription of this game.’

After summarizing chess-related passages from Les Confessions (including Rousseau’s reference to having bought a chess set and a copy of the Calabrese, i.e. Greco), the BCM review continued:

‘From all this it would appear that Rousseau never attained any particular proficiency at chess, nor regarded himself as a good player; but its chief value for the purpose in hand lies in the reference to Greco.’

The BCM then pointed out that the first 11 moves of the Rousseau v Conti game ‘will be found in Greco (Lewis’s translation, 1819, page 21)’ and observed regarding a remark by Mason (‘White plays very brilliantly’):

‘Quite so; that is a good reason why the authenticity of the game should be suspected; it is the play of a pupil who has not merely learnt his opening by heart but who has so thoroughly entered into the spirit of his brilliant master that when thrown on his own resources by a deviation from his “book” he can continue and wind up the game in a manner hardly surpassed by anything to be found in that book. Who, in the light of his own narrative, would venture to say that Jean-Jacques was such a pupil? We suspect that the concluding portion of the game is the work of an Italian author subsequent to Greco, and was intended to complete his analysis on a point where it was regarded as deficient; as to how the game came to be associated with the name of Rousseau we prefer to reserve our conjectures, ignoring the source from which Mr Mason obtained it.’

A few years later I. Grünberg wrote, with research assistance from Alexis François, an academic article ‘Rousseau joueur d’échecs’ on pages 157-174 of Annales de la société Jean-Jacques Rousseau, volume three (Geneva, 1907).

Grünberg began not with Les Confessions but with an extract from a letter written by Rousseau to M. de Saint-Germain (Monquin, 26 February 1770):

‘Le jeu: je ne puis le souffrir. Je n’ai vraiment joué qu’une fois en ma vie, au Redoute à Venise; je gagnai beaucoup, m’ennuyai, et ne jouai plus. Les échecs, où l’on ne joue rien, sont le seul jeu qui m’amuse. Je n’ai pas peur d’être un Béverley.’

Turning to Les Confessions, Grünberg quoted not only the usual passages but also a reference, in book ten, to Rousseau’s desire in Montmorency to play chess against two acquaintances, Ferraud (or Ferrand) and Minard:

‘Je ne sais pas pourquoi ils se souciaient de moi; pour moi, je ne me souciais d’eux que parce qu’ils jouaient aux échecs; et, pour obtenir une pauvre petite partie, j’endurais quatre heures d’ennui.’

Next, Grünberg discussed Rousseau’s well-known remark to Prince Conti, also in book ten of Les Confessions, about having too much respect for the Prince not to beat him at chess. (‘En finissant, je lui dis d’un ton respectueux, mais grave: Monseigneur, j’honore trop Votre Altesse Sérénissime, pour ne la pas gagner toujours aux échecs.’) Noting that a nineteenth-century writer on Rousseau, Saint-Marc Girardin, had opined that Rousseau did not speak those words, Grünberg disagreed, pointing out that Rousseau had related the same version to Pierre-Alexandre Du Peyrou in a letter dated 27 September 1767.

Grünberg then suggested that Rousseau understated his chess skill, given that he won games against Prince Conti, who ‘passait pour un joueur habile, élève du chevalier de Lorenzi’. The article gave the moves of the Rousseau v Conti game, unquestioningly specifying the source as follows in a footnote:

‘Ce document a été reproduit par la revue Le Palamède, année 1843, p. 41-42, au milieu d’une fantaisie de Marie Aycard, intitulée “Jean-Jacques et le Prince de Conti”. L’original avait été communiqué à la revue par un de ses abonnés, M. Doazan, “possesseur de fort curieux manuscrits sur les échecs au siècle dernier”.’

After quoting from Richard Twiss’ book Chess (London, 1787) that ‘Rousseau was very inexpert at chess, though an enthusiastic admirer of it’, Grünberg stated that an opponent of Rousseau’s, the Abbé Jean-Joseph-Thérèse Roman, had handed down to posterity a detailed written account of one of their games, in a lengthy poem probably composed in 1762. Grünberg noted that the fourth chant (i.e. canto)  related Roman’s victory over Rousseau and that the account, the poem and the game-score had been published in Le Palamède, 1836 (pages 265-279). Below are the moves as they appeared in that earlier source:

The moves were thus as follows: 1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 g5 4 Bc4 g4 5 Ne5 Qh4+ 6 Kf1 Nh6 7 d4 d6 8 Nd3 f3 9 g3 Qh3+ 10 Kf2 Qg2+ 11 Ke3 Ng8 12 Nf4 Bh6 13 Bf1 Qxh1 14 Bb5+ c6 15 Bxc6+ bxc6 16 Qxh1 Resigns.

Grünberg drew a number of conclusions about Rousseau from the above game, which, in common with the Conti score, he assumed to be genuine.

His article attracted attention, and not least after most of it was reproduced in La Stratégie, June 1908, pages 165-177. Shortly afterwards, H.J.M. Murray contributed an article entitled ‘Rousseau and Chess’ to the August 1908 BCM, pages 329-331, praising Grünberg’s industry and building on the information provided, to demonstrate that neither game attributed to Rousseau was genuine. As regards the philosopher’s meeting with Prince Conti, Murray wrote:

‘A fictitious account of this meeting was written by Marie Aycard for the Palamède in 1843, and in the course of the story the game to which I have referred is given. It is pretended that the Chevalier de Lorenzy had taken it down at the time, and that M. Doazan had supplied it from the MS. All this is very circumstantial, but the only piece of truth in it is the fact that M. Doazan had supplied the game from a MS in his possession. But this MS was not the work of de Lorenzy, neither did it contain eighteenth-century games. The only MS in Doazan’s possession was the so-called “Doazan MS”, which was described in the Palamède in 1843; and at a later time, after William Lewis had publicly expressed doubts as to the genuineness of the MS, it was seen by v.d. Lasa in 1855. V.d. Lasa extracted the games, and circulated them among his friends in a lithographed edition, under the title of Recueil de Parties d’Echecs, Bruxelles, 1855. The MS has disappeared since the sale of M. Doazan’s library in 1865, but, thanks to v.d. Lasa, we know exactly what the MS was, and what it contained. It was an Italian compilation of the early seventeenth century, the work of some admirer or companion of that Polerio who accompanied Leonardo – il Puttino – on his journey to Madrid to play Ruy López, about 1575. That the supposed game Rousseau v the Prince de Conti was obtained from this MS is quite clear, for it occurs there from the first move to the last. There, however it is given as from the play of the Spaniard Busnardo, a contemporary of Ruy López. The Doazan MS stands in close connection with an Italian MS at Paris (It. 955), and the same game occurs in this MS, with the title, “Altra manera d’uscire del busnardo”. It is clear that the modern ascription of the game is as fictitious as the story in which Aycard set it, and that later writers have made the easy mistake of treating chess fiction as chess history.’

Murray then described the circumstances of the Roman v Rousseau game and concluded:

‘... The game proves to be a Greco game (Hoffmann’s Games of Greco, ch. xlvi, page 125), and we must accordingly reject this game also as a literary forgery. We possess no genuine example of Rousseau’s play, and perhaps it is as well for his reputation that it is so. A player who either would not or could not make a scientific study of the game, who derived no benefit from practice with Philidor, who reached the limit of his powers in a single day, assuredly could know nothing of the brilliancy of chess.’

The article by Murray was mentioned on page 95 of the Chess Weekly, 22 August 1908, which offered some general thoughts on Rousseau’s chess prowess:

‘There is a sort of credit which comes to a brilliant man from doing badly what other and less gifted mortals do extremely well; and when Rousseau gives account in the Confessions of his not merely indifferent but conspicuously abject skill at chess, declaring that he never improved beyond the point he reached on his first day’s acquaintance with the game, we think he was fully aware of the paradox involved, and wittingly sacrificed the essential truth of his words to their literary effect. It would, indeed, be picturesque incapacity which did not measurably profit by exercise and experience; and if, contrary to his wont, Rousseau deceived himself upon this point, it must have been that he knew so little of the game as not to have a competent opinion whether he progressed or not. It is, of course, hard to detect improvement in your own game from day to day; but when the period of observation is long enough, it is as apparent as the moon’s increase.

It is, however, the way of confession to exaggerate, and Rousseau was far too shrewd not to see that, by proclaiming himself a negative monstrosity at chess, he could very well serve not only his taste for confession but also his renown as no ordinary manner of man. It is, to be sure, a trifling incident in his book, but a grain of insincerity, if such it were shown to be, would pollute all his mighty rivers of confession.

We are reminded of that good old saint who could never – or hardly ever – talk of sinners but he must add, “Of which I am the chiefest”; yet we very well know he was no such thing.’

Murray mentioned Rousseau in a 15-line footnote on pages 861-862 of A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), where he used the word ‘forgery’ to describe both game-scores discussed above. On page 54 of A Short History of Chess (Oxford, 1963) the man whom his BCM article had described as ‘the Spaniard Busnardo’ was referred to as ‘a Roman player named il Busnardo’. It may be mentioned here that the Rousseau v Conti game had been published on pages 228-229 of the Chess World, 1865. As noted by Murray in his BCM article, the game also appeared on page 1 of Chess Sparks by J.H. Ellis (London, 1895).

A general feature ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les échecs’ by Anatole Mouterde is to be found on pages 253-254 of La Stratégie, December 1919, and six years later an article ‘Jean-Jacques Rousseau joueur d’échecs’ was published in issue four of Les Cahiers de l’Echiquier Français, pages 97-105. It drew heavily on Grünberg’s work, but had no mention of Murray’s. Subsequent features on Rousseau which we have seen show little or no sign of scholarship, one example being on page 59 of the November 1934 issue of El Ajedrez Español (an anecdote about Rousseau and ‘el caballero de La Mothe-D’Urbin’).

Endnote: the above quotations from Les Confessions follow the 1972 Garnier edition edited by Jacques Voisine. It used modern spelling (e.g. ‘j’étais’), whereas Grünberg’s article had the spelling of Rousseau’s day (‘j’étois’).

C.N. 4053 asked where exactly Sheriff Spens described Paul Morphy as ‘the pride and sorrow of chess’. No answer has yet been found, but we note that on page 144 of A History of Chess (London, 1976) H. Golombek attributed the phrase to Fiske.

From page 51 of A. Alekhine Agony of a Chess Genius by P. Morán (Jefferson, 1989):

‘The 1942 “switched envelopes” anecdote best illustrates Alekhine’s patriotism: he mailed a pro-Communist letter to the Third Reich, and a pro-Nazi letter to the USSR.’

How far back can this story be traced?

From Jerry Slocum (Beverly Hills, CA, USA):

‘Sam Loyd did not invent the 15 Puzzle (or the 14-15 Puzzle) and had nothing to do with promoting or popularizing it. This is one of the surprising findings in a new book, The 15 Puzzle, which I have written with Dic Sonneveld. It describes and illustrates the true story of the invention, patent application and manufacturing of the puzzle.

A huge puzzle craze was created by the 15 Puzzle which began in January 1880 in the USA and in April in Europe. The craze ended by July 1880, and Sam Loyd’s first article about the puzzle was not published until 16 years later, in January 1896. Loyd first claimed in 1891 that he invented the puzzle, and he continued until his death a 20-year campaign to take false credit for the puzzle. Loyd also falsely claimed that he invented the game Parcheesi and a dexterity puzzle named “Pigs-in-Clover” that generated another puzzle craze in 1889.

The actual inventor of the 15 Puzzle was Noyes Palmer Chapman, the postmaster of Canastota, New York, and he applied for a patent in March 1880.’

What are the highest prices for which any old chess piece, set or board has been sold (e.g. at auction)?

The opportunity is taken here to quote a line from Alan Bennett’s masterly play The History Boys:

‘We venerate supine antiquity. In our catechism, old is good, older is better, ancient is best, with a bonus on archaeology because it’s the closest history comes to shopping.’

From Michael Clapham (Ipswich, England):

‘On 9 June 2006 I attended an antique and collectors’ auction in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, held by Hansons Auctioneers. There were a few old books in the sale, including just the one chess book. However, this was a first edition of Arthur Saul’s The famous game of Chesse-play (London, 1614).

Page 26 of David DeLucia’s book A Few Old Friends (Darien, 2003) states that only five copies are recorded, his own and four in major libraries, so this was a hitherto unrecorded copy of the first book on chess by an Englishman, and apparently only the second copy in private hands. It came from a Derbyshire lady who brought it along to a valuation day at the local Women’s Institute.

The auctioneers obviously did not appreciate the rarity of the book and catalogued it without mentioning the author at an estimated price of £200-300. The book made £8,704, including the buyer’s premium.’

The illustration below appeared in a chess magazine. What does it depict?

From page 74 of The Fireside Book of Chess by I. Chernev and F. Reinfeld (New York, 1949):

‘In 1851 the Chess Champion of the world was A. Anderssen; the Checker Champion of the world was A. Anderson.’

This is quoted not to prompt a discussion about Anderssen’s chess status in 1851 but to ask whether Anderson was indeed recognized at that time as world champion at draughts/checkers. In C.N. 3030 (see page 269 of Chess Facts and Fables) a correspondent enquired whether chess was the first field to use the title ‘world champion’, a question which remains open.

Jan Kalendovský (Brno, Czech Republic) sends us a copy of the entrance ticket to the 1931 Olympiad in Prague:

Do any readers possess entrance tickets which are of intrinsic historical interest?

As mentioned in C.N. 3773, Fox annotated his game against Bauer on pages 79-80 of La Stratégie, 15 March 1901. We now reproduce those notes:

Leonard Barden (London) writes:

‘A.W. Fox used the Ruy López and 4 O-O against the Berlin Defence several times during his period of master play in 1904-06 (which included Cambridge Springs), so I do not see any difficulty with that brilliancy.

However, the Giuoco Piano game against Karper is peculiar in that A.W. Fox (if it is he) eschews his normal Ruy López, then passes over not just the simpler win pointed out by Chernev but also two easy wins earlier. 13 c3 or 13 a3 wins a piece (Black’s bishop at b4 and knight at a5 are in a tangle), while four moves later 17 Qg4 wins instantly with the double threat Qxg7 mate and Nh6+ with Qxd7.

So if the Giuoco Piano is indeed an A.W. Fox game (clearly this is not 100% sure) it seems that, recognizing that he had a cooperative opponent, enjoying the thrill of a brilliancy, and maybe with fond memories of his other Qg6, he declined the easy wins in favour of a flashy finish which he may well have foreseen some way in advance.’

From Antero Leitzinger (Helsinki):

‘According to the chess column in a Finnish newspaper, Svenska Pressen, 29 October 1932, Antti Favén offered his painting as a prize at the annual Finnish championship tournament. In his speech, Favén referred to his friendship with Marshall and other players at the Café de la Régence, which suggests that the painting portrayed those players. The painting and a copy of it (I do not know which is the original) adorn the walls of the Stockholm Chess Union and of Shakkikoti, a chess club room in Helsinki. According to Calle Erlandsson in C.N. 3770, the former picture was donated by Erik Lundin, which is confirmed by Eero E. Böök in his article in the 10/1980 issue of the Finnish chess magazine Suomen Shakki, pages 294-295. Lundin himself, however, made no mention of acquiring the painting in his memoirs Erik Lundin spelar upp sina schackminnen 1924-1979 (Skara, 1979).

Under the rules set out in Favén’s speech, as quoted in Svenska Pressen, the painting was to be awarded to whichever player won the Finnish championship three times. This means that Böök should have received it in late April 1936. However, in the newspaper Uusi Suomi, where Böök had a weekly chess column at the time, no mention was made of his receiving the painting after the tournament. Nor did Böök explain in his later (1980) article why the painting ended up in Sweden, but he did reproduce the picture with suggestions as to the identities of some of the figures: Tarrasch (in the background), Marshall (with a cigar), Janowsky (with a cigarette, on Marshall’s right), Burn (seated in front of Marshall, with a pipe), and Bernstein (facing Burn). On the basis of a Swedish pamphlet, Böök claimed that Favén produced the painting over a long period, from 1902 to 1913.

Page 29 of a publication by a Finnish art museum, Antti Favén 1882-1948 (edited by Ulla Huhtamäki, Hämeenlinnan taidemuseon julkaisuja 3, Toijala, 1992), mentions Favén having worked on his painting in autumn 1910. It also refers to a Finnish newspaper, Nya Pressen, of 4 October 1910, but the date is incorrect, as there was nothing about Favén in that issue.

Yrjö Antti Favén was a cosmopolitan Finn, born in Helsinki, who lived in Paris for many years, working in the rue Saint-Senoch. In 1938 or 1939 he finally moved to Sweden, and in 1946, only two years before his death, he became a Swedish citizen.’

A question which arises is whether Faven’s painting depicts players whom he met at the Café de la Régence or, indeed, whether some of the portraits were based on photographs and others were fictional.

C.N. 2872 discussed the game Torre v Parker (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 exd4 5 O-O Bc5 6 e5 d5 7 exf6 dxc4 8 Re1+ Be6 9 Ng5 Qd5 10 Nc3 Qf5 11 Nce4 O-O-O 12 g4 Qe5 13 Nxe6 fxe6 14 fxg7 Rhg8 15 Bh6 Bd6 16 f4 Qa5 17 Qf3 Qd5 18 g5 Bc5 19 Kg2 Be7 20 Nf6 Bxf6 21 Qxd5 Rxd5 22 gxf6 Rf5 23 Rxe6 Nd8 24 Rae1 Nxe6 25 Rxe6 d3 26 cxd3 cxd3 27 Kf2 d2 28 Ke2 Rd8 29 Kd1 Rc5 30 White resigns), which became famous because in the final position ...

... Torre could have won with 30 Rd6.

See pages 5-6 of Chess Facts and Fables, but our book should have included the following supplementary information from Jack O’Keefe (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) which appeared in C.N. 2874:

‘It seems that the game was played on 16 September 1924.

“In his first simultaneous exhibition at the rooms of the Marshall Chess Club Tuesday evening, Carlos Torre was opposed by ten players. After two hours and 30 minutes the Western champion finished with a score of eight wins and two losses. The winners were Z.L. Hoover, secretary of the Correspondence Chess League of America, and F. Parker, former champion of the Marshall Chess Club.” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 18 September 1924, page A3.)

The next week’s column (25 September 1924 issue, page A3) gave the game with this introduction:

“Befitting a modest young man, Torre does not believe in concealing the successes of opponents, which are rare enough, goodness knows, under a bushel. A case in point, and quite a strange incident, is his game with F.E. Parker in his simultaneous exhibition at the Marshall Chess Club, where Torre won eight and lost two. After 29 moves the young Mexican resigned. He had no sooner done this than it flashed across his mind that he had missed a good reply, but, having given up the game, he allowed the decision to stand. Further examination showed that he actually had a winning continuation in hand.”

Then the score is given (just as you have it) followed by this note:

“Instead of resigning, White could have won by force as follows: 30 R-Q6 (a real problem move) RxR 31 P-Kt8(Q)ch K-Q2 32 Q-B7ch K-B3 33 Q-K8ch K-Kt3 34 Q-K3 and wins. If 32...K-Q 33 Q-B8ch K-Q2 34 QxRch PxQ 35 P-B7 and wins.”

A footnote came a few weeks later (30 October 1924, page A3):

“With reference to the game which Frank E. Parker won from Torre in the latter’s simultaneous exhibition at the Marshall Chess Club, it should be stated, in justice to Mr Parker, that it was he who was the first to point out the problem move by means of which his opponent might have won the game he actually resigned.”’

Carlos Torre

From page 14 of R.D. Yates Checker Player by W.T. Call (New York, 1905):

‘Paul Morphy, the chess genius, sought to obtain a glimpse into the scientific depths of checkers without too much trouble, but never succeeded in getting within sight of anything under the surface of the game. When he went to England he asked Thomas Lear, who played both checkers and chess, to explain to him “wherein the beauty of draughts playing lay”. On another occasion, half in jest, half in earnest, the great chess master said to a New York player, “Checkers is for tramps”.

W.J.A. Fuller, chess editor of Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, declared that checkers is “all bosh”, although he was what the checker editor of the New York Clipper called “a bold, dashing and original draughts player”. Hodges, the Buffalo expert, was beating Fuller at checkers repeatedly, to the great satisfaction of the bystanders, when the author of the “all bosh” remark claimed he had an easy draw, and his offer to make a bet and give odds on it was quickly taken. Fuller won the bet by gently drawing his knees apart and allowing the board and men to fall to the floor. This, by the way, is the origin of “Fuller’s draw”, a phrase sometimes used to describe the only thing an inferior player might expect to get from an adept.’

Wanted: substantiation of the foregoing, and particularly the material about Morphy.

Avital Pilpel (Haifa, Israel) mentions that Tarrasch in the painting (top left-hand corner) has clearly been based on the photograph of him which was given on page 183 of Chess Facts and Fables:

We gleaned it from the special Tarrasch issue of Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten, 1922, although it evidently dates from many years earlier. The following shot was published opposite page 161 of La Stratégie, May 1913:

Michael Macdonald-Ross (Wheathampstead, England) comments that the portrayal of Tarrasch in the painting suggests the early 1900s, which would explain the absence of Capablanca, Rubinstein and Alekhine, although he is surprised not to find Teichmann or Pillsbury. He also suggests that since Blackburne wore a goatee he may be the figure in the bowler hat.

In a sequence of issues of the 1942 BCM T.R. Dawson dealt with ‘Problem themes in play’. Michael McDowell (Westcliff-on-sea, England) writes:

‘I think the most intriguing example given is von Holzhausen v Wiegand (No. 61 from page 127 of the June 1942 magazine), which shows the Wurzburg-Plachutta theme, a Plachutta without the initial sacrifice on the interference square. For such an idea to turn up in a game is truly astonishing. So many pieces just happen to be on the right squares for it to work. I wonder if it is possible to trace the game-score. The 1943 book Problemkunsten og det praktiske spil by Poul Hage gives the source as Magdeburg, 1921.’

C.N. 4424 reminded Mr McDowell of a note by Michael Stean on page 508 of the November 1977 BCM in his victory as Black over Yochanan Afek in that year’s Aaronson Congress in Harrow:

‘One of the strangest positions I have ever met in my playing career. Black is the exchange down with two bishops hiding on the edge, a rook decaying in the corner, his king stuck in the middle of nowhere, the queen being his only active piece. Admittedly White also has a rook under suspension but his other three pieces in active service are strangely unable to make any impact. In fact it is Black who stands better and it is even possible he is winning by force.’

The complete game-score is: 1 e4 c5 2 c3 e6 3 d4 d5 4 e5 Qb6 5 Nf3 Bd7 6 a4 Nc6 7 Be2 cxd4 8 cxd4 Nge7 9 Na3 Nf5 10 Nc2 Bb4+ 11 Kf1 Be7 12 g4 Nh4 13 Nxh4 Bxh4 14 g5 h6 15 gxh6 g5 16 b4 Rxh6 17 b5 Na5 18 Ne3 f5 19 exf6 Rxf6 20 Bh5+ Kd8 21 Ng4 Rf5 22 Bg6 Nc4 23 Bxf5 exf5 24 Ne3 f4 25 Nxc4 Bh3+ 26 Kg1 dxc4 27 Ra3 Qe6 28 d5 Qf5 29 Rxh3 Qxh3 30 Qd4 Rc8 31 Qf6+ Kc7 32 Qe5+ Kb6 33 Qd6+ Ka5 34 Ba3 Qc3 35 Kg2 f3+ 36 Kh3 Bxf2 37 Rb1 Rh8+ 38 Kg4 Rh4+ 39 Kxg5 Qg7+ 40 Kf5 Qf7+ 41 White resigns.

As regards books by Alekhine himself, we compiled the following list in C.N. 1709:

1) Das Schachleben in Sowjet-Russland (1921)
2) The Book of the Hastings International Masters’ Chess Tournament 1922 (1924)
3) The Book of the New York International Chess Tournament 1924 (1925)
4) La valeur théorique du Tournoi de Baden Baden (1925)
5) De schaakwedstrijd Aljechin-Euwe (with Euwe) (1927)
6) My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923 (1927)
7) Das New Yorker Schach Turnier 1927 (1928)
8) Auf dem Wege zur Weltmeisterschaft (1932)
9) 66 Master Games Played in the London International Chess Tournament, 1932 (1932)
10) Internationales und 37 Schweizerisches Schachturnier in Zürich 1934 (1935)
11) Alekhine-Euwe 1935 (in Dutch, with Euwe) (1936)
12) The Book of the Nottingham International Chess Tournament 1936 (1937)
13) The World’s Chess Championship 1937 (with Euwe) (1938)
14) My Best Games of Chess 1924-1937 (1939)
15) Gran Torneo Internacional de Ajedrez, Madrid 1943 (1944)
16) ¡Legado! (1946)
17) Gran Ajedrez (1947).

C.N. 1709 mentioned that Das Erste Internationale Schachmeisterturnier in Kecskemét 1927 (1928) was not included as it featured Alekhine’s notes to a small number of games. Similarly, although Alekhine ‘directed’ Ajedrez Hipermoderno (1945) he annotated only a few games. The list also excluded the modern compilation 107 Great Chess Battles, and the C.N. item ended by pointing out that Alekhine wrote no books in his mother tongue, Russian.

As shown below, the front cover of his first book gave a curious rendering of his name: A. v. Alchechin:

This game was published on page 90 (misnumbered 80) of the Chess Player’s Chronicle, 20 August 1884, being taken from the New York Clipper:

1 f3 f6 2 e3 e6 3 c3 c6 4 d4 d5 5 Bd3 Bd6 6 f4 f5 7 Nf3 c5 8 O-O c4 9 Bc2 Nf6 10 Ne5 O-O 11 Nd2 Nc6 12 Ndf3 Qe8 13 Bd2 Ne4 14 Be1 h6 15 g4 fxg4 16 Nxg4 Qg6 17 Nfe5 Nxe5 18 dxe5 Bc5 19 Qf3 h5 20 h3 hxg4 21 Qxg4 Qf5 22 Kh2 Bd7 23 Qf3 Ng5 24 Qg2 Ne4 25 Rf3 Be8 26 Rg3

26...Nxg3 27 Bxf5 Nxf5 28 e4 Ne3 29 Qf3 dxe4 30 Qxe4 Bc6 31 Qg6 Nf1 mate.

Alan McGowan (Waterloo, Canada) points out that Irving Chernev also mentioned Anderson on page 6 of his book The Compleat Draughts Player (Oxford, 1981):

‘Andrew Anderson was the first man to be recognized as World Champion, by virtue of his victory over James Wyllie in 1847 in a match for the title. He scored nine wins to six losses, with 31 games drawn.

On his retirement, the title passed to Wyllie, who held it on and off for 40-odd years.’

From Dan Scoones (Victoria, BC, Canada):

‘Regarding Alekhine’s two-volume set in English entitled My Best Games of Chess, for many years I assumed that the books had originally been published in French, not least because of the existence of a two-volume set under Alekhine’s name, Deux cents parties d’échecs, but those volumes correspond to the first My Best Games of Chess book and to another work by Alekhine, Auf dem Wege zur Weltmeisterschaft. There are two questions of interest:

1. Were Alekhine’s two Best Games volumes translated from an unpublished manuscript?

2. Does Deux cents parties d’échecs contain some of the original manuscript, or is the whole thing a retranslation from English?’

The matters raised by our correspondent are not clear-cut, but we offer some pointers:

The first volume of My Best Games of Chess (London, 1927) stated that it was ‘translated from the original MSS (in French) by J. du Mont and M.E. Goldstein’. For an illustration of that title page, see C.N. 4310.

The second volume (London, 1939) contained no mention of any translator:

The only acknowledgment (deleted later on) for another party’s involvement in the book was on the imprint page:

‘The Author is indebted to Mr E.R. Cordingley for his valuable assistance in reading the proofs.’

In 1947, the year after Alekhine’s death, this second volume of Best Games was re-issued with a memoir by Julius du Mont (which made no reference to any translation involvement by himself). However, the obituary of du Mont by D.J. Morgan on pages 119-120 of the May 1956 BCM stated that du Mont had translated ‘Alekhine’s two volumes of My Best Games of Chess (the first with M.E. Goldstein)’.

That is certainly the common view, but is the reference to the second volume correct? It may be relevant to note a letter contributed by du Mont on page 173 of the May 1946 CHESS:

‘There is one aspect of Dr Alekhine’s character which may come as a surprise to chessplayers generally, for in that respect he has not been very advertised, that of kindliness and readiness to help.

In 1938 I happened to meet Dr Alekhine and his wife in the Strand Palace Hotel [in London] and he asked me to sit at their table. I had not met him or corresponded with him for some years, not since I translated his first book for a very substantial fee. I was neither wealthy nor influential, nor was I the editor of a chess publication. I was carrying in my hand the proofs of my Basis of Combination in Chess. Dr Alekhine asked me what it was and I said it would not interest him, but he insisted that everything interested him and he took a very long time glancing through the proofs. In the end he said: “I like the idea very much. Would you like me to read the proofs for you and to check the analysis?” I was dumbfounded and suitably expressed by appreciation. Some ten days later the proofs came back corrected, and in two places some valuable additions were made to the analysis. A charming little note accompanied the package with encouraging words of appreciation and enclosing another letter which Dr Alekhine said I could use in any way I wished, and which the publisher did in fact use on the blurb of the book when it came out.

As a contrast I may say that the first man I met who had read Dr Alekhine’s comments on the blurb asked me, “What did that cost you?” I avoided being ungentle by not answering.’

Alekhine was in London in January 1938 (C.N. 3817 discussed his game that month against Elaine Saunders), but du Mont’s account makes no mention of any arrangement to translate Alekhine’s second volume of Best Games (which was published on 18 October 1939, as reported on the inside front cover of CHESS, November 1939). Are there thus grounds for believing that du Mont was not the translator (in which case, who was?), or did du Mont provide confirmation elsewhere that he did indeed translate it? In either case, why was no translator named in the book?

A further consideration about du Mont is that in the late 1930s he was preparing, jointly with Tartakower, the 665-page book 500 Master Games of Chess. Although it was not published until 1952, the manuscript was delivered in 1939 (see the BCM, April 1952, page 105 and May 1952, page 133). It would be exceptional if, in 1938-39, du Mont were able to work concurrently on both that huge project and a translation of the Alekhine book, quite apart from finalizing in 1938 The Basis of Combination in Chess.

Deux cents parties d’échecs was published in Rouen in 1936 (in a single volume) by the French Chess Federation, which stated in an introductory note that Alekhine had generously provided the material:

‘Un geste généreux du grand Champion A. Alekhine nous a permis d’enrichir la littérature échiquéenne française d’un document inestimable, d’un choix unique de chefs-d’oeuvre.’

Pages xvii-xxiv carried a Preface by Alekhine dated September 1936, but we see no relevant information about the genesis of the collection, which was the first appearance of Alekhine’s best games in French.

The book was reprinted in two volumes by the BCM in 1973 and 1979 respectively and was re-issued by Bernard Grasset, Paris, also in two volumes, in 1999 and 2000. Broadly speaking, the first volume corresponds to My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923 and the second to Alekhine’s 1932 book Auf dem Wege zur Weltmeisterschaft. As far as we know, Alekhine’s second volume of Best Games has never, to this day, appeared in French.

C.J. Feather’s English translation of Auf dem Wege zur Weltmeisterschaft was published by Pergamon Press in 1984 under the title On the Road to the World Championship 1923-1927.

The above jottings are not, alas, direct answers to our correspondent’s questions about the manuscripts of Alekhine’s books, as we are still at the stage of laying the groundwork. Readers are invited to help us pursue the matter, and not least on the basis of the works’ contents. Do comparisons between various editions yield any clues?

Regarding the manuscript of Alekhine’s first volume of Best Games (also mentioned by D.J. Morgan in C.N. 4204), Gene Gnandt (Houston, TX, USA) quotes from the reminiscences of Brian Reilly in an interview on page 353 of the September 1981 BCM. W.H. Cozens asked him about Alekhine’s occasional presence in Nice, where the young Reilly had lived:

‘I first met Alekhine in July 1923, in Paris during the first National Championship organized by the newly formed French Chess Federation. I had accompanied Renaud as his second. Somewhat to his own surprise he won the title, half a point ahead of the favourite, A. Muffang. Alekhine was one of the onlookers. He came over to congratulate his old friend Renaud and added, with a twinkle: “And now, Georges, there is only one more thing for you to do: that is, learn how to play!”

A few months later Alekhine came to Nice, bringing the manuscript of his My Best Games 1908-1923 with the object of having the French text checked by Renaud. (I should add that Alekhine had virtually three mother tongues – Russian, German and French. He had learnt French from a French governess and spoke it like a native, but his schooling had been in Russian.) Every afternoon he and Renaud arrived at the club where they played through the games with a small band of young players eagerly listening to Alekhine’s comments. We soon started asking questions and making suggestions, most of which were refuted out of hand; occasionally Alekhine did agree to add a variation or a few words of clarification. It is not often that an author has occasion to show his work before publication like this.’

There is a discrepancy over the exact chronology, as the Skinner/Verhoeven book on Alekhine (pages 187-188) contains a blindfold victory over Reilly in Nice on 27 March 1923, i.e. a few months before the French championship, but the substantive point is that already that year the original French manuscript was well under way, if not virtually finalized. In which language or languages Alekhine was expecting publication is not known. The first edition was My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923, brought out by G. Bell in summer 1927. As noted in C.N. 4436, the book did not appear in French until 1936.

Alekhine’s involvement in The Basis of Combination in Chess by J. du Mont was mentioned in C.N. 4436; du Mont reported that Alekhine had given him a text which ‘I could use in any way I wished, and which the publisher did in fact use on the blurb of the book when it came out’.

George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. certainly made the most of Alekhine’s encomium, emblazoning part of it on the front dust-jacket:

The front-jacket flap had the full version:

‘The Basis of Combination in Chess

From Dr Alekhine, Chess Champion of the World

It is principally by learning to know and to appreciate the pieces from this point of view – marvelling at their powers and pitying them in their weaknesses (poor isolated pawns, poor pinned rooks and knights) – that it is possible to become an efficient director of the tragi-comedies which are played on the 64 squares.

Mr J. du Mont has carefully studied his flock, composed of such varied elements. He is a master of his subject. He knows the teams which work well together (e.g. the two bishops) and those which do not get on so well (e.g. two knights which cannot effect a mate), the units which are in absolute need of the assistance of their companions (as the united pawns) and those which of their own power are often able to work miracles (the queens in Q endings, the king in pawn endings). He knows all this and imparts his knowledge to his readers with a wealth of illustration and a dialectic facility beyond compare.

Few books will be so useful to the beginner as also to the more advanced amateur as this novel study on the physiology of the chess pieces.’

A shorter text by Tartakower appeared on the back-jacket flap:

‘A great expert and a great teacher, Mr J. du Mont, in this book, gets very near to the ideal of instructing and entertaining at the same time.

Profound ideas, emitted without insistence, without preaching, smilingly, making light of the difficulties of the subject, in passing, strolling along, but always moving forward hand in hand with the intrigued reader towards the ultimate aim: to improve, enrich and deepen his game.’

Who is this national champion, who played games against Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine?