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subject-line or in the message itself.
The above comes from page 6 of Schackhistoriens
snabbaste partier by Jostein Westberg (Avesta,
1969). However, the ‘1924’ cannot be correct, because
the game had been published (without any date or venue)
on page 108 of Schnell Matt! by Claudius Hüther
(Munich, 1913).
When Lady Thomas died in 1920 the BCM (April
issue, page 99) published this photograph of her:
Below are some excerpts from a fulsome article about
her (‘A Chat with the Lady Chess Champion’) on pages
255-256 of Woman’s Life, 18 January 1896:
‘No doubt my readers will remember that she won the
first prize at the International Tourney at Hastings.
[Sic. See page 16 of the Chess Monthly,
September 1895.] Lady Thomas comes of a chessplaying
family; her brother, Mr William Erskine Foster, was a
brilliant player and was, at one time, a pupil of Mr
Steinitz; her son, a particularly bright clever lad of
14, is also a proficient player.
“George beats me”, says Lady Thomas, “indeed I am now
learning from him; we play every evening when at home;
we are always playing – even when sitting on the beach
we make a table of our laps and play; after, and
before luncheon – in fact, we play nearly all day
long.”
... Lady Thomas is a skilful player in several games.
The second drawing-room is marked out for badminton
and, when wet, the Turkey carpet is rolled up and they
indulge in the fun of having exercise and amusement
indoors. She is also a brilliant billiard player and
cyclist.
... While in Constantinople, Lady Thomas was the only
lady who rode about unattended into the country, and
she never met with any molestation, though, as a
precaution, she had a pocket made to her saddle to
carry a revolver.
... Lady Thomas is Lady of the Manor of Marston, in
Bedfordshire, and a daughter of the late Morgan Hugh
Foster, Esq, C.B., who was for many years Governor of
the Imperial Ottoman Bank.’
There follows a specimen of her tournament play, from
pages 236-237 of La Stratégie, 15 August 1897:
Lady Edith Margaret Thomas – Miss Watson
London, 23 June 1897
Nimzo-Indian Defence (by transposition)
Below is a game from the 1912 British championship,
published on page 411 of The Field, 24 August
1912. Hoffer’s concluding comment was ‘An endgame of
rare beauty’.
Francis Edward Hamond – Reginald Pryce Michell Richmond, August 1912 Queen’s Pawn Game
Gábor Gyuricza (Budapest) asks for details about a game
widely given as ‘P. Damiano v T. Halász, 1512’: 1 e4 e5
2 Nf3 Nf6 3 Nxe5 Nxe4 4 Qe2 Qe7 5 Qxe4 d6 6 d4 f6 7 f4
Nd7 8 Nc3 dxe5 9 Nd5 Qd6 10 fxe5 fxe5 11 dxe5 Qc6 12 Bb5
Qc5 13 Be3 Qxb5 14 Nxc7+ and wins.
Our correspondent comments:
‘Here in Hungary no-one has ever heard of it, and
Halász is a Hungarian surname (meaning
“fisherman”).’
We note that the moves appeared (with no mention of
Damiano or anybody named Halász) on pages 36-37 of Das
Schach des Herrn Gioachino Greco Calabrois und die
Schachspiel-Geheimnisse des Arabers Philipp Stamma
by Moses Hirschel (Breslau, 1784) and on pages 46-48 of
The Games of Greco by Professor Hoffmann (London,
1900).
Alan McGowan (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada) identifies the
man standing on the right as Ehrhardt Post (1881-1947).
We add below a photograph of Post from page 12 of the 1
January 1942 issue of Deutsche Schachblätter:
We now note the following reference in Showalter’s
obituary on page 63 of the March 1935 Chess Review:
‘Mr Showalter was famous as a baseball player and was
an ardent fan up until the latter part of his life,
when bad health kept him at home. He was the first man
in Kentucky to pitch a curve ball and one of the seven
men who discovered the curve.’
Further particulars will be welcomed concerning the
familiar story below, which is taken from page 22 of the
16 July 1887 issue of the Columbia Chess Chronicle:
‘The brothers L. and W. Paulsen were always known to
be remarkably slow players. At an international
tournament, before clocks were introduced to regulate
the number of moves to be made in an hour, W. Paulsen
consumed just 70 minutes in making a move in a game
which he was playing with Zukertort. Z., who was
conversely known as a remarkably rapid player, to pass
the tedious time engaged in conversation with an
amiable lady sitting near the table, and who had
followed the development of the game with more than
common interest. At last Paulsen moved his queen from
Kt2-B3.
The lady unable to conceal her surprise exclaimed,
“so short a move after so long a deliberation”.’
Kevin Marchese (Canal Winchester, OH, USA) informs us
that he is writing a book on Jackson Whipps Showalter,
with the assistance of some of the master’s relatives,
and that the work will show that Showalter was born on 5
February 1859 (and not 5 February 1860, as previously
believed). His exact place of birth is still being
investigated.
This sketch (from life) of Showalter by Mrs G.A.
Anderson was published on page 67 of the 1922 issue of Chess
Pie. It was also reproduced to accompany an
article on Showalter by W.H. Watts on pages 44-45 of the
Chess Budget, 11 November 1925.
We learn of Mr O’Keefe’s death with the deepest regret.
His knowledge of chess and his research skills were
outstanding, as were his numerous contributions to Chess
Notes. He was one of our finest correspondents.
Jack O’Keefe
(photographs contributed by Carla Campbell)
5709. Staunton v Saint-Amant
An annotational disagreement occurred between Staunton
and Saint-Amant regarding two positions in the 16th game
of their match in Paris, played on 11 December 1843.
Here, Staunton played 20 exf5, and Saint-Amant
commented on page 66 of the February 1844 issue of Le
Palamède:
‘Ceci est un désavantage, car les 2P de la D
doublés ne sont plus liés ensemble, et le plus
avancé sera peut-être difficile à défendre.’ [‘This
is disadvantageous, as the doubled d-pawns are no
longer linked together, and the more advanced one will
perhaps be difficult to defend.’]
Staunton quoted this in the Chess Player’s Chronicle,
1 April 1844, page 99 and responded:
‘Now we, on the contrary, opine that the taking this
pawn increased the advantage in position which White
had previously obtained.’
After 20 exf5 the game continued 20...gxf5 21 Nh5 Qe8
22 Nxf6+ Rxf6 23 fxe5 Qxe5.
At this point Saint-Amant commented in Le Palamède:
‘Bien préférable à prendre du P. Les Noirs ont
maintenant l’attaque, et leur jeu est supérieur à
celui de leur adversaire.’ [‘Much better than
taking with the pawn. Black now has the attack, and
his game is better than his opponent’s.’]
In the Chess Player’s Chronicle, Staunton
disagreed:
‘In the Palamède for February, page 66, note
(6), we are gravely told at the present point, “Les
Noirs ont maintenant l’attaque (!!), et leur jeu est
supérieur à celui de leur adversaire” (!!!). We shall
have much pleasure in affording the Editor of Le
Palamède an opportunity of verifying this, to
us, somewhat startling assertion; and for the purpose,
we undertake, on his next visit to London, to play
White’s game against him from this move, half-a-dozen
times, for as many guineas as he may think proper to
risk on the result.’
Saint-Amant reverted to these matters on pages 164-168
of the April 1844 issue of Le Palamède.
Concerning 20 exf5 he maintained his standpoint, adding
that it was a question of theoretical principle on which
most experts would agree with him. (‘Nous ne voyons
pas dans les paroles de M. Staunton le moindre motif
de rien changer à ce que nous avons dit. Ceci est une
question de principe théorique, sur laquelle nous ne
craignons pas d’avancer que nous aurons certainement
la majorité des connaisseurs de notre côté.’)
As regards the second position, Saint-Amant maintained
that Black had the attack, whilst adding that it was a
matter of taste:
The two positions entail general positional
considerations, rather than specific analysis, and we
should like to know how a modern master assesses the
respective views of Saint-Amant and Staunton.
The game, which Saint-Amant won at move 58, lasted nine
hours (Le Palamède, February 1844, page 66).
Olimpiu G. Urcan (Singapore) submits three sketches
featuring Lasker, Chigorin, Pillsbury and Steinitz (the
participants at St Petersburg, 1895-96). The
illustrations are taken from the New York Tribune chess
column of, respectively, 8 December 1895, 5 January 1896
and 12 January 1896.
In C.N. 5620 a correspondent requested information
about Angelo Lewis, who brought out The Games of
Greco (London, 1900) under the pseudonym Professor
Louis Hoffmann.
Thomas A. Sawyer (Irvine, CA, USA) informs us that from
1974 to 1986 he published 17 issues of a journal
entitled The Hoffmann Collector which included
an occasional ‘Chess Corner’. For example, page 179 of
the August 1979 issue quoted a reference to a
consultation game involving Lewis (the other players
being J.H. Blackburne, R. Teichmann and W. Shadforth
Boger) from page 238 of the June 1901 BCM, as
well as mentioning Lewis’s Introduction to Chess
Novelties by H.E. Bird (London, 1895).
Our correspondent adds:
‘In 1977 I published a book authored by J.B.
Findlay and me, entitled Professor Hoffmann: A
Study. Hoffmann is known mainly as an author and
translator of books on magic, although he wrote,
edited or translated books on a wide variety of
subjects.’
We have been reading the book with much interest. It
describes Professor Hoffmann as ‘the great Victorian
father of modern magic literature’. Page 2 states that
he died (almost certainly in Bexhill-on-Sea) on 23
December 1919, and this corrects a source quoted in C.N.
5620, which gave 1918. Page 7 quotes from the Windsor
Magazine, October 1896 Lewis’ explanation of his
choice of pseudonym when preparing publication of a book
on magic:
‘I hit upon “Hoffmann” as a name of uncertain
nationality and left the public to imagine, if they
chose, that some distinguished German or American
wizard was giving away the secrets of his craft.’
Mr Sawyer informs us that the Windsor Magazine
feature was also the source of the frontispiece
photograph:
The other picture of him given in the book, on page 66,
appeared in the July 1900 issue of Mahatma,
which is described as ‘the first important magic
magazine’:
The illustrations in the present item are reproduced
with the kind permission of Mr Sawyer.
5717. Signatures
John Hill (Berwick, PA, USA) seeks assistance with
identifying signatures on an envelope from the 1962
Lasker Memorial tournament in Berlin.
Our correspondent has put together this
key so far:
The participants were Vasiukov, Stein, Udovčić,
O’Kelly, Fichtl, Minev, Uhlmann, Doda, Fuchs, Malich,
Drimer, Liebert, Barcza, Beni, Enevoldsen and Rätsch.
Mark Thornton (Cambridge, England) notes contradictory
versions of Legall’s famous mate, in a rook-odds game
generally reported as won against Saint Brie in Paris in
1750. 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 d6 3 Nf3 Bg4 4 Nc3 g6 (or 1 e4 e5 2
Nf3 d6 3 Bc4 Bg4 4 Nc3 g6)
5 Nxe5 Bxd1 6 Bxf7+ Ke7 7 Nd5 mate.
Our correspondent draws particular attention to the
following on page 91 of A Selection of Games at
Chess by George Walker (London, 1835):
1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 d6 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 Nc3 Bg4
5 Nxe5 (Mr Thornton comments: ‘In this version,
Black could refute the combination by 5...Nxe5,
winning knight for pawn.’) 5...Bxd1 6 Bxf7+ Ke7 7
Nd5 mate.
What is the earliest known publication of each of these
versions (and any others)?
As regards the spelling Legall, most modern authorities
follow the usage popularized by the original (1984)
edition of The Oxford Companion to Chess by
David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld. In C.N. 910 the latter
explained why the book had ‘Legall de Kermeur’:
‘... I have from the French Ministère de la
Défense the military record of Legall’s father, Lt.
General René François Legall (1652-1724). I spent
some time in the Breton “captial” Rennes, examining,
in the Bibliothèque Municipale, details of the
Legall family. The general’s wife was born c. 1675
and lived to be about 90. She had two sons, the
elder was our man, Legall de Kermeur, who seems to
have been born when his father was on duty on the
Rhine. The second was Le Chevalier Legall. Useful
references are Dictionnaire de la Noblesse
1757-1765, and Nobiliaire et Armorial de
Bretagne by Pol Potier de Courcy. Despite all this,
I failed to find his forename(s).’
In reverting to a matter raised by Philippe Kesmaecker
(Maintenon, France) in C.N. 5685, we include two
good-quality scans kindly supplied by Per Skjoldager
(Fredericia, Denmark).
The three photographs below appeared respectively a) on
page ix of Das Internationale Schachmeisterturnier
in Karlsbad 1907, b) opposite page 445 of the
October 1907 BCM and c) opposite page 257 of the
September 1907 Deutsche Schachzeitung:
As Mr Kesmaecker remarked to us, the figures in the
background progressively disappear.
Our correspondent furthermore mentioned the existence
on the Internet of a slightly different shot of the
group (with, for example, Janowsky in profile), and we
have found a copy (also with much airbrushing) in the
plates section of Maróczy Géza élete és pályafutása
by József Szily (Budapest, 1957):
5723. A tournament at the Cigar Divan
From Rod Edwards (Victoria, BC, Canada):
‘Page 3 of Gino Di Felice’s Chess Results,
1747-1900 (Jefferson, 2004) lists a tournament at
the “Cigar Divan” in London in 1840, suggesting by
the numbering of the players that the (first?) four
places were taken by Buckle, Bird, Williams and
Tuckett, in that order. It is clear that there is an
error here, at least in the date, since Bird was
born in 1830. On page xii of his Chess History
and Reminiscences (London, 1893) Bird wrote that he
first visited Simpson’s Divan in 1846, and on page
23 of The Bristol Chess Club (Bristol, 1883)
John Burt stated that Williams left Bristol for
London in 1844.
The four players listed in Di Felice’s book all
took part in the tournament at the Divan in London
in 1849 (Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1849,
pages 65-66 and 113) but did not finish in the order
given in his book. However, page xii of Bird’s
volume stated: “The earliest perfectly open
tournaments were two on a small scale at Simpson’s
in 1848 and 1849 ...”. While Bird’s memory was not
always perfect, could the “London, 1840” tournament
be the 1848 event referred to by Bird?’
Mr Di Felice’s book gave no source regarding the
‘London, 1840’ tournament. Indeed, it was not until the
sixth volume of the series, covering 1941-46, that the
need to state specific sources was recognized.
‘Page 81 reports that Steinitz used the term hanging
pawns, but page 144 states that Nimzowitsch introduced
it.’
If the page references are replaced by 135 and 213, the
comment of ours also applies to The Encyclopedia of
Chess by Harry Golombek (London, 1977). That is no
great surprise, given that so much of Golombek’s book
was repeated by Divinsky, without acknowledgement or
care.
On the substantive matter of when, and by whom, the
term ‘hanging pawns’ was first used, the earliest
citation that we can currently offer (‘die zwei
“hängenden” Bauern’) is on page 56 of Das
Grossmeisterturnier zu St Petersburg by Siegbert
Tarrasch (Nuremberg, 1914) after 14...bxc5 in Tarrasch’s
notes to his game (as Black) against Nimzowitsch:
5726. Rook endgames (C.N.s 5498 &
5585)
Information is still being sought on who (e.g. Tarrasch
or Tartakower) coined the phrase ‘All rook endgames are
drawn’. Mark Donlan (Harwich, MA, USA) quotes from page
166 of Profile of a Prodigy by Frank Brady (New
York, 1973) concerning the tournament in Rovinj-Zagreb,
1970:
‘When Fischer played against Petrosian in the final
round, the Armenian secured an opening advantage, but
Fischer dominated the rook ending. Petrosian said
later that he remembered Tartakower’s statement that
“all rook endgames are drawn”, and the thought
comforted him.’
Two photographs of the Keres Museum in Tallinn were
presented in C.N. 5230, courtesy of Fabio Molin (Rome).
In August 2008 Calle Erlandsson (Lund, Sweden) also
visited the museum, and below are three of the
photographs he has sent us:
5735. The Pride and Sorrow of Chess
(C.N.s 4053, 4403, 5204 & 5223)
The origins of the epithet ‘the Pride and Sorrow of
Chess’ for Paul Morphy are still unknown. It may be
recalled that the earliest occurrence found so far is on
page 113 of the April 1885 International Chess
Magazine, where Steinitz wrote:
‘... the fearful misfortune which ultimately befell
“the pride and sorrow of chess”, as Sheriff Spens
justly calls Morphy, can only evoke the warmest
sympathy in every human breast.’
As previously noted, the phrase is absent from the two
poems about Morphy which Walter Cook Spens (1842-1900)
published in the Glasgow Weekly Herald: 25
November 1882, page 7 (one stanza) and 19 July 1884,
page 7 (five stanzas). C.N. 5223 discussed the
complexities surrounding the latter work, which, we now
add, was also published on pages 225-229 of Spens’
anthology Darroll and Other Poems (Edinburgh,
1881).
The ‘Chess Trifles’ section of the book comprised the
following:
Page 223: a poem indirectly referring to Morphy
which had been published on page 185 of the June 1875
issue of the Huddersfield College Magazine
(see C.N. 5223).
Page 224: a quotation from Figaro reporting
that Morphy ‘is confined to a lunatic asylum in New
Orleans’, followed by a passage from the Glasgow
Weekly Herald stating that according to American
exchanges ‘the report of Mr Morphy’s insanity is
entirely without foundation’.
Pages 225-229: the five-stanza poem mentioned above.
The fifth stanza related that the reports about Morphy
were false, and it thus differs from the version
published in the Glasgow Weekly Herald some
three years later.
Pages 230-232: ‘Chess Song’, a verse parody by
Spens, assisted by ‘the late Dr Frazer of Edinburgh, a
well-known chessplayer of more than local celebrity’.
The composition contains such passages as:
‘An’ lo! the bonnie Queen as well,
Worth twa big Rooks – ay, a’ that,
A wee bit chancy pawn may sell
An’ trip her up for a’ that.’
Pages 233-236: a prose account of a match played in
1881 between the West of Scotland and the East,
followed by a poem on the event, entitled ‘The West
Victory’.
Concerning the phrase ‘the Pride and Sorrow of Chess’,
we are thus as far as ever from tracing the original
source.
From page 182 of The Encyclopedia of Chess by
Harry Golombek (London, 1977):
‘The earliest known living chess display seems to
have been given by the Sultan Mohammed in Grenada in
1408 and this custom was followed by many princes and
kings.’
Javier Asturiano Molina (Murcia, Spain) asks for
further details about the 1408 display.
We note that similar statements had been made (without
any details) in the chess reference books of P. Sunnucks
and E. Brace. The paperback edition of Golombek’s book
(page 265) corrected Grenada to Granada.
