Chess Notes

Further to a correspondent’s remarks in C.N. 5998 about the signature on an engraving of Staunton, we note that the picture was published in the Chess Monthly Portrait Gallery on page 193 of the March 1890 issue and that the following month (page 225) an illustration of Lasker appeared, with the same signature:

The only artist we recall seeing credited in the Chess Monthly was ‘Mr E. Passingham, of Bradford’ on page 234 of the April 1889 issue. However, his work for the Portrait Gallery bore a different signature.

In C.N. 5905 a correspondent asked about Golombek’s claim that Réti lost two consecutive tournament games through being preoccupied by an idea for an endgame study which occurred to him during play.

Now, Fabrizio Zavatarelli (Milan, Italy) draws attention to a passage regarding the February 1928 tournament in Berlin in Jan Kalendovský’s monograph on Réti (see page 211 of the Czech original and page 374 of the Italian edition). It is stated that, after obtaining the better game against Brinckmann in round ten, Réti played 44 Nh5 but was informed that he had overstepped the time-limit. He then happily explained that the position on another board had inspired him to conceive a beautiful study. Still preoccupied with the study, he also lost his games against Tartakower and Steiner. His prize money was 500 Marks lower, but he produced the study, for which he received five Marks.

Corroboration of this account is sought.

Lawrence Totaro (Las Vegas, NV, USA) asks whether evidence exists to back up this passage on page 46 of Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin (New York, 2008):

‘The Czech master Richard Réti once played 29 blindfolded games simultaneously. (Afterward he left his briefcase at the exhibition site and commented on what a poor memory he had.)’

We recall that the following appeared, without any source, on page 287 of Frank Marshall, United States Chess Champion by A. Soltis (Jefferson, 1994):

‘In São Paulo the same year [1925] he broke the blindfold record by playing 29 boards five days after Alekhine had set his own record with 28 in Paris. As the Czech master left the playing hall he forgot his familiar green briefcase. When it was returned to him Réti said, “Oh, thank you. I have such a bad memory.”’

The earliest reference to Réti’s briefcase that we can quote comes in a footnote on page 170 of Die Hypermoderne Schachpartie by S. Tartakower (Vienna, 1924):

On page 4 of Réti’s Best Games of Chess (London, 1954) Harry Golombek made use of the passage:

‘To quote Tartakower again: “He forgot everything, stick, hat, umbrella; above all, however, he would always leave behind him his traditional yellow leather briefcase, so that it was said of him: wherever Réti’s briefcase is, there he himself is no longer to be found. It is therefore evidence of Réti’s pre-existence.”’

A different version was given by J. du Mont on page v of Réti’s posthumous book Masters of the Chess Board (London, 1933):

‘I can see him now, with his perennial smile on his good-humoured features, bustling along with his leather briefcase under his arm. It used to be a saying amongst his friends that where Réti’s briefcase was, there was Réti.’

Frederick S. Rhine (Park Ridge, IL, USA) cites Irving Chernev on page 262 of 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (New York, 1955):

‘Alvin Cass used to say, “My grandmother, when she was a little girl, told me never to capture the queen knight pawn with my queen”.’

How exactly did the famous 1918 encounter between Capablanca and Marshall end? On page 90 of The Immortal Games of Capablanca (New York, 1942) Fred Reinfeld stated that after 35...Re3 ‘Capablanca announced mate in five [sic]’, beginning with 36 Bxf7+.

The accounts cited in C.N. 6020 disagreed as to whether Réti’s briefcase was green or yellow, and now Maurice Carter (Fairborn, OH, USA) quotes from page 57 of With the Chess Masters by George Koltanowski (San Francisco, 1972):

‘He always carried an old black briefcase filled with reams and reams of sheets on which he had scrawled his comments, and dozens of addressed envelopes.’

On the following page Koltanowski gave a game he played against Réti, dating it 1929 instead of 1927.

Concerning this position from Capablanca v Thomas, Hastings, 1919 our earlier items mentioned how Capablanca played 29 Qa8, missing the win of a rook with 29 Rxe8 Qxe8 30 Qa4.

From Gerd Entrup (Herne, Germany):

‘A second winning move is 29 Qb5 (and if 29...c6 30 Rxe8 Qxe8 31 Qb8, with mate to follow). The move was given on page 262 of Kasparov’s first “Predecessors” volume, but I believe that the first person to find it was Klaus-Jürgen Schulz. In his column “Der Leser ist am Zug” on page 17 of the 10/1986 Europa-Rochade he gave the position before White’s 29th move, and on page 28 of the 12/1986 issue he indicated two winning moves: 29 Rxe8 and 29 Qb5.

The diagrammed position was also included in a column by N.H. Yazgac devoted to computer-testing of positions on page 16 of the 11/1986 Europa-Rochade. Only 29 Rxe8 Qxe8 30 Qa4 was given as the winning line, but on page 22 of the 8/1987 issue the second win, 29 Qb5, was pointed out by a reader, Klaus Kiefert of Krefeld. It had been found by his Psion Chess computer program, and a number of variations were provided.’

We add that on page 49 of the February 1982 Chess Life a Texas reader, John Wayland, suggested 29 Qa7. Pal Benko replied:

‘Don’t look for a more clear-cut win than the one given: 29 Rxe8 Qxe8 30 Qa4! Your 29 Qa7 runs into trouble after 29...Rc1+! 30 Rxc1 (or 30 Kf2 Rxb1) 30...Rxb8.’ [The notation and move numbering have been adapted by us.]

From Mark Thornton (Cambridge, England):

‘In rook-odds games could the odds-giver castle with the “phantom rook”? For example, if White gave the odds of his queen’s rook, could he play Ke1-c1? And, if so, were the castling rules the same as if the rook were present?’

No consensus was ever reached, as is shown by the selection of British quotes below. Firstly, Howard Staunton on page 35 of Chess Praxis (London, 1860):

‘When a player gives the odds of his king’s or queen’s rook, he must not castle (or, more properly speaking, leap his king) on the side from whence he takes off the rook, unless before commencing the game or match he stipulates to have the privilege of so doing.’

On page 35 of Chess (London, 1889) R.F. Green wrote similarly:

‘A player giving the odds of a rook may not go through the form of castling on the side from which the rook has been removed.’

However, in a review of the book on pages 88-89 of the March 1890 BCM Edward Freeborough disagreed. After stating, with respect to level games, that castling should be described as a move of the king and that the king should therefore be moved first, Freeborough observed:

‘It follows logically that the fact of giving the odds of a rook ought not to deprive the king of his privilege of taking two steps to the right or left as his first move.’

Page 36 of The British Chess Code (London, 1903) stated:

‘In the absence of agreement to a different effect, a player may castle (by moving his king as in ordinary castling) on a side from which, before the commencement of the game, the player’s rook has been removed, provided that this rook’s square is unoccupied and has been unoccupied throughout the game, and that the same conditions as to squares and as to the king are fulfilled which are required for ordinary castling on this side.’

The above text was quoted on page 275 of the June 1916 Chess Amateur when a revised edition of the Code was envisaged. Comments were invited, and on page 305 of the July 1916 issue ‘Simplex’ wrote:

‘This I think sheer nonsense. If a player gave me a rook and wanted to castle on this rook’s side, I should say, “No, you don’t, you can’t castle without a castle”. Let’s have no pretence. If a player gives a rook, let him give it totally not half. Receivers of odds are not strong players, and to see the nominal giver of odds move his king a couple of squares would be disconcerting. No; if a player gives odds let him give them without pretence.’

A contrary view was expressed by W.S. Branch on pages 333-334 of the August 1916 Chess Amateur:

‘Re Chess Laws, page 305 (July), and as to “castling without rook”, I would say, first, that you can’t “castle the king” – the full and proper term, of which “castles” is an abridgment – without a castle. The phrase should be “moving the king as in castling”.

I believe that the right of the odds-giver to move his king, once in a game, as in castling, has always been upheld since “castling” was invented (sixteenth century). It existed, as part of the “king’s leap”, long before “castling” was invented, and long before the rook was ever called a “castle”. The giving of the rook as odds should not deprive the king of any of his rights.’

Branch then gave further historical details regarding the king’s leap. By 1916, however, the practice of giving odds was disappearing, without any formal resolution of the ‘phantom rook’ question.

Hugh Myers’ book A Chess Explorer was published in 2002, and the following year he sent us a copy of a  handwritten 12-page supplement which included a letter to him dated 4 March 1954 from Max Euwe. The former world champion commented, ‘your games are excellent and I hope to publish at least one of them in Ch. Arch.’. Myers wrote in 2003 that he was not sure which of his games he had submitted to Euwe. Did any of them appear in Chess Archives?

Source: BCM, February 1936, page 96 (in T.R. Dawson’s ‘Problem World’ section).

From Luc Winants (Boirs, Belgium) we have received a set of photographs published on pages 116-117 of Le miroir du monde, 24 January 1931 (with some aberrations in the captions). Most of the photographs were taken at the Hastings, 1930-31 tournament.

There cannot be many chess books more liberal with typos than Kasparov’s Best Games by K.R. Seshadri (Madras, 1984). The first word of the Preface gives Kasparov’s forename as Carri, and the first two paragraphs have occurrences of Kasperov. Overleaf, the forename becomes Gerry. The annotations, taken from the writings of Kasparov and others, are continually mutilated. Here, from page 46, is part of a note to White’s 15th move in Korchnoi v Kasparov, Lucerne (‘Lucerene’), 1982:

‘Hewever, the problamatic ideal manouvre 21 Nc4! suggested by Yugoslav Grandmaster Kovachevic put an end to the theoratical arguments n favour of White.’

From our archives:

The article below by the ‘Badmaster’, G.H. Diggle, is reproduced from page 25 of our publication Chess Characters (Geneva, 1984). It originally appeared in the August 1977 issue of Newsflash.

‘The bilious and impecunious Badmaster, glaring over last month’s Newsflash with a malevolent eye, was delighted to find that the price of Modern Chess Literature, and Books on the Openings in particular, seems to be coming under fire. For if the BM ever agreed to be interviewed on Television and was finally asked, “Looking back, Badmaster, over half a century of lost games, is there any particular factor which you feel has had the greatest influence on your disastrous career?”, he would reply in ringing tones: “Buying Books on the Openings”.

A particularly shameful instance of the BM being let down by these treacherous tomes occurred during the London Championship Tournament 1945. An awful morning had dawned when the official “Order of the Day” ran (inter alia) – “Round 6. Sir George Thomas (White) Badmaster (Black)”. Surmising (correctly) that his august opponent would open P-K4 and go for a quick win, the BM sat up most of the previous night with Modern Chess Openings (Griffith and White), selected the Petroff Defence, distended his brainbox with all 12 columns given, and arrived at the arena next day with the full cargo still on board. The result was that for the first eight moves the BM played with a precision which confounded the critics, but then Sir George (who had previously played like the orthodox gentleman that he was) suddenly revealed himself (in Marxist language) a deviationist of the basest stamp. In short, his ninth move was nowhere to be found. Deserted by MCO, the BM found himself in the same plight as David Balfour in Kidnapped when he ascended the tower in total darkness, only to find suddenly that “the stair had been carried no further” and that he was left to proceed on his own into the void. This he did, and perished about the 20th move. But the most infamous part of the story has yet to come. Of the two unworthy authors responsible for the BM’s downfall White (like Jacob Marley) had long been dead; but R.C. Griffith (a most sprightly “Scrooge”) was not only very much alive but actually a spectator at this very tournament. Just as the BM resigned, R.C.G., who was standing by, bestowed upon him a whimsical yet kindly smile, which plainly said: “Never mind, young man, you’ll know that variation another time”. He then went away beaming all over his face. But for his benevolent appearance and charming manner, the BM could have “felled him like a rotten tree”.’

Stéphane Pilawski (Liège, Belgium) notes Capablanca’s use of ‘Joseph’ as his first forename on the marriage licence application (C.N. 6044) and asks whether other such occurrences can be found. We recall none.

Page 250 of David DeLucia’s Chess Library A Few Old Friends (Darien, 2007) reproduced Capablanca’s identity card, issued by the Belgian Foreign Affairs Ministry and dated 17 July 1935. His name appeared as ‘José Raul Capablanca’.

The caption to this photograph from C.N. 6038 prompts us to reproduce two earlier items. C.N. 203 quoted the following from page 176 of the Australasian Chess Review, 20 July 1932:

‘In a recent number of the London Sphere there is a fine photo of two of the players in the London congress seated at the board with clocks and score-sheets alongside them. Underneath is the following priceless description:

“Concentration. W. Winter (England) and Dr S. Tartakower (Poland) ponder their next move during the international tournament. The clocks show how much time each player has taken (for this is limited by rule). The pencil and paper are used to work out combinations before a move is made.”’

C.N. 1004 referred to a paragraph on page 247 of CHESS, August 1940:

‘The London Evening Standard published a picture of Norman Sortier, youngest competitor, in play in the British Boys’ Championship. He was just writing down a move on his pad. The bright caption was, “He used a notebook to help him work out his moves”.’

From Roger Mylward (Lower Heswall, England):

‘Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-84) was a theoretical physicist who made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics in the first part of the twentieth century. His father was French and his mother English; he was born and brought up in Bristol but for most of his academic life he was based in Cambridge. His last years were spent in Florida. He was a member of staff at Florida State University, where many of his papers are held, in the Dirac Science Library.

A new biography of Dirac has been published, The Strangest Man – The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo (London, 2009). It refers on a number of occasions to Dirac’s interest in chess.

In the 1920s “He worked all day long and took time off only for his Sunday walk and to play chess, a game he played well enough to beat most students at the college chess club, sometimes several at the same time” (pages 97-98). The College was St. John’s, Cambridge.

In 1926, his father, Charles Dirac (with whom Paul had a very difficult relationship), offered to buy his son “a set of chessmen” as a Christmas present (page 115).

Regarding the house of Peter Kapitza, a Russian physicist, and his wife Anna (known as Rat), “Dirac was at ease there, talking with Kapitza and Rat over a Russian-style meal, playing chess and larking about with their two rumbustious sons” (page 208).

On 5 January 1955 Dirac gave a public lecture, on subatomic particles, to thousands of spectators at the cricket ground in Baroda, near Calcutta in India. Part of his lecture linked these particles to chess:

“When you ask what are electrons and protons I ought to answer that this question is not a profitable one to ask and does not really have a meaning. The important thing about electrons and protons is not what they are but how they behave – how they move. I can describe the situation by comparing it to the game of chess. In chess, we have various chessmen, kings, knights, pawns and so on. If you ask what a chessman is, the answer would be [that] it is a piece of wood, or a piece of ivory, or perhaps just a sign written on paper, [or anything whatever]. It does not matter. Each chessman has a characteristic way of moving and this is all that matters about it. The whole game of chess follows from this way of moving the various chessmen ...” (pages 353-354).

The text of this lecture is included in the Dirac papers at Florida State University.

From his wife’s first marriage Dirac had a stepson, Gabriel Dirac, who was a mathematician.

“Dirac was close to Gabriel and went out of his way to promote his career, often exchanging letters with him to chew over chess problems they had read in newspapers (G.H. Hardy had described such problems as the ‘hymn tunes of pure mathematics’).” (page 366).

During the Second World War, Dirac was invited to join the Government’s research station in Bletchley Park (page 320). He declined and therefore missed a chance to play chess against some of the best British players of the time.’

Robert Sherwood (E. Dummerston, VT, USA) draws attention to this passage by Bogoljubow on page ix of his book on the Moscow, 1925 tournament:

Our correspondent’s translation:

‘The sporting result of the tournament is as follows.

It has been shown that advanced age does not preclude the highest achievements. Dr Lasker, who for the third time finished ahead of Capablanca, must without question be considered the most successful master of all time. His play yet again is enterprising and almost youthfully fresh.

Further, it is apparent that Capablanca finds it very difficult to separate himself from his dry style of play. His technique, on the other hand, has been at least equalled by Bogoljubow and is not especially feared by the other masters.’