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The Mad Aussie's Chess Trivia Submit your trivia to the
Mad Aussie! Who Am I? #1: For more than 20 years, I was one of the 10 best players in the world. I played regularly in my national championship over a 30 year period, with 2 victories and several minor placings. I also competed in 5 chess Olympiads. I had a long and impressive career in World Championship tournaments and matches, playing in 7 Interzonal tournaments, 3 Candidates tournaments and 3 Candidates matches. I have also been a "second" to a player in a World Championship match. I also won over half a dozen tournaments in the 1960's and 1970's. I am well known for my knowledge in openings such as the Ruy Lopez, Kings Indian, Sicilian and Slav Defence. Who Am I? Who Am I? #2: I won my country's national championship outrightonce, and shared the title twice over a 20 year period, along with competing in 6 Chess Olympiads. My best tournament results were in the 1930's, where I finished ahead of players such as Tartakower, Petrov, Stahlberg, Eliskases and Bogulyubov. After Word War 2 I drew a match with Dr Max Euwe. I am probably best known for having an opening named after me, although in some parts of the world this opening is known by another name. Playing Rarely: After defeating Jackson Showalter in a match in 1909 for the title of US chess champion, Frank Marshall defended his title only once, against Edward Lasker in 1923. He remained champion until 1936, when he voluntary relinquished the crown so that a tournament could be organized to determine who the next US chess champion would be. Playing Elsewhere: In July 1963, Bobby Fischer declined an invitation to compete in the first Piatigorsky Cup tournament in California, which featured players such as Petrosian, Keres, Gligoric, Reshevsky and Benko. This was probably due to the way his match with Reshevsky ended, a match also sponsored by Ms. Piatagorsky. He instead traveled to Wisconsin to take part in the Western Open in Bay City, which was a weekend Swiss tournament with a first prize of $750. Fischer won the tournament with a score of +7, =1 record. Young Understudy: One of Ruslan Ponomariov's "seconds" during his 2001 FIDE WC match against Vassily Ivanchuk at Moscow was the IM Sergei Karjakin, who was only 12 years of age at the time. Chess Professionals: From 1775 to 1792, Andre Philidor would spend February to May giving chess lessons and blindfold displays at Parsloe's Chess Club in St James Street, London. Philidor would charge a crown for a lesson. In the early 1850's, Bernhard Horwiz was similarly engaged as the chess "professional" at the Chess and Coffee Room in Oxford Street that was established by problem composer and author Josef Kling. Different Names: Hungarian GM Andreas Adorjan competed in junior tournaments in his home country using the surname "Jocha". Thanks to VD Pandit of India for this piece of trivia! Lawrence Ball adds, "In Adorjan's book Black is OK (Batsford 1988) he says, "At that time I was called Jocha. In 1968 I adopted my mother's surname, Adorjan." Same Name: Both Howard Staunton and Aron Nimzovich published books with the title Chess Praxis! Long Title: One of the longest, if not the longest title for a chess book was the title of a book published in India in 1829. The full title of the book was:
Long Games: In 2003, German correspondence chess GM Arno Nickel started playing simultaneously 6 computer programs. The computers were given the nicknames "Pluto", "Mars", "Saturn", "Jupiter", "Venus" and "Neptune". Nickel was not told of the real identity of each computer's program, so that he could not take advantage of any known vulnerabilities of a particular program. One of the Greatest Players: Prior to his loss to Teimor Radjabov at Linares in 2003, Garry Kasparov's last loss with the White pieces against a human rival at "classical" chess was back in 1996, when he was defeated by Vladimir Kramnik at Dos Hermanas. One of the Greatest Games: When Russian GM G Serper defeated I Nikolaidis at St Petersburg in 1993, he achieved the extraordinary feat of sacrificing ALL of his pieces in the course of the 48 moves. As well as the sacrifice of all 7 pieces, he managed to queen 2 pawns as well! Serper,G (2575) - Nikolaidis,I (2440) [E70] St Petersburg op St Petersburg, 1993
Greatness On the Rise: In 1919, Jose Capablanca gave a simultaneous exhibition in the House of Commons in London against Members of Parliament. One of Capablanca's opponents was Andrew Bonar Law, who went on to become Prime Minister in 1922 and 1923. Greatness In Decline: When Jose Capablanca scored 6/14 at the 1938 AVRO tournament in Holland, it was the first time in his international tournament career that he had failed to score 50%. Losing Queens: The 2003 Australian Correspondence Chess Championship featured three games in which a player lost a piece to a "clerical error" in setting up the position for analysis. Even more unusual was the fact that all three players lost their Queen due to the error. Losing Kings: There have been two unfortunate examples of where a player has passed away while competing in the final of the ICCF World Correspondence Chess Championship:
In both examples their scores were annulled, and a replacement player was not chosen to take their place in the final. Champion of Champions: In 2001, the International Correspondence Chess Federation started a tournament to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the ICCF. The tournament featured all nine living ICCF World Correspondence Chess Champions:
The event was won by Mikhail Umansky of Russia, with the fantastic score of 7/8. Visit the ICCF site to learn more, and to download all the games from this once in a lifetime event. Champion of No One?: Being a CC player, I was saddened to read the following quote from Slovakian CC GM Dr Jozef Franzen, who finished second in the 12th ICCF WCCC (1984-91). "It is not very optimistic, but I think normal correspondence chess - I have liked it for 30 or 40 years - but it is destroyed, and it is finished by computers." Chess Playing Pope? The recent death of Pope John Paul II reminds me of a practical joke that was played using the Pope's name in the early 1980's. The first edition of Batsford Chess Openings featured on page 51 in the section on the Veresov Opening the opening moves of the following game: Wanda Zartobliwy-Karol Wojtyla, Poland 1946, 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Bg5 Nbd7 4. Nf3 h6 5. Bh4 e6. Many chess players were excited to discover that the Pontiff was a chess player in his youth. Alas, it was soon discovered that the game score was a hoax. "Zartobliwy" is Polish for facetious or jokey. Here's another game purported to have been played by Karol Wojtyla (I wonder if this one is authentic???): Kapfer, T - Karol Wojtyla
Chess Playing Pope! The strongest chess playing Pope was Pope Leo XIII, who was Pontiff from 1878 to 1903. Here is an example of his play: Father Guila-Joachim- Cardinal Pecci (future Pope Leo XIII)
Solutions to The Mad Aussie's "Who Am I?" quiz: #1 - Yefim Geller (USSR) #2 - Vasja Pirc (Yugoslavia)
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