|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
|
The Mad Aussie's Chess Trivia From the Mad Aussie, Graham Clayton Who Am I?: During the 1920's I was considered one of the top dozen or so players in the world. I had a consistent tournament record, always finishing in the top half of the place getters. I also played in 4 Chess Olympiads as well. My style of play was considered careful and scientific, as I built up my position in accordance with sound principles, and avoided sharp complications and tactics. I was one of the leading opening theorists of my era, and played many of the openings that characterize the "hypermodern" movement. One particular opening is named after me. Who Am I? Drag your cursor across the space between the asterisks to reveal the answer: *** Ernst Gruenfeld (1893-1962) *** Who Am I?: I was one of the top half a dozen players in the world in the 1880s. I was born in Scotland, but left school at the age of 16 to live in France and Germany, where I studied the game while working as a businessman. I bought a commission in the King's Royal Rifle Corps, and served in both Ireland and India. By the late 1860's I had resigned my commission and moved to London, before shortly moving to the USA. This is when my chess career began in earnest. After serving with the Union forces in the US Civil War, I lived in New York. I had an outstanding career in the US - 13 tournament victories, plus 6 wins and a draw in 7 matches. I traveled to Europe to play, featuring in major tournaments such as Paris 1878, Vienna 1882, London 1883 and Hamburg 1885. My greatest victory was winning the Frankfurt 1887 tournament by 1.5 points. I developed tuberculosis, and died in the early 1890's. Some people believe that I committed suicide with a drug overdose rather than die a slow and lingering death. Who Am I? Drag your cursor across the space between the asterisks to reveal the answer: *** George Mackenzie (1937-1891) *** Investigative Journalism: Jacque -Francis Mouet (c. 1787-1837) was one of the most successful human operators of the chess automaton "Turk" in the early part of the 19th century. Of the 300 odd games that he played giving odds of pawn and move while operating the "Turk", he lost only 6. Due to a weakness for alcohol in the 1830's, he gave a magazine the details of how a human player operated the "Turk". He was the only human operator who betrayed the secret of the "Turk". Learn more about The Turk. Argumentative Journalism: When Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort played their world championship match in 1886, both were involved in editing chess magazines at the same time. Steinitz was the editor of the "International Chess Magazine", while Zukertort was co-editor of "Chess Monthly". Both players used the pages of their magazines to bicker and argue with each other prior to the match. Technological First: The first time that a large demonstration board was used to show the moves in a world championship match was in 1883, when Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort played a match in New York. Technology Marches On: Between 1896 and 1911, a series of trans-Atlantic matches were played between the United States and Great Britain, using the undersea telegraph cable that connected the two countries. The USA won 7 matches, Great Britain won 4, and one match was tied. Correspondence Interruptus: In 1889 and 1890 Wilhelm Steinitz and Mikhail Chigorin played a 2 game correspondence match using the telegraph system as the means to transmit the moves. Halfway through the match, Steinitz requested an adjournment from December 1889 to January 1890 so that he could defend his world title against Isidor Gunsberg. Steinitz won the match against Gunsberg, but then lost both games to Chigorin. Correspondence Abandonadus: When the chess clubs of Paris and Pest played a 2 game correspondence match between 1842 and 1845. Alexandre Deschapelles quit the Paris team because they did not accept his recommendation of 1....f5 after the opening moves of 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 in one of the games. Fighting Chess:
Opening Fights:
Original Design: When the original design of the "Staunton" chess pieces was adopted in the mid 19th century, each Queen had 8 points on the coronet. The 8 points were to signify the 8 different directions that the Queen could travel on a chess board. Today there is no restriction on the number of points on the coronet of each Queen. Original Score: The earliest surviving game score for a consultation game dates back to 1837, when M Chamouillet, FJ Devinck & Leerivain played against Bonvil, Calviard and PC Saint-Amant in 3 games. Chamouillet's team played with the White pieces in all 3 games, while Bonvil's team gave the odds of playing without a pawn on f7. Chamouillet's team won the match 2.5 to 0.5. Olympic First: The first blind player to compete at a Chess Olympiad was English player TH Tylor, who played on Board 5 for the English team at the 1930 Olympiad in Hamburg. Olympic Excellence: Daniel Yanosfky represents Canada at the 1939 Buenos Aires Chess Olympiad at age 14. He scores 13.5/16 (+12, =3, -1) playing on Board 2. Olympic Endurance: Erich Eliskases represented 3 different countries when playing in the FIDE Chess Olympiads, as follows: 1. Austria (1930, 1933, 1935); 2. Germany (1939); 3. Argentina (1952, 1958, 1960, 1964). Olympic Longevity: Swedish GM Gideon Stahlberg played in 13 Chess Olympiads between 1930 and 1964. Olympic Competition: In 1936, the German chess Federation, who were not members of FIDE, organised an "unofficial" teams competition played over 8 boards to coincide with the Berlin Olympic Games. First Matches: The first recorded chess matches took place in Madrid in 1574-75, under the patronage of King Phillip II. The Spanish player Ruy Lopez lost matches to the Italian players Leonardo di Bona and Paolo Boi. First Match Game Scores: The Alexander McDonnell and Louis Labourdonnais match in 1834 was the first major match to have the moves of every game recorded for posterity. William Walker, a friend of McDonnell, attended all of the 85 games played and wrote down all of the moves. Championship Excitement: When Alexander Kotov and Mikhail Botvinnik played a crucial last round game against each other at the 11th USSR Championship at Leningrad in 1939, the crowd that wanted to watch was so large that a demonstration board was set up outside for those spectators who couldn't get into the playing hall. The crowd outside watching the game on the demonstration board became so large that it brought traffic to a standstill. Botvinnik won the game and the championship. Championship Paranoia: During the 1978 World Championship match in Baguio City, Viktor Korchnoi claimed that Anatoly Karpov's assistants were employing a parapsychologist named Dr Zhuker to hypnotize him during the games. Korchnoi also claimed that the cartons of yoghurt that Karpov was being given during the games were a "code" to give advice on what move to play. In retaliation, Korchnoi's assistants recruited two members of the Ananda Marga sect to sit in the playing hall and meditate, thus permeating the air with calm thoughts.
|
The Chessville
The
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
