William Winter

**Hans Jung** · Wednesday, 23rd December, 2020, 06:11 PM

I am enjoying what I have read so far, especially the accounts of Boris Kostic and the Shelley memory test of the sergeant. chuckle, chuckle. Now that I have time i will go back and read it all.

**Wayne Komer** · Wednesday, 23rd December, 2020, 11:55 PM

William Winter

December 24, 2020

12

On the whole I rather enjoyed my stay in Horfield. The work was light and after the terribly strenuous time I had been through this complete mental rest came as a great comfort - also I was able to do some serious reading in the so-called educational section of the library. I actually found a complete edition of Gibbon's Decline and Fall and read it from cover to cover, a wonderful experience which I could not have enjoyed elsewhere. I strongly recommend a short term imprisonment to all those who wish to some serious study. I was also, by special concession, allowed paper and pencil, and did quite a lot of writing. Anything of a political nature was confiscated on my release, but I was allowed to take out two short stories dealing with East End life which I later sold to The Sovereign Magazine. There was quite a lot of quiet fun too to be got in the prison if one did not take things too hardly. The prisoners' version of the Lord's Prayer, “Lead us not into the police-station and deliver us from Avory. . .” was a neverending source of amusement to me. It went on day after day and the warders were never able to catch the culprits. The way in which prisoners learn to speak without moving their lips is truly marvellous. I acquired the art myself, but have completely forgotten it now.

Also funny in a different way were incidents such as that of the old boy who rushed into the Governor's office with a hunk of bread in his hand shouting at the top of his voice, "Of all the thirty years I've been in prison I've never seen a loaf of bread like this." At the time I thought this very comical but like many other similar happenings it has its tragic side, the complete wastage of a human life.

The great fear I had while in Horfield was that there might be an execution, a fear which I shared with the Governor who told me that he had been present at one and never wanted to see another. When I learned that an Italian had strangled his wife I became really terrified, but fortunately, he killed himself before the police caught up with him. There was another killing shortly before my release. An unemployed man hit his father over the head with a hatchet, buried the body under the scullery floor, and went off to get his job, a striking answer to the Tory canard that the unemployed did not want work. I do not know what happened to him. I had left Bristol before he was brought to trial but I don 't think he was hanged.

Free again

I earned my full remission month and was released from prison on a beautiful spring day in April. Molly and two of my comrades met me at the gate and almost the first thing I asked for was a cigarette. I had not felt the urge to smoke for many months, but the sight of others puffing away brought it back in full force. Perhaps I ought to say that I left prison more determined than ever to carry on the political fight and the very first morning I addressed a meeting at the Vestry Hall, where I found that I was by no means forgotten. Billy Gee the national propagandist of the Communist Party was in Bristol to welcome me, and he and I did an open-air meeting in the evening. Gee had been a lifelong agitator and was by far the best speaker I had yet encountered. The way he got his resounding periods across, during intermissions in the noise of the traffic, was nothing short of marvellous, and made me realise how little I really knew about the art of open-air speaking.

He was particularly severe on hecklers and frivolous questioners. While always willing to answer a genuine enquiry he had no mercy on anyone he thought was trying to take a rise out of him, and many a smart Alec went away from Billy's meetings feeling distinctly sorry for himself. Besides his oratorical abilities he was a connoisseur of beer and was very critical of the brews served in the working class pubs to which I escorted him. At last I took him to a place in the City called, if I remember rightly, 'The Grotto', the haunt of the members of the Chamber of Commerce and the gilded youth of the town. Gee took a pull of his tankard, smacked his lips, looked all around him, and then said in his best platform voice, "You know, Winter, I can put up with even this bloody company for the sake of the beer." Gee had the reputation of being irascible and difficult to get on with, but I always kept on excellent terms with him. I acted as his chairman in a week's tour of Cardiff and its environs at the end of which he reported, "Comrade Winter is an excellent chairman. He always gets the meeting closed before the pubs." This actually is very important for reasons quite apart from the desire of the speaker for a drink. Half a dozen cheerful drunks turned out of a pub at closing time can easily turn a peaceful meeting into a sort of riot which may give the police excuse for drastic action.

Usefulness in Bristol over

It soon became clear that my sphere of usefulness in Bristol was at an end. The unemployed organization was running smoothly enough and I had been warned on the best authority that any attempt on my part to restart the old agitation would lead to my immediate arrest. Although, as I have said, I was comfortable enough in Horfield prison I had no wish to make it my permanent home and so Molly and I parcelled up our few belongings and made our way to Cardiff. Here I worked in the district of the C. P. under J. R. (Jock) Wilson, a Scotsman who had emigrated to Australia as a boy, and there signalised himself as a leader of the 'no-conscription' fight, one of the few successes gained by the English-speaking workers during the war years. He was an excellent organiser, clear-headed and efficient in everything he undertook yet tolerant of errors in others. As an orator I did not care for him. He was the fastest public speaker I have ever heard, words literally pouring from his mouth like bullets from a machine-gun, a habit he acquired during his Australian campaign when it was necessary to compress one hour's speech into ten minutes in order to keep one jump ahead of the police. Wilson sent me on speaking tours all over the mining valleys where, for the first time, I came face to face with the true meaning of a capitalist slump. I had been accustomed to places where perhaps half the population was out of work, but here it was everyone. In towns like Blaina the shops opened only once a week, on the day when relief was handed out. These were veritable cities of the dead. I was in South Wales about six months and met many interesting characters, including Arthur Horner, for many years General Secretary of the National Union of Miners, who did me the honour of taking the chair for me, and T. A. (Tommy) Jackson, the enfant terrible of the Party, who as he said himself 'loitered on the Party line with the intention of causing a deviation.' Like Gee, Tommy was an orator of the old school, the school of Burke and Fox, of Bright and Bradlaugh, of Lloyd George and Keir Hardie, the school whose last survivor is Winston Churchill.

Oratory is a dead art now. The microphone has killed it. During and after the second world war Tommy and I shared lodgings for two years off and on. He was then devoting himself to literary work, his best known books being Dialectics; Ireland her Own - a history of that country from the Marxist point of view; and a life of Charles Dickens which is used as a text-book in the schools of the Soviet Union. He has also written an autobiography full of anecdotes of his agitational life, and racy pen pictures of his contemporaries. It was even better before it was censored. He is a keen chess player, but here his abilities fall a great deal short of those he displays in other directions. I always tell him that his fault is that he does not approach chess dialectically! Looking back over what I have written, I find that these reminiscences of my political life have already taken up more space than I intended, and it is high time that I passed on to my career as a professional chess player. The trouble in writing a book of this kind is that one incident recalls another, and it is very hard to stop. However, I will be firm with myself and close the story of this phase of my life with an account of the incident which I always consider my political high spot, the march of the unemployed from London to Epping to oppose the Parliamentary candidature of Winston Churchill. It occurred during my tenure of the office of the London Organiser of the Unemployed Workers. Of all capitalist statesmen we of the left held Churchill in particular loathing on account of his virulent hatred of the Soviet Union. We considered, and rightly, that he was primarily responsible for the wars of intervention and the British support of bandit generals which caused so much misery and suffering in the early days of the Republic, and we made a point of opposing him with our full force whenever he put up for Parliament.

(to be continued)

**Aris Marghetis** · Thursday, 24th December, 2020, 12:00 PM

One of the funniest lines I have ever read:

"I strongly recommend a short term imprisonment to all those who wish to some serious study."

**Wayne Komer** · Thursday, 24th December, 2020, 11:07 PM

William Winter

December 25, 2020

13

Since the fall of the Coalition Government he [Churchill] had made various unsuccessful attempts to get back, first as a Liberal, then as an Independent, but now he had gone the whole hog and joined the Tory party about which he had previously used the most ferocious invective I have ever read. His constituency was Epping and Woodford, a dormitory for stockbrokers and City men. It is within easy striking distance of London and both I and my colleagues on the London District Executive felt that something should done about it. We decided to arrange a march of London unemployed into the constituency with banners flying to expose our detestation of his previous policy with regard to Russia, and at the same time to put before him our own demands regarding Maintenance, Public Works, and Government responsibility for the unemployed. Now it happened that we had a spy on the executive. We knew perfectly well who he was but we did not much mind for there was absolutely nothing illegal about our activities and, anyway, if we had to have a spy it better to have a spy we knew than one we did not, who might have been very difficult to identify. If our spy was paid by results he cannot have got very fat on it but he saw a glorious opportunity in the march to Epping - not, it is true, from the police who were notified anyway, but from the sensational Press.

Accordingly, he went to The Graphic, which came out with bloodcurdling posters and headlines: RED CONSPIRACY AGAINST CHURCHILL. WE SCOTCH BOLSHEVIK PLOT and others of an equally lurid character. Nothing could have been better. I waited for the evening, then I rang up the paper, informed them that far from being scotched the march would take place exactly as they had stated, and gave their representative a cordial invitation to attend. I also thanked them for the invaluable advance publicity they had given us. I anxiously awaited the morning, and for once in a way the weather was kind, and, about 300 marchers drawn mainly from the East End branches assembled at the rallying point Whipp's Cross. As well as their banners, they carried placards with special slogans, CHURCHILL THE WARMONGER. DOWN WITH THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. WHO WASTED A HUNDRED MILLION? and other remarks of an equally complimentary character. Besides these marchers there was nearly an equal number of policemen and of course,, thanks to our spy, the Press was there in force. We really made an impressive gathering. I have never had so many photos of myself in the papers as appeared the following morning. My father, I believe, took a certain pride in these. At any rate, I found a number of them in his desk after his death, but I cannot believe my uncle was amused.

Full of enthusiasm, accentuated by the unwanted publicity we had attained, we swung off along the rather dreary miles which separated us from our goal, singing revolutionary songs and generally creating no little sensation. When at last we reached the constituency it was like entering a beleaguered city. The shops and pubs had closed and the City gents' houses had their shutters up, but the maidservants waved to us from attic windows. We held a meeting in the first open space we could find, during which a message arrived from Churchill's headquarters announcing that he was willing to receive a deputation. Holt, the chairman of the Executive, myself as Organiser, and three other senior members formed the delegation which was escorted into the Presence by about fifty police. And now unfortunately, I have to tell a story against myself. We wasted no time on preliminaries, "We have come here" I said, "to express our abhorrence of your policy of wasting a hundred and twenty millions of this country's money in sending troops to Russia to fight against... "

"Stop a minute" Churchill interrupted, "You have got your facts wrong. You accuse me of spending 120 millions in sending troops to Russia. I did nothing of the sort. I spent 60 millions in sending them there, and 60 millions in bringing them back." I heard a poorly suppressed guffaw behind me and I could scarcely forbear a smile. The old ruffian had once again succeeded in turning a desperately serious practical question into a joke, and further argument on this matter was impossible. Holt who followed me gave a reasoned exposition of the unemployed demands regarding Maintenance, and Public Works, to which Churchill listened and graciously accepted a copy of our 21-point programme. This he promised to look into, and of course immediately put it in the waste-paper basket. At any rate subsequent events showed that it had no effect. We went back to report, I will not say with our tails between our legs, but not quite so cock-a-hoop as when we entered. If ever there was a slippery character it is that one. In spite of all, however, I still consider that the march was a great achievement. That so large a number of men and quite a few women were willing to march over twenty miles on a purely political issue out of which they could not personally expect anything, showed clearly the spirit of the unemployed. It proved that they were not merely concerned with Scales of Relief, but as intelligent class-conscious workers were ready to play their part in the wider political scene, whenever called upon.

Public speaker with no voice

Shortly after these events a terrible disaster overtook me. Following an attack of tonsilitis, I lost my voice, and was told by my doctor that I must completely abandon outdoor speaking. It meant the end of everything. An Unemployed Organiser who could not speak was obviously an impossibility, and I had not the faintest conception of what to do next. Then a strange thing happened, which once again brought about a qualitative change in my way of life.

Back to chess again

Although it was some years since I had played a serious game of chess I still took an interest in the art and its practitioners, so, finding myself one afternoon at a loose end in Poplar Library, it was only natural that I should turn to The Field magazine where Amos Burn ran his excellent column. It was the time of the great double-round tournament at New York and the column featured a game in which Capablanca was beaten by a young player named Reti, who, when I left the chess arena, had only reached the promising stage. That Capablanca should lose was in itself astonishing, but what struck me most was the extraordinary character of the opening-something quite outside my experience.

Vastly intrigued, I copied out the game, bought a shilling cardboard pocket set, and played the game out - greatly to the amazement of Molly, who had never seen chessmen in action before. The opening showed me that much water had flowed under the theoretical bridges since I gave up the game, but there was something unsatisfactory about the finish - at the adjournment Capablanca resigned without resuming play, but the note explaining why he did so appeared to me quite unconvincing.

Chess as a profession?

I examined the position carefully and eventually found another line whereby Reti could force the win of a piece and leave his opponent with a hopeless position. I sent this analysis to Burn and received back a charming letter from the dear old man, one of the kindest as well as the strongest of chess masters. In it he said how much I had been missing in the chess world, and expressed his personal wish that I would return. There was a great wave of enthusiasm for the game, he said, and many opportunities for professional work. This letter gave me furiously to think. Was this to be the solution to my problem! Was it possible, that by a devious route, l was at last to realise my youthful ambition and take up the life of a professional chess player? At any rate there was no harm in exploring the possibilities. The City of London Club, from which l had been expelled on my sentence to prison was, of course, a closed door to me; and my reception on a visit to the Gambit was distinctly cool; but a new resort, the St. George's Cafe in St. Martins Lane had recently been opened, and here I found a number of players, mostly young, who were enthusiastic enough to pay a small fee for a game with one who, at all events, had beaten R. H. V. Scott, and had played in the Victory tournament. A week's attendance there convinced me that the thing was worth a trial, and accordingly we moved from the East End, which I had come to love, to Mornington Crescent, where we were fortunate enough to find accommodation with a nice young landlady with whom Molly quickly struck up a friendship.

(to be continued)

**Gordon Taylor** · Friday, 25th December, 2020, 11:18 AM

"This letter gave me furiously to think" Wow! We know what he means, but almost nobody would write it like this now. This is a common problem with prose from over a century ago. Their way of building sentences often seems peculiar. Or charming -- you choose.

**Wayne Komer** · Friday, 25th December, 2020, 11:08 PM

William Winter

December 26, 2020

14

Father's pleasure

I put an advertisement in the British Chess Magazine offering my services for lessons, lectures, or simultaneous exhibitions, and attended the St. George’s every day to make personal contacts. The start was very hard, and I do not think we could have got through had not my father, overjoyed at my departure from the political arena, made me a temporary allowance. With this I managed to survive until l built up a reputation, and at the end of two years l found myself earning a sufficient, if modest, competence.

The professional's place in chess

However, before describing my own early career, I feel it is necessary to redeem the promise l made in the first chapter, and describe in some detail the work of a professional chess player and the reasons why he is important to the chess community. The work may be defined as: (1) playing in matches and tournaments, both National and International; (2) tuition and games; (3) simultaneous exhibitions and lectures; (4) adjudications; and (5) writing for the press. Out of these five the professional should be able to make a living, even in England, where he is less encouraged and his status less clear than in any other country. I consider that there is sufficient work even here to support six full-time professionals if, and this is a big if, amateurs would refrain from doing odds and ends of professional work in their spare time. These pin-money professionals are the curse of British chess and would not be tolerated in any game or sporting activity where the line of demarcation is more clearly drawn.

Of the five types of professional work, I have put match and tournament play first, because they form the highlights of the professional's life, and it is obvious that he will not get the confidence of the chess playing public unless he has proved his skill in open competition. Nevertheless, unless the professional is in the very top flight - World Championship class in fact - the amount of direct remuneration he will draw from tournament and match play is very small.

Prizes in most tournaments are hopelessly inadequate to the amount of labour and mental strain involved. Success, however, does have a high prestige value. I have
calculated that winning the British Championship was worth £200 a year to me. International contests provide the professional with one of the great compensations of his life, the opportunity to travel with all expenses paid.

Importance of chess tutors

Personally, I think that the most important part of the professional’s work, and the field in which he can be of the greatest service to the chess community, is no. 2 on my list - chess tuition. Chess is such a vast subject, its literature so extensive and its theory in such a constant state of flux, that it is obviously hopeless for the amateur with limited time at his disposal, to try to unravel its mysteries unaided. He might as well attempt to explore the Amazonian jungle without a guide. It is the professional’s work to show him which parts of chess theory are essential 9this will naturally vary according to the pupil’s strength), which openings are best suited to his style, and what books, or sections of books, he should concentrate on studying. Left to himself, for instance an amateur will buy a book like Modern Chess Openings, begin at the beginning, and endeavour to memorise strings of variations of all the openings. This sort of study is of no more value than learning by heart a table of logarithms.

The scope of the chess teacher

The teacher worth his salt will advise his pupils which openings they should study, explain their general principles, and their strong and weak points. Once these are grasped memorising of variations is reduced to a minimum and the player is not upset by the fact that his opponent deviates from the “book”. In nine cases out of ten general principles will indicate the course to be adopted. In personal tuition my own policy has always been to concentrate first on the openings, for the simple reason that until a player can develop his pieces reasonably well, he will never see a middlegame, let alone an ending. Then I proceed to the elementary endgames, and finally teach the middlegame from his own practice. By this I mean that I ask my pupil to bring the scores of his own games, go through them carefully, and point out opportunities missed and errors committed. I have found this method most effective, particularly with the class who formed the bulk of my clientele, the match players who are anxious to improve their positions in their club and county teams.

Mysterious client

I have never cared for teaching beginners or very weak players but have sometimes had to take them on, particularly at the start of my career, when it was extremely difficult to make both ends meet. One of these weak pupils led me into an amusing affair which I always call, plagiarising the great Sherlock, THE ADVENTURE OF THE MYSTERIOUS CLIENT.

I got him in answer to an advertisement in the British Chess Magazine. He wrote from an address in a high class block of flats, saying that he was a weak player and would like one evening lesson a week at his home own. 'If your terms are suitable' he wrote, I would hke to start the following Thursday at 8 o'clock.' Judging from his address that he was well-to-do, I quoted him a fairly high price which he accepted without demur. There was one curious point in his letter 'Do not [the not was heavily underlined] come before eight. It does not matter at all If you are a little late, but whatever you do don’t come early.’ On the appointed day I duly arrived at about five past eight and was met at the flat door by my client, an elderly man, with what I could not help thinking was a somewhat furtive expression. The flat itself bore every sign of opulence, and I was glad to see beside the chess board a decanter of whisky and two glasses. I soon found that he had spoken the truth when he said he was a weak player, but he had some slight inkling of the game, and I felt that at any rate I could make him a good deal better than he was. At the end of the session he escorted me to the door and repeated his exhortation: “Come next Thursday at eight o'clock, but whatever you do, do not be early." This went on for about two months and every week the pattern was the same - the warning at the door " ... on no account be early”. The only thing that changed was my client’s play which showed distinct signs of improvement. He also, I thought, looked brighter and less hag-ridden than on my first visit. Naturally I was tremendously intrigued with the whole affair but try as I would I could think of no explanation. Molly suggested. that he was probably the butler indulging in larks while his employers were absent, but this I could not believe. He had none of the characteristics of the gentleman's gentleman.

He felt a new man

I came no nearer to solving the problem until one evening he announced that he would not require my services any longer. I suppose I must have shown some surprise and disappointment, for he hurriedly went on, “Don t think I’m dissatisfied. You've done wonders for me, and I have achieved my chess ambition. You see, I play only with my wife. In the old days she beat me regularly, but now, thanks to you, I win almost every game." A light began to dawn on me " . . . and on Thursday evenings.. .'' "Exactly” he said, beaming all over his face, "of course I could not let her know I was taking lessons - she goes out to see her sister every Thursday at eight. You can't imagine the difference being able to beat her has made to my life. I feel a new man. You will find a small mark of my appreciation in there." He handed me the envelope in which he always paid my fee. When I got outside and opened it I found it contained a five pound note.

Bringing Juniors along

There is, of course, a terrific amount of scope for chess educational work among schoolboys - and girls too, for that matter. I never did much of it - the very young always terrify me - but my colleagues R. G. Wade and W. R. Morry devote most of their time to this field, and their efforts, in conjunction with the Chess Educational Society, and certain progressive schoolmasters, have resulted in bringing to the fore a number of young players of great promise. These youngsters, well grounded in theory and extremely keen, should play a big part in Britain's chess future, though we can never hope to equal those countries where the art forms a regular part of the school curriculum.

Games with professionals for a stake

Rather a different kind of professional tuition, though an important part of it, is the playing of games for a fee with aspiring amateurs. After a player has grasped the fundamental principles there is nothing that improves his play as much as pract1ce with the best possible opponents. Playing with a master and endeavouring to understand his ideas gets the student into the habit of thinking along the same lines himself and, once he does this, his improvement will be very rapid. The strong British amateurs of the early 1890's, the best of their kind in the world, acquired their skill almost entirely by steady practice with the old professionals at London coffee houses. When these disappeared the standard of chess rapidly deteriorated and has only begun to improve since the partial revival of the professional element. In my time I have played large quantities of these games, both fairly quick ones at a small fee, and set matches with strong players about to take part in a tournament. I have every reason to believe from the results obtained that my opponents derived benefit as well as pleasure from these encounters.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Friday, 25th December, 2020, 11:11 PM

William Winter

December 26, 2020

14 (continued)

Did not care for "simuls."

Third in importance in the professional's work I put simultaneous exhibitions and lectures. For the former I have never cared greatly although I have won a lot of them, and at one time held the British record for the number of games played - sixty-seven. I have never been physically strong and I found the effort of walking round the room for several hours, continually stooping over the boards, a very great strain. They are, however, particularly in the provinces, agreeable social affairs, and I have made many pleasant acquaintances as a result of them.

Two moves a time

They can have their amusing side. I remember an aged clergyman who was continually making two moves at once, one when I left the board and one when I returned. He started at the very beginning of the game after we had each moved the king's pawn. I brought out my king's knight, and on getting back to the board I found that both his knights had emerged. "You have made two moves" I remonstrated. “Aye” he said, putting his hands to his ear, "I'm a little hard of hearing." "You've moved both knights" I yelled. "Yes, it’s been a lovely day" he replied. "No, no" I said, patting the offending horses, "Put one of these back." He picked one up and scrutinised it carefully; "Yes" he said, "Its head is a bit loose.” After this I gave It up and left the situation as it was. He did the same thing several other times in the course of the game, but I soon realised that the more moves he made the worse his position became, so I took no further notice.

Blindfold play I have never attempted seriously. I once. played six, but spent so many sleepless nights trying to drive the positions out of my head that I gave it up. Some have a peculiar facility for it. The Belgian master Koltanowsky - now domiciled in the United States - has played forty simultaneously without appearing one whit the worse. This was a world record, but I still think that, as a blindfold expert, our own Blackburne takes a lot of beating. He never played any great number, but some of his combinations would be a credit to any player with the board and men in front of him.

Lecturing I have always enjoyed, and it seems very popular, but from an instructional point of view, its value is very dubious because of the inevitable disparity of strength between members of the audience. What is interesting to one half is incomprehensible to the other, and the elementary material the latter would enjoy is simply boring to the stronger players.

Adjudications a "necessary evil"

About adjudications there is very little to say. It is a great pity that they have to be done at all, but, when so many matches are confined to one evening of three hours or even less, they have to be regarded as a necessary evil, and they do form, quite an appreciable part of the professional’s income. There is one hint that I can give that may be of value to any professional who should chance to read this book: once your decision has been reached, make it a rigid rule never to discuss it with anyone - least of all the players concerned. Unless you adhere to this your life will be made a complete misery. You will never be able to enter a chess resort without being assailed by a furious figure brandishing a diagram, demanding to know why you adjudicated him a loss.

A year after!

There are players who can never believe they have been legitimately beaten. They will nurse supposed grievances for months, and I was once followed into a pub by an individual who wanted to know my reasons.. for a decision given over a year before!

Chess Columns in Newspapers

Last but by no means least in the category of the chess professional's work is newspaper reporting and the editorship of chess columns. All over the continent this has always been regarded as the special preserve of the professional master, and one of his principle sources of revenue. All the leading European newspapers carry columns edited by the leading players, which are, in consequence, a real benefit to the student. In England the case is vastly different. "Why is it" the Belgian master Koltanowski remarked to me, on the occasion of his first visit to this country, "Why is it that in England you give all ze chess columns to ze people who cannot play ze chess?" and I could only echo sadly, Why? When I joined the professional ranks in the middle of the twenties the situation with regard to chess reporting could only be described as disgraceful. It is hardly believable that a paper like The Times, which justly prides itself as being represented by the best available talent in all forms of human activity, should hand over its chess, both in the main paper and the subsidiary supplements, to a man to whom any first class chess player could give a rook. Yet it is absolutely true. This man, Tinsley by name, was the son of a minor professional who represented the paper fairly satisfactorily in the beginning of the century. When he died of a sudden stroke, his son went to The Times office with the news, and offered to carry on for a week or so until a successor could be appointed. He carried on for nearly thirty years! Uncouth, and almost uneducated, he made The Times reports a laughing stock all over the chess playing world, but, by a mixture of bluff and bluster, maintained his position until his own death in 1936. In the eyes of the powers-that-be at The Times anything seemed to be good enough for chess players. I shall have more to say about Mr. Tinsley and his goings-on in a later chapter. There were other cases nearly as bad, weekly columns run by third and fourth rate amateurs who cut a problem out of a book, wrote a little belated news underneath it, and drew a pleasant monthly cheque, while England's greatest player, F. D. Yates, had no column at all. I am glad to say that things are a good deal better now. The Times is in the capable hands of my professional colleague, H. Golombek, and most of the real duffers have disappeared from the weeklies. The pin-money amateur however, is still far too prevalent in chess journalism, the worst offender being C. H. O'D. Alexander, a highly placed civil servant, with an income well over the four figure mark. He can reconcile it with his conscience to edit three chess columns, any one of which would enable a professional to gain that economic security which is essential if he is to give of his best to the chess community.

Strong Views!

I regret very much having to say this about Alexander, who is probably England's best player, and has done a great deal for the game, but it is a matter on which I feel strongly, and I would be failing in my duty if I did not express my views. I am quite convinced that until the amateurs keep their rapacious claws away from the chess columns we shall never obtain that hard core of professional masters who are absolutely necessary if we are to take a worthy place among the chess playing nations of the world. I should make it clear that these remarks refer only to chess features in the National Press. There can be no objection to an amateur running a column in his local newspaper where the pay is merely nominal, and for which he alone has the necessary focal knowledge. Some of these columns, such as that conducted by F. A. Rhoden in The Hastings Observer are very good indeed, and perform a most useful service.

My own experiences in chess journalism were chiefly with The Manchester Guardian first as assistant to Yates, and, after his death, as sole representative. I continued in this capacity until my temporary retirement from the profession in 1938.

The Guardian did not run a regular weekly column but published daily descriptive reports of important events and annotated games - this last, a thing which few other papers ventured to attempt. Later when the Editor discovered that his readers were showing interest in chess, he invited feature stories on various matters of general chess interest. Articles on the development of chess in the Soviet Union - which in the late twenties was beginning to make its influence felt in a big way - proved specially popular, and were, of course, just up my street. Thanks to my contacts I was often able to get information unavailable to other journalists.

Hidden Beauties

I remember also another feature which, rather to my surprise, aroused a good deal of interest. We called it The Hidden Beauties of Chess. It consisted in taking a dull-looking draw from a master tournament, and indicating the beautiful combinations which the players had in mind but were unable to carry out because of the acuteness of the opponent. The number of these that Yates and I discovered was quite amazing. Apart from the Guardian, I acted as chess correspondent on The Daily Worker for some years after the Hitler war, and have also edited several chess periodicals, the last of which, The Anglo-Soviet Chess Bulletin had, I believe, played quite a considerable part in cementing the friendly relations at present prevailing between British and Soviet players. I have also published a number of chess books, of which the best known is Chess for Match Players, now in its second edition, in which I have tried to put into print my theories and methods of chess tuition.

Such then, is the rough outline of the life of a professional chess player, a life which was to be mine from 1925 to 1938, and resumed again after the war until illness compelled me to relinquish it, I fear for ever. I have gone through many hard times, but on the whole it has been a happy life, and taking it all in all I would not willingly have had any other. I cannot, however, conscientiously advise any young player to take it up under the conditions prevailing in England unless he has either small private means, or the definite promise of a column in a National paper. Otherwise, he will find the first hurdles too difficult.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Sunday, 27th December, 2020, 12:47 AM

William Winter

December 27, 2020

15

A revolution in opening theory

As I had suspected after my examination of the Reti v Capablanca game, something of a revolution had taken place in chess opening theory since my departure from the scene, and I soon realised it was a question of teaching myself before I could presume to teach others.

This put me in a quandary for a time. Chess books are expensive, and I had no means of getting hold of the continental magazines in which the new hyper-modern openings were exemplified. The difficulty was solved when I joined the Hampstead Chess Club. There I found two young players, V. Buerger and M. E. Goldstein, who were determined to get to the top of the tree through the medium of scientific study. Goldstein was engaged on the work of editing a new edition of Modern Chess Openings, affectionately known as M. C. O., and had access to the latest publications in all languages. These two were only too glad to allow me to make a third in their researches, and it was not long before I acquired sufficient knowledge of the hyper-modern theories to enable me to use them in practice, and to explain them to others. I certainly owe a debt of gratitude to these brilliant young players for enabling me to surmount what might have been a very nasty hurdle. Goldstein has now lived for many years in Australia and is still one of that country's leading players. I played him in a Radio Match in 1947 and found that he had lost none of his skill. Buerger lives in England, but has had to give up chess for business reasons, a very great loss indeed.

Re-emergence into chess

I made my first public appearance in the Easter Congress at Bromley in 1925 This was quite a big affair played in sections, and including several foreign masters. I finished just below the four leading foreigners, and as I did not lose a game was generally considered to have done very well. At any rate it was good enough to get me into the British Championship, where I finished fifth. I had hoped for a better position here, but It was a respectable achievement, and I played some good games which gave me welcome publicity. The tournament was won by H. E. Atkins, the last of his extraordinary series of nine championship victories. Although In a sense Atkins must be considered a contemporary of mine, his greatest successes were gained before I even started playing, and I really know very little about him. He did extremely well in his one appearance in a big continental tournament, Hanover 1902, finishing third to Janowski and Pillsbury, with such a famous name as Tchigorin behind him. It is a pity that the claims of the scholastic profession prevented him from playing regularly, as he clearly had enormous potentialities. He lived to a great age, and died only recently.

Taking on all comers

For the most part I spent the first year of my professional career at the St. George's Cafe playing all comers who would pay my modest fees, and giving lessons. After Bromley I got quite a number of pupils and began to have good hopes of making a success of my new life. Although it was still difficult to make ends meet, I quite enjoyed myself, and, as Molly was also making friends, and seemed perfectly happy, things were not too bad. The St. George's was frequented by a number of very pleasant types, and I look back with pleasure on the hour in the evening which we used to spend in one of the St. Martin's Lane pubs, talking of matters chessic. I have always been fond of a drink in good company. I think that moderate drinking is a pleasant habit, sociable, and leading to mutual sympathies and understanding.

Unfortunately, there exists in the chess world a class of envious mortals which is always trying to find opportunities to throw mud at those whom they could never hope to equal over the board, and my modest drinks have been made the subject of a good deal of malicious gossip. If Sir George Thomas or R. P. Michell made a blunder in an important tournament, everyone was sympathetic, but if a similar thing happened to F. D. Yates or myself, the rumour went around, "I expect he had a glass too much." One character even went so far as to invent a story concerning an unfortunate stalemate with Sultan Khan, changing the place and the time in order to make a stupid joke about the licensing laws. I consider this kind of thing quite inexcusable, particularly when the victim is a professional man who may be materially harmed. These slanders are impossible to refute and I can only state categorically that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, no match or tournament game of mine has ever been influenced by the factor of drink, and I am quite certain that the same applied to Yates, who was also a prey to the mud-slingers.

The greatest event of 1925

I cannot leave my recollections of 1925 without some reference to its greatest chess event, the first International Tournament organised in Moscow by the Soviet Union. Nearly all, the world's greatest masters, including Capablanca and Lasker, took part, and Lasker, took part, together with a number of practically unknown Russians. Although on this occasion the famous masters won the chief prizes, it was conclusively shown that a new and terrific national power had arisen in the: firmament. Capablanca was twice beaten by complete unknowns, and there were tales of a simultaneous exhibition he gave against a team of schoolboys in which he scraped a bare majority after many hours' play.

A great cable match

The year 1926 was quite an exciting one for me. One event of importance was a match be cable between London and Chicago for a trophy presented by Samuel Insull, an American millionaire. I felt highly delighted when I was chosen as one of the London team, but distinctly nervous, as I had never taken part in such an event before. However, I won all right although not without some trying moments, not the least of which was the sight of a curate sitting in my chair playing with the pieces when we returned from the supper interval. Since then, I have played in a number of radio and cable matches, and have always found them a much greater strain than personal encounters over the board. A curious feature is that the players invariably get short of time. One would think the long space between the despatch of a move and the receipt of the reply would provide all the time in the world, but the reverse is the case. The interval only serves to destroy concentration, and when the move does arrive, the player has to start thinking all over again.

London did very well in this match, winning by 3½ to 1½ - a result which caused Russell, who was among the spectators, to remark in his penetrating bellow, "Hm! Won by three aliens and a gaol-bird." The aliens were Buerger, Goldstein, and an ex-South African champion, Sieghelm, who at the time was resident in London.

Tragedy of J. Walter Russell

This was the last time that I saw Russell who died shortly afterwards. His story bears the hallmark of a real tragedy. For forty years he worked whole-heartedly and successfully to build the City of London into the premier chess club in Great Britain, and perhaps in the world, only to destroy it through his crazy jingoism in the last span of his life. His successor, the veteran master J.S. Blake, did his utmost to revive it, and was partially successful, but it never recovered anything like its former glory. It moved its headquarters to the National Chess Centre at John Lewis' Emporium in Oxford Street, and finally lost its independent existence when the building fell victim to a direct hit from a Nazi bomb.

Another highspot of the year was a visit to Paris. This was arranged by a new friend, Laurie Alexander, whom I first met at the St. George's. Alexander had just returned from the French capital where he had been much impressed by the play of Max Romi, an Italian master who had made his home in France. He also had a good opinion of my play and thought that a match between us would be a good sporting struggle. Apparently the players in Paris had a low opinion of the standard of British chess, and Romi had no difficulty in finding a backer. Accordingly, a match was arranged, the first to win six games to be the winner. In the first game I was put off my stroke by the strange type of pieces produced by the French, but when Staunton men were produced there was a different tale to tell. Although I won by six games to four, with a number of draws which did not count, I was by no means satisfied with my play. I held my own in the openings, and in middle-game strategy I seemed quite equal to my opponent, but in the endgame he was definitely my superior. At least two of the draws should have been wins for me, and I think one of the defeats could have been averted by proper endgame technique. The endgame has always been a weakness with English players, largely because the system of adjudication prevailing in most league and county games gives them little opportunity for practice, but I determined that as far as I personally was concerned I would try my best to remedy the failing by a course of concentrated study.

Stranded in Paris

Before the match was over the General Strike broke out In England and I was unable to return. Although it was terribly frustrating to read at second hand in L'Humanite of events in which I longed to play a part, I have since thought that my forced detention in Paris was a blessing in disguise. I could not have done any real good in England and would almost certainly have ended up in gaol which, in the state of public opinion prevailing after the strike, would have meant my permanent exclusion from further chess activities.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Sunday, 27th December, 2020, 11:40 PM

William Winter

December 28, 2020

16

I kept myself going in Paris with the aid of two other money matches, both of which I won, and met many interesting people, notably Alekhine, who occasionally visited the Cafe de la Regence, or the chess resort in the Palais Royal, to play quick games with his compatriot Dr. Bernstein. I did not see much of Alekhine on this occasion but later on got to know him very well. He had many excellent qualities including a genuine love and respect for chess, therein differing from Capablanca who, at one time at least, was inclined to despise it. "You call me grand master," Alekhine said to me once, "I am not. I am not even master. Chess itself will always be the master of me, of Capablanca, and all of us." He was also generous in the appreciation of the skill of his fellow masters, particularly Yates, for whose combinative abilities he had the highest admiration. He had however one fatal defect: he was completely egocentric. His whole world revolved round his own personality and he was quite unable to take interest in any activity in which he did not play the leading part.

David Janowski

While I was in Paris I also met David Janowski, once Lasker's challenger for the world championship. Although he did not know it he was in the last throes of consumption and in fact died the same year. At one time he had the reputation of being arrogant and conceited to a ludicrous degree. "There are only three chess players in the world" he is reputed to have said, "Lasker, Capablanca, and a third I am too modest to mention." When I met him, however, he seemed much mellowed, and spoke in a kindly way of most of his contemporaries, although he did stigmatise my opponent Romi as a coffee-house player. He took a great fancy to Molly with whom he shared a passion for English tea, a beverage impossible to obtain in France in a recognisable form. Janowski always brought the requisite, in the shape of a teapot and a small spirit lamp, to the Cafe in the Palais Royal, and there he and Molly would sit happily sipping while he discoursed on his past victories and those which he still hoped would be his in the future. Of Tartakover, whom I also met for the first time, I shall have many occasions to speak later. He was one of the chess revolutionaries, a highly original thinker and a brilliant player who would have done even better than he did, but for the prior claims of authorship and journalism. He was a splendid writer on the game, entertaining as well as thought-provoking, and it may well be that his books will win him a larger niche in the halls of chess fame than any mere player could hope to occupy.

London club tours France and Belgium

We had only been back in England about a month before I was on the Continent again - this time with the Hampstead Chess Club on a tour of Belgium and France organised by the president, E. Busvine, a real chess enthusiast of the most practical type. Our first night was spent at Bruges, that unspoilt mediaeval town where one expects to see a knight in armour caracolling along the cobbled streets. . We then went on to Antwerp where we played a powerful local team, and were beaten by a narrow margin. I played at top board against the blindfold expert Koltanowski, and won a good game.

In connection with the match there was a comical incident. Included in our team there was a gentleman named Bonwick, a teetotaller of fanatical enthusiasm whose proud boast it was that no drop of the evil thing had ever passed his lips. Hearing that we were to receive a civic reception at which toasts would be drunk, Busvine, always meticulous in such matters, sent a message to the Antwerp club informing the secretary of this idiosyncrasy of one of our players, and requesting that he might be provided with a glass of ginger beer. This was duly done, but unfortunately at the critical moment one of the Belgians, probably thinking it was a larger glass of the wine, seized it, and Bonwick had no resource but to take the champagne. When the loyal toasts were proposed, I don't know who looked the more miserable, Bonwick forced for the first time in his life to sully his lips with the demon alcohol, or the Belgian faced with a large tumbler of unpalatable liquid. It served them both right. From Antwerp we went to Brussels and then on to Paris, playing two matches in each place. I did not lose a game, and now began to feel that I was really getting better and better - a comforting thought for any class of player. My early ambitions began to re-assert themselves.

The year 1927 was a memorable one for British chess as well as for me personally. The first full scale International Team Tournament was played at the Central Hall, and together with the individual tournaments decided at the same time, attracted a fine gathering of well-known chess players from all over the world. I am devoting a special chapter to Team Tournaments so will say nothing about the event here, except that it gave me the opportunity of seeing in the flesh a number of the great, Maroczy, Tarrasch, Reti, etc., who had previously been only names to me.

Triumph in "London 1927"

I was not invited to play in the team, but was selected for the Premier Individual Tournament, one of those events called on the Continent "Hauptturniers," the winner of which automatically obtains Master rank. The tournament was very strong and included several foreign players who had already obtained the Master title. I managed to tie for first prize, and my Mastership was now assured of general recognition. This was a great step forward, but even better things were to come. After the Team Tournament was over the energies of Buerger and Goldstein, ably supported and encouraged by Busvine, were devoted to the project of arranging an Individual Masters' Tournament in London to give our players a chance against the very best in the world.

It was an ambitious idea, and most people thought that it would fail, particularly as the British s Federation, resting on its laurels after the Team Tournament, gave it only a tentative blessing, but actually it proved a stupendous success. With little difficulty the silver-tongued Buerger extracted the bulk of the necessary funds from wealthy patrons, the St. James' Club offered hospitality, and the leading masters proved themselves reasonable in the matter of expenses. Capablanca and Alekhine, who on the point of starting their match for World Championship, were not available and health reasons prevented Rubinstein from accepting an invitation, but with these exceptions the cream of the chess world duly lined up on the appointed day.

The list in alphabetical order was: Bogolyubov, Colle, Marshall, Niemtsovich, Reti, Tartakover, and Vidmar - the greatest galaxy of chess strength to be brought together in England for many a long year. The British players were Sir George Thomas, Yates, Buerger, Fairhurst, and myself. There were six prizes and the final result was: 1st and 2nd equal, Niemtsovich and Tartakover, 3rd Marshall, 4th Vidmar, 5th Bogolyubov, 6^th and 7th equal, Reti and Winter. Considering the terrific strength of the opposition I always consider this tournament to be one of my best performances. I beat two of the grand masters, Niemtsovich and Vidmar and I drew with Marshall and Colle. I also beat Thomas and Buerger and, but for an unfortunate blunder in the first round against the bottom player, Fairhurst, I would have pushed Reti out of the prize list and tied with Bogolyubov. My game with Vidmar was unique in that I should think it is the only game in the annals of master chess which it would have been more profitable to draw, or even to lose, than to win.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Sunday, 27th December, 2020, 11:41 PM

William Winter

December 28, 2020

16 (continued)

The point was that had I drawn I would have qualified for all the special awards offered to non-prizewinners, which, taken in all, were a £7 10s in excess of my half share in the sixth prize! I was quite aware of this before the game started, but in the throes of combat a chess player forgets all about such things.

A tip from Amos Burn

For my win over Niemtsovich I am partly indebted to Amos Burn. Before the tournament I happened to mention to him that Niemtsovich was playing a system, beginning with 1 P-QN3 [1.b3], the idea of which was to control the square at his e5 from the flank, and eventually occupy it with a knight. The master told me that in his younger days he had played many games with the Rev. Owen who regularly adopted this opening and that he could make little headway against it, until he hit on the idea of at once occupying the key square with a pawn and defending it with everything he could pile on. This plan I adopted with complete success. After my third move I saw Niemtsovich shake his head, and in fact he was never comfortable. His basic strategical plan was upset and he was reduced to playing for tactical chances, a method quite unsuited to his style. It was naturally a very great joy to me to encounter at close quarters a body of men whose games I had followed since boyhood, and personal acquaintance did not disappoint me. Of them all I found Niemtsovich and Marshall the most impressive. The former was perhaps the most original chess thinker of all time and his book My System did more than any other to revolutionize the generally accepted theories of the game. As a tournament player he was second only to Alekhine, and well deserved the title which he proudly assumed 'Crown Prince of Chess' As an opponent he was quiet and courteous, neither crowing in victory, nor cavilling after defeat. Much has been made of his eccentricities and there are many tales about his hatred of tobacco smoke. He certainly did feel very strongly about this and, though he would not, of course, keep his opponents from their cigars and cigarettes, he induced the committee to make a rule that at spectators must not smoke in the tournament room. He was deeply suspicious of Molly, and whenever she came in he would get up from his chair, seize a 'NO SMOKING' notice and hold it in front of her. I fear it had little effect. In spite of this and one or two other oddities he was a fine man, high-principled and kind-hearted as the following incident shows. After the tournament he stayed in London to play in a small double round event organized by the Imperial Chess Club, and one Saturday afternoon he turned up at the St. George's Cafe. Among the Saturday habitues there was a sweet manufacturer, Greenfield by name, who usually played an old semi-professional known as 'Guss' This poor fellow who eked out a precarious existence playing for small stakes with the weaker of the St. George's amateurs, had come to rely on Greenfield for his week-end sustenance, and it is easy to imagine his horror when his client asked Niemtsovich to honour him with a game. The latter did not particularly want to play, but Greenfield was persistent and eventually he agreed for a stake of 10/- a game. They played the whole afternoon and poor Guss, his face growing longer and longer, saw his hopes of a Sunday dinner gradually fading away. At last, after losing ten games, Greenfield had had enough, and he duly handed the conqueror five pound notes. Niemtsovich walked straight over to Guss, "I did not come here to take your clients" he said, and pushed the whole of the money into the astounded little man's hands.

Genial Frank Marshall

I have always had the highest respect and affection for Frank J. Marshall. He was an accomplished man of the world, well informed on men and affairs in general, and excellent company. In chess too he was a true artist, always seeking the beautiful, and his best games will be a source of delight for many generations to come. I got into his good books by my victory over Vidmar which gave him third prize instead of fourth, and there began a friendship which endured until his death, though of course our meetings were few and far between. When they did occur, they were always suitably celebrated. In 1928 I had a good success, winning a strong tournament at Scarborough above Yates, Thomas, Buerger, and the Belgian Champion Colle. This event was noteworthy in that it saw the first appearance of Vera Menchik, the woman champion of the world, in an open Master contest. Although she finished in last place she played well enough to prove that she was far away and above the usual woman player. My own game with her lasted over six hours.

This tournament brings to an end the first phase of my professional chess career I was now firmly established as one of Britain s leading players. I was a recognised Master and making a small but sufficient livelihood. My life now became largely a matter of routine: lessons, exhibitions, and lectures, broken by periodical matches and tournaments. I have no intention of wearying my readers by detailed accounts of these. After all, one match is very like another match, one tournament - unless you happen to be playing in it - is very like another tournament. Nevertheless, as I look back over the years, I think I can find one or two events worthy of record, as well as a few recollections of chess personalities, some of whom, I fear, are in danger of being completely forgotten.

Played in round 3 of the London International Tournament, October 1927.

Round 3, Oct. 12
Thomas, George Alan – Winter, William
E38 Nimzo-Indian, Classical

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 c5 5.dxc5 Na6 6.a3 Bxc3+ 7.Qxc3 Nxc5 8.b4 Nce4 9.Qd3 d5 10.cxd5 Nxf2 11.Kxf2 Ng4+ 12.Kg3 Qf6 13.Nf3 Qxa1 14.Bd2 Nf6 15.e4 exd5 16.exd5 O-O 17.Bc3 Qxc3 0-1

Round 8, Oct. 19
Nimzowitsch, Aron – Winter, William
A01 Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack, Modern variation

1.b3 e5 2.Bb2 f6 3.e4 Bc5 4.Bc4 Ne7 5.Qh5+ g6 6.Qf3 Nbc6 7.Ne2 Rf8 8.g4 f5 9.gxf5 d5 10.exd5 Rxf5 11.Qe4 Nb4 12.Nbc3 Bxf2+ 13.Kd1 c6 14.dxc6 bxc6 15.Ba3 Ned5 16.Bxb4 Nxb4 17.a3 Nd5 18.Nxd5 cxd5 19.Bxd5 Rb8 20.Ng3 Bd4 21.Bc6+ Kf8 22.Ra2 Rf4 23.Qg2 Be6 24.Rf1 Qg5 25.Kc1 Kg7 26.Rxf4 exf4 27.Ne2 Qxg2 28.Bxg2 Be5 29.d4 Bc7 30.d5 Bg4 31.Nd4 Bb6 32.Ne6+ Kf6 33.Kd2 Be3+ 34.Ke1 f3 35.Bh1 Rb5 36.Nc7 Rc5 37.Ne8+ Ke7 38.c4 Kxe8 39.Rc2 Rc7 40.h3 f2+ 41.Kf1 Bxh3+ 42.Bg2 Bxg2+ 43.Kxg2 Re7 44.c5 Bd4 45.c6 Re1 0-1

Round 11, Oct. 24
Winter, William – Vidmar, Milan
E32 Nimzo-Indian, Classical variation

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 O-O 5.Bg5 d6 6.e3 Qe7 7.Bd3 h6 8.Bxf6 Qxf6 9.Ne2 Bxc3+ 10.Nxc3 Nc6 11.a3 e5 12.d5 Nb8 13.O-O Qe7 14.f4 f5 15.fxe5 Qxe5 16.Rf3 f4 17.Qf2 Bg4 18.Rxf4 Nd7 19.h3 g5 20.Rxf8+ Rxf8 21.Qe1 Bh5 22.Qd2 Re8 23.Re1 g4 24.hxg4 Nf6 25.gxh5 Ng4 26.Ne4 Qh2+ 27.Kf1 Qxh5 28.Ng3 Rf8+ 29.Nf5 Ne5 30.e4 Qh2 31.Re3 Qh1+ 32.Ke2 Rf6 33.Rg3+ Kf8 34.Kf2 Qa1 35.Be2 Qb1 36.Qe3 Qxb2 37.Qxa7 Ke8 38.Qa8+ Kd7 39.Rg7+ Nf7 40.Qa4+ c6 41.dxc6+ Ke6 42.c7 Rxf5+ 43.exf5+ Kf6 44.Rxf7+ 1-0

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Monday, 28th December, 2020, 11:41 PM

William Winter

17

December 29, 2020

Some leading British players

So far in these pages I have had a good deal to say about the foreign masters I have met but practically nothing concerning my British contemporaries - the players with whom I was always waging stern but, I am glad to say, friendly combat.

First and foremost in the list comes F. D. Yates, one of the most talented chess players as well as one of the finest men I have ever met.

The genius of F. D. Yates

I use the words 'one of the most talented players' advisedly. I have known personally all the world champions of my time as well as most of the principal challengers, and I have no hesitation in saying that, at his best, he displayed a chess genius second to none. His victory over Vidmar at San Remo was described by Alekhine in 1931 as the finest game played since the war, and his win against Alekhine himself at Carlsbad is in the same category. The final combination here is eighteen moves deep. There are other games nearly as good and I am, sure that had Yates been born a Soviet player, encouraged to develop his genius along proper lines, he would have been a close challenger for the world title! Even I never knew the number of great games Yates had played until I came to write his Memorial Book. He was one of those modest souls who never kept the scores of his games and never submitted them to the press, so the only way I could get hold of many true masterpieces was to delve them out of continental magazines and tournament books.

One of the noticeable things about his play was that it took the best opposition to get the best out of him. While the tournament scores of most are built up on points below them in the list, with Yates the reverse was often the case. I remember in particular one tournament at Budapest in 1926 when his score was made up almost entirely of wins against those above him. Rubinstein, Reti, Tartakover were among his victims on that occasion and, at one time or another, secured the scalp of every contemporary grandmaster excepting Lasker and Capablanca.

He always played particularly well against Alekhine who once told me he was always relieved when his game with Yates was over. I was not surprised. Alekhine actually lost twice and in several others had hairbreadth escapes. One of the principal reasons for Yates' inconsistency was the fact that he was continually troubled by a hacking cough aggravated during the winter by the long cold journeys he had to take in the course of the exhibition tours which formed his means of livelihood. He was medically advised that a winter spent on the Riviera would probably effect a cure, but of course Yates was only an English chess genius and he could not afford it. 'Couldn't afford it.' Of how many hopes and human aspirations have these words sounded the death knell. There is scarcely one of us who, at some period of his or her life has not found a cherished ambition frustrated by them. That is why I always laugh when I see the way of life in capitalist countries described as free. Until economic obstacles to human aspirations are removed, the words 'couldn't afford it' deleted from the language, and man permitted to develop his natural attainments without let or hindrance, it is farcical to talk about freedom. Compared with this it is surely of little importance that we have the right to choose which Press Lord we allow to poison our minds, or to put a cross opposite the name of Tweedledum or Tweedledee on a ballot paper.

Chill penury

Yates certainly is a striking example of one who was precluded from real greatness by economic sanctions. None the less he left a fine reputation behind him. He won the British Championship on six occasions and on the international field won a number of high prizes. Lasker rightly described him as Blackburne's legitimate successor. Of Yates the man I have already given my opinion and there is no need to say any more of his high principles or his hatred of cruelty or meanness in any form, but I cannot leave the subject without drawing attention to the extraordinary versatility of his mind. He seemed to have read something of every subject and assimilated what he had read so that he could talk entertainingly on them all. Had crossword puzzles been fashionable in his days he would have been a first class solver. From 1926 to his death in 1932 he and I lived on the terms of the closest intimacy and I learned much from him, particularly in the line of chess literature and journalism. I have already spoken of our work for the Manchester Guardian. We also wrote three books together, the Alekhine-Capablanca and the Alekhine-Bogolyubov match books, and a more ambitious work, Modern Master Play, in which we presented profiles of the leading players of the day with annotated examples of their best games. What impressed me most about this work was the meticulous care with which he used the English language. As a writer I had always been satisfied as long as I could find words to express my ideas, but Yates wanted far more than that and I was sometimes slightly irritated by the time he took to formulate a single sentence. I never knew him spend a whole morning putting in a comma and an afternoon taking it out again, but I can quite imagine him doing it. Such literary style as I do possess owes a great deal to him.

Shock of his death

During the six years we were associated he was more like an older brother than a friend and it took me a very long time to recover from the shock when, in the Gambit Cafe, I heard the terrible news that he had been found dead in his bedroom from the effects of gas poisoning. I had seen him two nights before when we made plans for a new book on the lines of Modern Master Play, dealing with the younger masters of the day. An exhaustive enquiry was held by one of the most experienced coroners in London and it was conclusively proved that death was due to a faulty gas fitting. Wynne-Williams, Yates's pupil whom he had been teaching on the very night of his death, gave evidence of his cheerful demeanour, and the Coroner went out of his way to state categorically that this was a case of a tragic accidental death. In spite of all this some of the vile calumniators I have mentioned before, who are always seeking for slime to throw at their betters, sank so low as to suggest that Yates committed suicide. I have even heard the report quite recently. No fouler lie could possibly be invented to smirch the memory of a courageous and noble man.

Sir George Thomas

Another great figure of the period between the wars, Sir G. A. Thomas, is happily still with us, although he gave up competitive play some years ago. I think I must have played more games with him than with any other master and he was my principal rival in the battles for the British championship which we each won twice. Although he lacks Yates' spark of genius he is a very fine player indeed and one of the few Englishmen who is a real master of the endgame. Both nationally and internationally he has an excellent record, probably the best of a number of performances being his tie with Euwe and Flohr for 1st prize at Hastings 1934-5. Capablanca and Botvinnik were among the also-rans. Thomas beat both of them, a splendid performance when we consider the small number of games ever lost by either. He is the only native Englishman to have scored a win over Capablanca. He acted as captain of all the British teams of which I formed part and an excellent leader he made, firm when necessary, but always considerate to his men especially when they were doing badly.

Sir Thomas, as he was called, is much missed on the Continent where he was highly popular and did a great deal to increase the prestige of British chess.

A colourful figure from India

The most colourful figure of my time was unquestionably Mir Sultan Khan who appeared in the chess firmament in 1929, blazed like a comet for nearly five years, and then disappeared as suddenly as he had come. His origins like his end were wrapped in mystery. As far as I could gather he came of generations of Indian peasants who played the native form of chess under a tree in some remote village in the Punjab. Taken under the protection of Sir Umar Hyat Khan he learned the European game, and scored an overwhelming victory in the first Indian championship in which he played. When his patron, Sir Umar, was appointed to an official position in England, he brought Sultan in his train with the object of pitting him against the leading players of the world.

Yates and I were engaged to put him through his paces. I remember vividly my first meeting with the dark skinned man who spoke very little English and answered remarks that he did not understand with a sweet and gentle smile. One of the Alekhine v Bogolyubov matches was in a progress and I showed him a short game, without telling him the contestants. "I tink" he said, "that they both very weak players." This was not conceit on his part. The vigorous style of the world championship contenders leading to rapid contact and a quick decision in the middle-game, was quite foreign to his conception of the Indian game in which the pawn moves only one square at a time. Yates and I soon discovered that although he knew nothing of the theory of the openings, his middle-game strategy showed great profundity and his endings were of real master class. In a small double-round tournament for him at the Gambit Cafe, in which the other players were Yates, Conde, and myself, he did badly, but his Indian record was sufficient to gain him entry to the British Championship held that year at Ramsgate.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Tuesday, 29th December, 2020, 11:26 PM

William Winter

18

December 30, 2020

Sultan Khan (continued)

Few thought that he had a chance of reaching the top half of the table, particularly when he lost in the first round to the Rev. F. E. Hamond. Then however he had an astonishing run of successes and confounded his critics by coming in first. It must be confessed that he was extremely lucky. Drewitt, usually one of the steadiest players, put his queen en prise to a pawn; I allowed him to force a stalemate in an ending in which I was two pawns ahead, and other competitors made similar queer blunders. A wit suggested that he exercised some oriental hypnotic powers over his rivals, only Hamond, as a parson, being superior to the malign influence. I certainly never remember a championship with so many blunders - probably due to the excessive heat. Sultan created a sensation at Ramsgate in other ways than his chess. He always appeared in flowing white robes and was accompanied by two attendants similarly clad, one to write down his score and the other to supply him with the lemonade which he drank continuously. The latter had to be withdrawn after spilling a glass of the noxious beverage over the trousers of one competitors.

Fascinated youngsters

The tournament was played in August when Ramsgate was filled with holiday-makers and it may be imagined that Sultan and his retinue were one of the centres of attraction, particularly to the juvenile element. Every day he was accompanied to the congress by a horde of yelling children who, unless the door-keepers were very vigilant, did not stop at the entrance. The noise occasioned by their expulsion from the playing room may have had something to do with the blunders.

On to still greater feats

Sultan soon showed that this was no flash in the pan for at the Hastings congress (1930-1931) he beat Capablanca, the first game the almost invincible Cuban lost in this country. At the Team Tournament at Hamburg (1930) he also did extremely well on the top board against the best continental opposition though his apparent lack of any intelligible language annoyed some rivals. “What language does your champion speak?" the Austrian Kmoch, after his third offer of a draw had been met only with Sultan's gentle smile. "Chess" I replied, and so it proved, for in a few moves the Austrian champion had to resign.

From this time onward Sultan went from strength to strength. He won two more British championships and was also highly successful in international events, both in Team Tournaments and individual contests. His greatest achievement was probably his successful match against Tartakover. He soon put off his native dress in favour of more normal apparel but apart from that he remained to the end the inscrutable Oriental. What ideas, if any, lay behind that dark impassive face? It was impossible to say, for all the time I knew him he never spoke of any subject but chess. He gradually acquired a knowledge of English and finally spoke quite well. In order to study the chess magazines learned to read, but writing was beyond him. I often wrote his letters for him including some to a girl friend whose acquaintance he had made in Hyde Park The lady seemed to like them.

By 1933, when he won the championship for the last time, he must have been one of the first half-dozen or so best players in the world. The highest honours seemed open to him and then! - just as suddenly as he appeared, he vanished. His patron, Sir Umar, relinquished his post and returned to India taking Sultan with him, and nothing has been since heard of him. He may be dead, but in that case I think the news would have leaked out. I fancy myself that he can still be seen sitting under a tree in some remote village in the Punjab playing the game of his forefathers. If this is so I wonder if he ever dreams of his five years in the West.

Modest R. P. Michell

Of the other strong players whom I met on my return to active chess I must mention two, R. P. Michell and W. A. Fairhurst. The former was so modest and assuming that there is a grave danger that he may be entirely forgotten and, in the hope that it may contribute a mite towards the perpetuation of his memory, I would like to say that in my view he was the strongest player never to have won the British championship. He was second on a number of occasions but always found one too good for him, first Atkins, then Yates, and later Thomas, Sultan Khan, or myself. For a time he found it difficult to assimilate the new close openings which were quite foreign to his style, and this probably handicapped him in his postwar days, but he was always a dangerous opponent. I was not the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when the Michell hurdle was safely surmounted.

An Englishman turned Scot

Fairhurst, British champion in 1937, and umpteen times champion of Scotland is happily still in practice. He is a fine player well equipped in all departments of the game and would undoubtedly have done much more than he did but for the claims of business. Born in Lancashire he is now domiciled in Scotland and has become more Scottish than the Scots themselves. He caused me great trepidation during the Buxton congress in 1950, when he picked me up in his motor-car and drove at high speed down a spiral road with a precipice on one side while he declaimed about the tenets of the extreme wing of Scottish Nationalism. I have myself a good deal of sympathy with the aspirations of the movement but I am sure this was not the way to make a convert. He still plays for Lancashire in the British Counties' championship and It was in this competition that I met him at Manchester in 1953. I little thought as I sat down at the board that this was to be the last match-game I would ever play. I am glad to say that it was a good one.

Thrives on strong opposition

The late 1920's and the early thirties produced a crop of fine players most of whom are still in full practice. The leading representatives of this group are C. H. O'D. Alexander, H. Golombek, R. J. Broadbent, and P. S. Milner-Barry, of whom Alexander is to my mind infinitely the greatest. It is true that he has only once been British champion while, at the time I write (July 1955), Golombek and Broadbent have each held the title on two occasions, but he has a remarkable record against the grand masters. Like Yates, of whom his style is reminiscent, he requires the best opposition to bring out the best in him. Among his victims are three Soviet grand masters, including the world champion Botvinnik, and he has secured a number of other notable scalps. Of all his games the one I like best is that against Gligoric in the Staunton Centenary Tournament in 1951. The great Yugoslav who won the tournament simply did not know what had hit him.

Anomalous naming of openings

Alexander 's approach to the theory of openings is very interesting and highly practical. He does not try to acquire a wide comprehensive grasp of the openings as a whole, but concentrates on little practical variations of which he makes an exhaustive study, often discovering qualities which have hitherto escaped notice. A case in point is his rehabilitation of the Dutch Defence with an early... P-KN3 , a line which, if there is any justice in chess nomenclature, should certainly be called the Alexander variation.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Thursday, 31st December, 2020, 12:48 AM

William Winter

19

December 31, 2020

Anomalous naming of openings (continued)

I fear however that this is unlikely as the names given to the chess openings are ridiculous in the extreme. Take for example this very Dutch Defence. So far as I know (and my knowledge of these things is extensive) no Dutch player has ever practised it, while it was played regularly for over twenty years by the English master H. E. Bird, who also published a considerable amount of analysis on it. This is the more surprising in that the kindred system, P-KB4 (1.f4) for White, is called by the name of Bird's Opening! There is another funny case of a variation of the Slav Defence invented by Gerald Abrahams. I played this in a short match against the Dutch master Noteboom. The latter was favourably impressed, and adopted it himself in a few games, with the result that it has ever since been called the Noteboom variation, although before I played it against him he had neither seen nor heard of it. It is high time that the whole question of nomenclature of the Chess Openings was taken in hand by the International Federation.

Golombek accurate but unforceful

H. Golombek, the present Chess Correspondent of The Times is in every way a contrast to Alexander.
His forte is accurate positional play which brings him many good victories against the ordinary rank and file but rarely yields better than a draw against the very best. The grand master needs more than accuracy to shake his equanimity. Golombek has a wide theoretical knowledge and seems equally at home in every type of opening, though his preference is for the close variety. He is a fine analyst and has written a number of very interesting books of which I must make special mention of The World Chess Championship 1948. During a sojourn in hospital I worked my hardest to find flaws in the annotations to this work, but quite without success.

He is Games Editor of the British Chess Magazine and has considerably enhanced the reputation of that journal. Very popular abroad, he was asked to officiate as judge at the world championship match in Moscow between Botvinnik and Smyslov. Although as far as settling disputes was concerned the job was, I understand, a sinecure, the appointment was a high honour both to Golombek himself and to the country he represents.

R. J. Broadbent's one weakness

R. J. Broadbent I consider to be typical of the best type of English amateur, the Atkins type. A civil servant by profession he wins the championship title, then retires to his country home in Surrey where he happily spends his time in gardening till the next championship comes along. Occasionally he is dragged out to play in a County match but he takes a lot of dragging. As a player he has great natural attainments and a temperament for the game, but he handicaps himself by the paucity of his opening knowledge. This compels him to start thinking almost from the word 'go' and the result is that he invariably gets on bad terms with his clock. One of his great assets is his endgame in which he is perhaps superior to any practising British player. His skill in this department has rescued him from many a grim position. If he had studied the openings, and played in more tournaments, he might have gone far. As it is he is, and I fear will remain, just a first class British amateur. Probably he prefers it that way.

P. S. Milner-Barry is a close friend of Alexander's and plays like him, though not quite so well. So far the Championship has always eluded him, though he seemed to have it within his grasp at Buxton where he played superb chess for nine rounds and cracked in the last two. I fancy that the physical strain of these long Swiss tournaments is rather too much for him. Like Alexander he has a most attractive style and one or two of his combinative games will certainly live after him.

Colourful Gerald Abrahams

I cannot leave this group of players without reference to G. Abrahams, who, though less successful than the others, is much the most colourful of all both in play and personality. He is a player whom I would always like to have on my side against the very best opposition, e.g. the Russians. His unfounded optimism precludes any possibility of that consciousness of inferiority which infects nearly all our players when they come up against the very great, and at his best he is capable of beating anyone. It is true that his worst games are very bad indeed, but that does not matter. A loss is equally a loss after seventeen moves or seventy.

I had a good deal to do with his selection for the Anglo-Soviet Radio match of 1946, and he thoroughly justified my confidence with a win and a draw against Ragosin, being the only English player to score majority. In the match over the board he failed, and was promptly dropped, a great mistake In my opinion. Abrahams is always capable of beating a grand master, the majority of English players are not. A man of versatile talent, he is a successful barrister shining particularly on advocacy, an author of novels and essays as well as chess books, and he gave a striking example of his optimism by standing as a Liberal candidate for Parliament. I wish he had been elected. He would certainly have enlivened the House. Of his chess books I must say a good word for Teach Yourself Chess. The title of course suggests an impossibility, one cannot. oneself chess, but none the less it is an excellent work of instruction which players of all grades, including its author, might study with advantage.

Loss of the war years

The next generation of British players came up against a world war in their most formative years and so lost many chances of development. Of this group both D. M. Horne and D. V. Hooper have great talent and with more chances might have had many achievements to their names. Hooper, an ex- London champion, is editing this book and is responsible for the notes to my games. He is one of the most thorough and conscientious analysts I have met. When I first went into hospital with my present illness he and I combined to write the book of the 1953 world championship candidates ' tournament produced in duplicated form by K. Whyld of Nottingham. It contains all the games with short explanatory notes to the most important, and a full index of openings. My friend Dr. Seitz sent me bulletins direct from the tournament, and the book was on sale just over a month after the last game was played. To my mind this is the proper way to produce tournament books as it gets the theoretical novelties into the hands of the students while they are still fresh. The practice of publishing elaborately annotated tournament books, often years after the event, seems to me to involve a great deal of wasted labour. The openings will be already out of date, and half the games are unworthy of the exhaustive treatment they receive. Those which are worth it can be published in magazines and preserved in the best game collections.

The youngest group

Of the very young players, product of the post-war years, I can say little. The only one of whom I have any close knowledge, Jonathan Penrose, the son of Professor Penrose of London University who was my third board in Cambridge's victory over Oxford so many years ago, is however something of a marvel. To win the Boys' championship and the Open championship of London in the same year (1949) must surely be a record - and he put up a splendid show on second board in the Team Tournament in Helsinki where he was the second most successful player. Here I think is a very likely future world beater. P. H. Clarke too has made a very promising start and there are others who seem to be taking good advantage of official encouragement such as I, or the generation that succeeded me, never thought of in our wildest dreams.

I think the outlook for the future is bright but there are still great difficulties to be overcome, most of which revolve round the problem of how our embryo world champions are going to support themselves in the early stages of their career.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Thursday, 31st December, 2020, 09:41 PM

William Winter

January 1, 2021

20

International Team Tournaments

One of the achievements of which the British Chess Federation may feel justly proud is the inauguration of the Internat1onal Team Tournaments, contested every two years for the possession of the Hamilton-Russell cup. Although the tournament is now under the control of the International Federation, it was entirely British in its inception. The Hon. Hamilton-Russell, who presented the trophy, was President of the B. C. F. right through the nineteen-twenties. He was one of the old type of chess patron, probably the last of them, and this was certainly one of his brightest ideas for the encouragement of chess ability. The tournament is made up of four representing all the countries affiliated to the International Federation, and its main purpose is to give its young players a chance of measuring themselves against the established masters who were at one time inclined to make the individual tournaments something in the nature of a closed shop.

Originally the idea was to associate the tournament with the Olympic Games, and it is still known in many parts of the world as the Chess Olympiad, but this was soon found to be impossible. All chess players, even the dear old ladies who come up to receive the last prize in a third class contest at Hastings, are professionals according to the Olympic rules and the connection with the Games had to be abandoned. The first real Team Tournament open to all, amateurs and professionals alike, took place in London in 1927. I have already mentioned this in dealing with the beginning of my professional career and, as I was fully occupied with my own tournaments, I have little knowledge of its details. The British team, consisting of Atkins, Yates, Thomas, and Michell, with V. L. Wahltuch as reserve, finished in third place, the highest we have ever occupied.

It must be admitted however that the opposition was weaker than that encountered on later occasions. The leading masters were still inclined to think of it as an amateur event and were chary of taking part. I can remember Reti, Maroczy who captained the winning Hungarian team, and the veteran Dr. Tarrasch of Germany, of the few grand masters present. This was the first and last time I set eyes on the famous Tarrasch who did me the honour of sitting on my hat for three hours while he analysed an adjourned game.

Maroczy

Maroczy I came to know well. In the early part of the century he was one of the greatest living masters and, with a little more ambition, could have undoubtedly secured a match for the world championship with Dr. Lasker. When I knew him he was past his best and usually content to draw his games but woe betide anyone who tried to stir him up. I remember one tournament in which he took exception to a remark by the American Kashdan about his drawing predilections. Kashdan was at that time recognised as the best player in the States, and spoken of as a possible challenger to Alekhine, but when they came to play the rejuvenated and enraged Maroczy made him look like the veriest duffer. He was a charming and courteous man, very popular wherever he went, especially in England where he lived for some years after the 1914-18 war.

The first Hamburg Team Tournament

The next Team Tournament took place in Hamburg in 1930 and to my great joy I was offered a place in the British team. The other members were Sultan Khan, Yates, and Thomas, with my old opponent of university days, T. H. Tylor as reserve.

Public Enthusiasm

For anyone accustomed to the stony indifference with which chess events are regarded in England, the opening of the tournament was a strange and inspiring sight. As we assembled for the first day's play, hundreds of people lined the streets leading to the Congress Hall eagerly and knowledgeably trying to pick out the famous names. From the cheers that greeted the German five they might almost have been film stars or at any rate professional boxers. The English side too got a good reception, and a complete stranger pushed his way through the crowd to shake Molly warmly by the hand, addressing her as Miss Menchik, and wishing her the best of luck in the Women's World Championship which was contested at the same time as the team event.

At first I was rather nervous and drew a couple of games I should have won, but a good win over the Hungarian E. Steiner restored my confidence, and for the rest of the tournament I was in my best form. I did not lose a game and finished with a score of 11½ points out of 16. The best percentage in the tournament was by A. K. Rubinstein who scored 88%, Naturally, I do not compare my performance with his as he always played on the first board while I vacillated between second and fourth, but none the less I was very pleased. and my reputation was greatly increased.

I think this is the first time I have mentioned Rubinstein. In the years just before the war he was one of the greatest players in the world and would certainly have given Lasker a hard fight in a world championship match. Rubinstein however, like Maroczy, lacked personal ambition and allowed himself to be edged out by the more pushful Capablanca. When I knew him he had lost a little of his former genius as a result of some obscure mental complaint which brought on periodic illusions, but in the intervals between these attacks he was still a magnificent player, and Hamburg saw him at his best. He had a particularly fierce and clear style and I can give no better advice to the ambitious young player than an exhaustive study of Rubinstein Gewinnt - a collection of his best games edited by the Austrian master, H. Kmoch. It was of course a great pleasure to me to meet Rubinstein and other famous masters but what I found specially interesting was the number and skill of the young players, such brilliant masters as Flohr, to whom I afterwards became greatly attached, Kashdan, Eliskases, Stahlberg, Stoltz, the Steiners, and many others only slightly less well known who made their first big bow to the chess world at Hamburg. The trophy was won by Poland led by Rubinstein and Tartakover, and Great Britain finished sixth. This was three places lower than we had taken in 1927 but was really a much better performance as the players at Hamburg were immensely stronger than those in the London event. Our position qualified us all for an Olympic medal, a great piece of gilt which I wore proudly until it mysteriously disappeared. I think someone must have thought it was gold. One drawback to the Team Tournaments from a professional point of view is the absence of money prizes, but personally I did not find the trip unprofitable as, in addition to the Manchester Guardian articles written jointly with Yates, I did daily reports for the London Evening News which in those days had a whole column in its Lunch Edition.

"Hitler's Crowd"

Both Molly and I thoroughly enjoyed Hamburg. The English were popular in the days of the Weimar Republic and we received a great deal of hospitality. Steamer trips on the Alster, dinners and drinks at riverside restaurants, and visits to Hamburg’s 'free city' of San Pauly and its gay cafés occupied every moment not devoted to chess. Only one small cloud appeared on the horizon. At the time I did not recognize it as a cloud, but even then it made an uncomfortable impression. While we were driving trip to the Hamburg Zoo we were held up by a procession of brown-shirted men, mostly young, with set fanatical faces, marching semi-military order. "Who are they?" I asked of an English-speaking German, "Oh, that’s only Hitler's crowd playing at soldiers, nobody takes any notice of them." That was the trouble: nobody did take any notice of them until it was too late.

(to be continued)

**Wayne Komer** · Thursday, 31st December, 2020, 09:42 PM

William Winter

January 1, 2021

20 (continued)

A great talker

My next Team Tournament took place in Prague. The first four British players were the same as at Hamburg but V. L. Wahltuch took Tylor's place as fifth man. Wahltuch was a very ingenious player and responsible for quite a number of fine combinations but he was too rash to be really successful in the best company. He was a terrific talker, resembling in this respect my old opponent Scott, who was also very fond of the sound of his own voice. Somebody once asked Sir George Thomas to give his views as to the probable result of a talking match between these two. Sir George hesitated. "In a short sharp contest" he said at last, "Scott might win, but Wahltuch has much better staying power."

When the time came for the Prague event I found myself for some reason or another more prosperous than usual and I, and Molly and I decided to make the journey in easy stages. We stayed first at Cologne, a city where everything 1s completely dwarfed by the great cathedral, and then made our way to Nuremberg. This was, alas that I have to speak in the past tense, a wonderful place, unique for the external mural paintings on the houses in the old town. I do not know how old these were but they must have stood up to hundreds of years of wear and weather only to fal1 victim in the end to the more deadly weapons of modern 'civilization'. We had curious adventure here. We had heard about the 'Iron Maiden' of Nuremberg, that ghastly female figure into whose interior criminals were thrust, to be impaled on the spikes which sprang out from each side when the entrance was closed. We knew that it was situated in the old castle and when we came to a turreted and buttressed building which looked as though it had stood from time Immemorial, we decided to go inside. The great wooden gates stood obligingly open and we passed through to find ourselves in an open space where a number of men in drab clothes were walking round and round a ring apparently watched by others in blue uniforms. Something in the scene struck a chord in my mind - Bristol 1921! "Heavens" I cried, "We're in the gaol." We slipped through the great gates just before they closed.

Beautiful Prague

Prague itself is quite the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Fine modern buildings have been so happily blended with the old as to create an harmonious whole instead of the sort of patchwork quilt which is usual in such cases. Prague of the middle ages seems to have blended naturally into the twentieth century. It was a lovely experience to cross the river, climb the hills overlooking the city, and sit in one of the open-air cafes sipping cold Pilsener beer and watching the shadows of evening creep across the white buildings below. The only difficulty was the language - absolutely incomprehensible. I was unable even to pronounce the name of the street in which I lived and, when we got lost - which was often - I had to show the address written down to a cab driver.

My worst experience was in a barber's shop. This was in my pre-bearded days and I went in for a shave, indicating my desire by rubbing my hand over my chin. The barber responded with a flood of rapid Czech in reply to which I, imagining he was passing a comment on the weather, wisely nodded my head. Before I knew where I was I was seized by two hefty Czecho-Slovaks, placed on an operating table and subjected to a face massage, removal of blackheads, and various other tortures which barbers keep in reserve for the weak-minded. Ever afterwards I met all remarks with a firm shake of the head.

In the tournament Itself the British side finished seventh, a little lower than at Hamburg, but the top teams were all clustered together, and we were only four points behind the winners, the United States. Personally I did not do quite so well as at Hamburg, losing two games, to H. Steiner of the U. S. A., and to Pirc of Yugoslavia - who found a refutation of one of my favourite opening variations. Still, I scored nearly 60%, Proceedings concluded with a magnificent banquet attended by several members of the Czech Government, which lasted until the small hours of the morning. I am afraid I have no very clear recollections of this. The last thing I remember was Marshall replying to the toast of the victorious American team, rising unsteadily to his feet, waving the Stars and Stripes and shouting “Hip, Hip, Hurrah!" and then collapsing in his chair. When describing this incident I ' have usually said that he was overcome by emotion But, in these candid memoirs, I must admit there were other causes.

Team Tournament at Folkestone

England were the hosts in the next Team Tournament which took place at Folkestone in 1933. Here for the first time our side had to be described as the B. C. F., and not as Great Britain, for Scotland had broken away and entered a team of her own. It also marked the decline in our fortunes for we finished well down the table. Yates had died the previous year and his loss was irreparable. It seemed as if the backbone had gone from the side, the same effect, I can imagine, as the loss of Hutton had on the English cricket team of 1955. There was no real cause for our failure. The playing room in Lees Cliff Pavilion looking straight over sea, was very attractive, and the school of tap-dancing overhead, although disturbing to concentration, was the same for all alike. We just did not play well~ that was all.

The United States again proved victorious but were closely followed by Czecho-Slovakia for whom Flohr was outstanding. The finish was very exciting as the two leading teams met in the last round, the Czechs needing three points to tie. They won the first two games; then followed a draw; but Marshall, who like all truly great players could pull out. something extra in critical situations, settled matters with a fine victory. Proceedings as usual with a banquet, excellent as far as the food was concerned but not so good otherwise. The B. C. F. had omitted to ask for an extension of the licensing hours with the result that the bottles and glasses were whisked away just as Alekhine was proposing a toast. "I will now" he finished, "drink to 'success of the British Chess Federation. At least" he added, "I would like to drink!"

On to Warsaw

My next and last Team Tournament took place at Warsaw in 1935. By this time I was British Champion and naturally played top board, the others being Sir George Thomas, H. E. Atkins, who had been absent from chess so long that he seemed to have risen from the grave, and Alexander and Golombek, the best of the young players. Molly and I travelled by the overland route, breaking the journey at Berlin. This was the first time I had been in Germany since the advent of Hitler and I did not enjoy the experience. Formerly on reaching the German frontier travellers were greeted with the cheerful cry Bier, Heisse Wurstchen! Now we were boarded by a gang of men who looked as if they had stepped out of the pages of Treasure Island, fiercely demanding Geld. This was a check on the amount of currency you brought into the country, and woe betide you if you took more out. These were followed by. another gang who ransacked every article of our luggage. I do not know what they were looking for, but they were thorough, and the whole process held us up for nearly two hours - and no sign of beer or sausages.

(to be continued)

William Winter

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