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Ross Siemms pleased with new interest in the game
January 11, 2021
There is an article in the Toronto Sun about Ross Siemms being pleased with the new interest in chess because of the popularity of the series The Queen’s Gambit.
See:
https://torontosun.com/news/local-ne...st-in-the-game
by Liz Braun
Excerpts:
The huge popularity of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix has ignited new interest in the game of chess.
Few appreciate this more than Ross Siemms, an octogenarian Canadian chess champion who has been playing his whole life.
As with the series, his story is just as much about time and place as it is about chess. Siemms’ world travels involved sailing on the Queen Mary and flying on a four-engine Lockheed Super Constellation; he played the Russians in the thick of the Cold War and encountered them at the Munich Olympiad in 1958.
His son, financial consultant Craig Siemms, says
“If my father’s achievements had been in the game of hockey instead of the game of chess, every Canadian would know his name.”
Ross Siemms was just seven years old when his father had a heart attack and needed bed rest. Friends dropped in for games of chess and Siemms watched the adults play; before too long, he was moving the chess pieces for his father.
He was introduced to a chess club where he grew up, in Toronto’s Junction area — the family house on Pacific Ave., where he was born, is still standing.
Siemms was introduced to the Chess Federation of Canada, and played in the U.S. Junior Championships in 1947. At the age of 11, he travelled to Cleveland with his parents, recalling that he was still young enough to play with a toy firetruck between chess moves.
“It was at that tournament that I got my first real trophy. I think I finished 11th out of 45 players, and they gave me an award for Best Under 15 in the U.S.
He won the U.S. junior championship in 1954, in California. He was in Copenhagen in 1953 for the World Junior Championship, and in 1958, he went to Munich to compete in the Chess Olympiad.
A Canadian chess master, Siemms still plays regularly, meeting opponents from every corner of the globe — but by computer.
See also: https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...pion#post30435
January 11, 2021
There is an article in the Toronto Sun about Ross Siemms being pleased with the new interest in chess because of the popularity of the series The Queen’s Gambit.
See:
https://torontosun.com/news/local-ne...st-in-the-game
by Liz Braun
Excerpts:
The huge popularity of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix has ignited new interest in the game of chess.
Few appreciate this more than Ross Siemms, an octogenarian Canadian chess champion who has been playing his whole life.
As with the series, his story is just as much about time and place as it is about chess. Siemms’ world travels involved sailing on the Queen Mary and flying on a four-engine Lockheed Super Constellation; he played the Russians in the thick of the Cold War and encountered them at the Munich Olympiad in 1958.
His son, financial consultant Craig Siemms, says
“If my father’s achievements had been in the game of hockey instead of the game of chess, every Canadian would know his name.”
Ross Siemms was just seven years old when his father had a heart attack and needed bed rest. Friends dropped in for games of chess and Siemms watched the adults play; before too long, he was moving the chess pieces for his father.
He was introduced to a chess club where he grew up, in Toronto’s Junction area — the family house on Pacific Ave., where he was born, is still standing.
Siemms was introduced to the Chess Federation of Canada, and played in the U.S. Junior Championships in 1947. At the age of 11, he travelled to Cleveland with his parents, recalling that he was still young enough to play with a toy firetruck between chess moves.
“It was at that tournament that I got my first real trophy. I think I finished 11th out of 45 players, and they gave me an award for Best Under 15 in the U.S.
He won the U.S. junior championship in 1954, in California. He was in Copenhagen in 1953 for the World Junior Championship, and in 1958, he went to Munich to compete in the Chess Olympiad.
A Canadian chess master, Siemms still plays regularly, meeting opponents from every corner of the globe — but by computer.
See also: https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...pion#post30435
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