If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Policy / Politique
The fee for tournament organizers advertising on ChessTalk is $20/event or $100/yearly unlimited for the year.
Les frais d'inscription des organisateurs de tournoi sur ChessTalk sont de 20 $/événement ou de 100 $/année illimitée.
You can etransfer to Henry Lam at chesstalkforum at gmail dot com
Transfér à Henry Lam à chesstalkforum@gmail.com
Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
General Guidelines
---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
Some Basics
1. Under Board "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) there are 3 sections dealing with General Forum Usage, User Profile Features, and Reading and Posting Messages. These deal with everything from Avatars to Your Notifications. Most general technical questions are covered there. Here is a link to the FAQs. https://forum.chesstalk.com/help
2. Consider using the SEARCH button if you are looking for information. You may find your question has already been answered in a previous thread.
3. If you've looked for an answer to a question, and not found one, then you should consider asking your question in a new thread. For example, there have already been questions and discussion regarding: how to do chess diagrams (FENs); crosstables that line up properly; and the numerous little “glitches” that every new site will have.
4. Read pinned or sticky threads, like this one, if they look important. This applies especially to newcomers.
5. Read the thread you're posting in before you post. There are a variety of ways to look at a thread. These are covered under “Display Modes”.
6. Thread titles: please provide some details in your thread title. This is useful for a number of reasons. It helps ChessTalk members to quickly skim the threads. It prevents duplication of threads. And so on.
7. Unnecessary thread proliferation (e.g., deliberately creating a new thread that duplicates existing discussion) is discouraged. Look to see if a thread on your topic may have already been started and, if so, consider adding your contribution to the pre-existing thread. However, starting new threads to explore side-issues that are not relevant to the original subject is strongly encouraged. A single thread on the Canadian Open, with hundreds of posts on multiple sub-topics, is no better than a dozen threads on the Open covering only a few topics. Use your good judgment when starting a new thread.
8. If and/or when sub-forums are created, please make sure to create threads in the proper place.
Debate
9. Give an opinion and back it up with a reason. Throwaway comments such as "Game X pwnz because my friend and I think so!" could be considered pointless at best, and inflammatory at worst.
10. Try to give your own opinions, not simply those copied and pasted from reviews or opinions of your friends.
Unacceptable behavior and warnings
11. In registering here at ChessTalk please note that the same or similar rules apply here as applied at the previous Boardhost message board. In particular, the following content is not permitted to appear in any messages:
* Racism
* Hatred
* Harassment
* Adult content
* Obscene material
* Nudity or pornography
* Material that infringes intellectual property or other proprietary rights of any party
* Material the posting of which is tortious or violates a contractual or fiduciary obligation you or we owe to another party
* Piracy, hacking, viruses, worms, or warez
* Spam
* Any illegal content
* unapproved Commercial banner advertisements or revenue-generating links
* Any link to or any images from a site containing any material outlined in these restrictions
* Any material deemed offensive or inappropriate by the Board staff
12. Users are welcome to challenge other points of view and opinions, but should do so respectfully. Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated. Posts and threads with unacceptable content can be closed or deleted altogether. Furthermore, a range of sanctions are possible - from a simple warning to a temporary or even a permanent banning from ChessTalk.
Helping to Moderate
13. 'Report' links (an exclamation mark inside a triangle) can be found in many places throughout the board. These links allow users to alert the board staff to anything which is offensive, objectionable or illegal. Please consider using this feature if the need arises.
Advice for free
14. You should exercise the same caution with Private Messages as you would with any public posting.
I have been browsing the websites for both the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame and the World Chess Hall of Fame.
Every person inducted into both Halls is worthy of the honor, in my opinion.
I've noticed something that concerns me: there are apparently no Canadians as yet inducted into either Hall.
I am respectfully requesting that the Chess Federation of Canada leadership formally organize a strong effort to nominate Canadians, for consideration, going forward.
I do believe Canada has several chess people worthy of strong consideration, for example:
In the primarily player category: GM Kevin Spraggett, GM / IA D.A. Yanofsky, WIM Nava Starr, GM / GMC Duncan Suttles, IM Lawrence Day, IM / GMC Jean Hebert, GM Igor Ivanov, GM Evgeny Bareev.
In the hybrid category (achievements including but beyond playing, such as building, writing, organizing): FM / GMC / IA Jonathan Berry, IA Larry Bevand, IA Phil Haley, IA / IO Hal Bond, John Prentice.
There are probably others. One worthy person sure to be controversial is IM / IMC Fedor Bohatyrchuk.
There are 53 inductees in the World Chess Hall of Fame. Mostly World Champions and Women World Champions. So no Canadian qualifies to be in that elite group.
Bareev and Spraggett have been Candidates and Suttles contributed to opening theory, Day and Starr have long Olympiad careers, Haley developed and made the Swiss pairings for Olympiads, but that's not high enough. You've mentioned some great local organizers and I would include Bernard Freedman who paid for our first Olympiad team, entries to the US Junior, and taught the blind and in many schools. Also, Malcolm Sim was a longtime columnist and arbiter in both Canada and the US.
I could see Abe Yanofsky as a member, but no other Canadians seem to come close to (or fit in with) those who are already members (possibly Bohatirchuk). Are there any non-players who are members?.
I do think the chess achievements of GM / IA Daniel Abraham Yanofsky (1925-2000) are worth discussing in some detail here, and are most worthy of strong consideration by the World Chess Hall of Fame.
His achievements, to be properly appreciated in context, must be carefully examined through the lens of history. This can be difficult to do, several generations afterwards. I am not going to cover all of them, just some of the most impressive.
He was a chess amateur, who never played as a professional, finding time for chess in his spare time, as a high school student, university student, lawyer, and municipal politician.
He won his first Canadian championship in 1941, at age 16; that was the first of eight titles; in a country with six time zones!
But two years before that, at age 14, he had represented Canada in its first-ever Olympiad appearance, Buenos Aires 1939, on second board, and attained one of the highest scores in the event, over 80 per cent!
There was no World Junior Championship at that time. This event was not started until the early 1950s. Had it existed when he was in his teens, Yanofsky would have been a strong contender for the title, along with future World Championship finalist GM David Bronstein, born one year earlier!!
He made a very good score at the first world-class tournament following World War II, at Groningen, Netherlands, 1946, where he defeated future World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, a state-supported chess professional, in an amazing game, which became known around the world.
He became the first Grandmaster in Canada, as well as in the British Commonwealth of Nations, in 1964, with a Grandmaster result at another Olympiad, Tel Aviv 1964, on first board. At the time, the Commonwealth nations contained at least one quarter of the world's population.
He competed in FIDE championship events in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Think about it: Who else in chess history has done so?
He competed in the first-ever FIDE Interzonal tournament at Saltsjobaden 1948, near Stockholm, defeating future GM Vyacheslav Ragozin of the USSR, another state-supported chess professional who was Botvinnik's trainer, in a sensational game.
He competed in two more Olympiads in the 1950s: at Amsterdam 1954 and Munich 1958.
He competed in the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal.
He placed second at the Nethanya 1968 international tournament in Israel, behind only future World Champion GM Bobby Fischer, whom he drew head-to-head.
He competed in the 1970 Siegen Olympiad. He won the 1979 Canadian Open, at age 54!
His final Olympiad was Malta 1980, where Canada placed 8th, its all-time best. There were other Olympiads as well, but that covers the six decades I referred to earlier.
His result at the 1986 Winnipeg Zonal tournament, at age 61, was good enough to advance to the Interzonal stage, but he graciously ceded the opportunity to a younger player!!
Throw in his authorship of several books, Canadian magazine editorship, some CFC governance, and earning the IA title. As an amateur, what more could he have done!?
Regarding GM / IA Yanofsky, I am making a separate post about his fantastic chess organizational achievement with the Winnipeg 1967 Grandmaster tournament.
It was Centennial Year, 1967, the centennial of the Confederation of 1867, which had established Canada as a nation.
There had never been a Grandmaster-level invitational round-robin tournament organized in Canada, until then!!!
GM Yanofsky put together all of the necessary elements to attain this, well in advance. Cooperation with FIDE, to ensure no other significant events at that time, October of that year. Cooperation with national federations, to invite elite players. Cooperation with local Winnipeg entities, for sponsorship and prize fund, accommodations, playing site, event direction, volunteers, media, official welcomes.
I am using the chesssmetrics.com rankings of that era.
Here is the field, for a ten-player round-robin, with most of the world's strongest and most significant chess federations represented:
GM Boris Spassky, USSR, #4;
GM Bent Larsen, Denmark, #13;
GM Paul Keres, USSR, #14;
GM Laszlo Szabo, Hungary, #32;
GM Florin Gheorghiu, Romania, #33;
GM Pal Benko, USA, #37;
GM Alexander Matanovic, Yugoslavia, #41;
GM Klaus Darga, West Germany, #61;
GM D.A. Yanofsky, Canada, #89;
IM Shimon Kagan, Israel, #288.
Certainly, GM Yanofsky would have wanted to do better than he did. But a combined role as organizer and player is never easy! He did win the Brilliancy Prize for his win over GM Szabo!!
He also wrote the tournament book for the event!
In one gigantic step, chess organization in Canada became internationally known and respected, and the invited players were full of praise for the Winnipeg 1967 event!!
If we have only 53 players in the Hall of Fame, one need to be at least top-5 (or maybe even top-3) player for certain period of time. With all respect to GM Yanofsky, he is not in this group.
At the Canadian Open, Winnipeg 1994, I had the honour of interviewing Abe Yanofsky. It appears in EP 127. He discusses Capablanca, Alekhine, Fischer and others. He also talks about different subjects and submits his win over Botvinnik.
Tweet
Comment