No Canadians in World Chess Hall of Fame!?

[Frank Dixon]

For Brad: regarding Lemmy, don't know who you mean.

[Brad Thomson]

For Brad: regarding Lemmy, don't know who you mean.

Best to leave well enough alone. :)

[Frank Dixon]

Regarding Lemmy, he certainly had an important and innovative rock-and-roll career ('Louie, Louie' from the late 1970s being perhaps his best-known song).

I was focused on sports people when I was replying, and originally passed over your Lemmy reference, sorry about that.

Lemmy is unfortunate to be not yet inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, being possibly deserving, but I believe that Hall is among the most politically rife, with strife and feuding unfortunately marring the selection process and outcome, often delaying or denying induction, through quarrels over credits as to who did what! Lemmy was very good, but he wasn't associated with "The Beatles', or 'The Rolling Stones', or 'The Who', or 'Pink Floyd', among far more prominent British groups. That may hurt him on credit.

Just on another Canadian music topic there, 'Rush', great Canadian band out of Toronto, were inducted,, RRHOF, a few years ago, and deservedly so. I recommend 'My Effin' Life', by Rush member Geddy Lee as a fantastic memoir!! But so far Kingston's 'The Tragically Hip' have not been inducted, as a band, they are about 15 years younger than Rush, so perhaps there is still time. There is a Hip publishing program currently underway, with the band's story 'This Is Our Life' a simply wondrous memoir, of an amazingly harmonious collaboration covering decades, along with extensive video program history.

[Brad Thomson]

Thanks Frank, I do agree that the Rock Hall of Fame is suspect. I just had a look at a list of prominent non-inductees. The Guess Who (maybe they don't like the lyrics of America Woman), Grand Funk (outsold the Beatles in 1969), Slayer, Iron Maiden, Soundgarden... on and on.

However we had best not get off the topic of chess. :)

[Frank Dixon]

Returning to the Yanofsky topic, I am offering brief comparisons to other notable chess prodigies, up to and including Bobby Fischer.

1) Paul Morphy: The world's first real youth chess prodigy. Morphy (1837-1884) was born in New Orleans, the son of an important judge. His family, of French and Irish heritage, was prosperous and prominent in the state of Louisiana, a slave state. His family 'owned' Black slaves. Paul never had to worry about material and financial security his entire life; this is in highly significant contrast to several other later chess prodigies, including Yanofsky.

Paul, who had a quiet, diffident personality, a short physical stature (5 ft. 4 in.), and exceptional personal courtesy in all his dealings, took early to chess. He defeated in a short formal match, at age 13, Jacob Lowenthal, one of the world's best players, in 1850, when the German Master visited New Orleans. The chess world had never seen a feat of this magnitude. He was clearly the strongest player in the American southern states by his early teens, vanquishing all challengers, much older and more experienced men. He was developing a sharp, efficient, attacking style which evolved an enormous advance in the chess praxis of the era. He was equally comfortable in the gambit play characteristic of the era, as well as the more positional methods which were just coming to the fore.

Morphy was also becoming an outstanding academic student. It was an era when rail transportation was just starting to be developed into what became an international network, across the USA and eventually Canada; this transformed travel, immigration, and trade business. A vital technological advance, that of much faster telegraphic communication, was also transforming society. The USA was becoming a highly industrial nation, and was conquering its way across the continent, subduing native tribes in savage battles, taking over their land, and slaughtering buffalo by the millions. However, vast political turbulence was rising to the surface in the country, and would soon erupt into the colossally destructive and divisive four-year American Civil War, 1861-1865, fought over the issue of slavery.

Morphy's first significant tournament (and really his ONLY truly format event) was the First American Chess Congress, New York 1857, which he completely dominated at age 20; the event was comprised of a series of short knockout matches, much like modern tennis events; it had limited international representation as well. Having already completed his requirements to become a professional lawyer, with exceptional standing, Morphy had a period of enforced career idleness, due to the fact that he had not yet turned 21 years of age, the minimum to join the Bar of Louisiana.

Hence, a trip to Europe for several months of chess and personal pleasure was financed by his family, friends, and supporters (both in the USA and Europe), and turned into a fantastic triumph. Morphy dominated all the chess competition he encountered, a series of short matches and individual games, mainly in Britain and France. He was well received, and made friends and admirers wherever he went. Morphy concluded his European adventures with a convincing match victory in Paris, in late 1858, over German Master Adolf Anderssen (1818-1884), considered by many to be the world's best player at the time. Anderssen, a science professor 20 years older, had traveled across the continent from his home in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wroclaw, Poland; also the birthplace of Siegbert Tarrasch [1862-1934]) to meet Morphy. Anderssen had won London 1851, the first modern-era tournament, which brought together the strongest-yet international field of Masters; it was organized as part of the great London Exhibition Festival of 1851 by English Master Howard Staunton (1810-1874), the favorite to win it. Staunton was knocked out fairly early on, in an elimination match format.

However, Morphy, who did not seek financial incentives to display his chess genius, was very badly affected, from the standpoint of his mental health, by the refusal of Staunton to play a challenge match with him in London, after Morphy believed they had reached an agreement to do so. Staunton was well past his best form of a decade and more earlier. He claimed he was too busy with his career as a Shakespearean scholar, working to meet publishers' deadlines, to prepare and then face Morphy in a match. This explanation satisfied the disappointed chess world; match financing had been arranged; this mattered not to Morphy, but was significant to Staunton, who had prospered through chess authorship, with his book on chess technique becoming a best-seller for decades. More likely, Staunton, an arrogant, prideful man, was intimidated by Morphy's extraordinary skill and class-above performance, rolling over famous Masters one after the other, and wished to avoid a possible public humiliation of defeat. Staunton's earlier play, from 1835 into the early 1850s, drew admiration from none other than future World Champion Bobby Fischer (1943-2008), who, more than a century later, wrote "Playing over Staunton's games, I find they are completely modern."

By 1860, Morphy essentially retired from serious chess (such as it was at the time), planning to develop his legal career in New Orleans, but this never really happened to any extent. He took refuge in Cuba during the terrible American Civil War (1861-1865). His final 25 years didn't amount to much of anything worthwhile in any respect; he became a recluse from society in New Orleans, with his depression manifesting beyond anything which anyone believed possible, given his extraordinary early promise. Morphy did play occasional offhand games of chess in New Orleans, with his brilliance little diminished, as the surviving game scores show. Notably, Morphy never played or even met Austrian Master Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900), who was born in Prague just one year before him. Steinitz formalized the title of World Chess Champion by defeating Johannes Zukertort in an 1886 match, following 25 years of ever-increasing chess activity and development, mainly across Europe, from 1860 onwards. Steinitz, who grew up very poor, had a delayed rise to prominence as a player, achieving little until after Morphy had returned to the USA.

Morphy died young, at age 47. His very curious life has invited psychiatric analysis and attempted explanation ever since. Regarding his playing standard, Fischer, who would attain the highest-ever FIDE rating in the early 1970s (since surpassed), stated that Morphy was further ahead of his chess contemporaries than any player in history.