Memory Lane: Three Cheerful GMs

[Peter McKillop]

Sorry, make that one cheerful GM and two miserable s.o.b.'s. Did any Chesstalker ever meet Sammy Reshevsky?

[Hugh Brodie]

Yes. He played in the 1980 Quebec Open and I was the TD. His Sabbath games had to be rescheduled, and he got into a dispute regarding time controls. I think it was 40/2; 20/1 (no increments in those days). After 6 hours (midnight most rounds) games were adjourned to be finished the next day before the round. Exception: if a player had to work the next day, he had the right to continue to a finish. One game - Reshevsky wanted to adjourn, but his opponent worked the next day and wanted to finish the game. I forget what happened, but the dispute was settled..

[Frank Dixon]

There are many Reshevsky stories. I saw him when I was playing at the 1988 World Open, where he was playing in the Open section and performing pretty well in his 77th year. I could not get over how small he was, perhaps not five feet tall. He cheerfully autographed my copy of one of his books; he shook my hand, and we wished each other the very best!! Excellent author, with very clear annotations. In their wonderful book, "The Bobby Fischer I Knew And Other Stories" (Hypermodern Press 1995), authors GM Arnold Denker and Larry Parr devote a chapter to GM Reshevsky: "The Little Big Man of Chess". He and Denker were close friends, but had some trying episodes, such as in the 1942 USA Championship, where Reshevsky's flag fell and the arbiter turned the clock around and forfeited Denker!! Still, it is beyond doubt that Reshevsky was a world-class player for some 40 years, and defeated GM Botvinnik by 2.5 -- 1.5 in Moscow 1955, in the USA vs USSR team match. Reshevsky's win over Botvinnik in cycle 3 in Moscow, from the 1948 World Championship Tournament, is one of the greatest games of all time, in my opinion, and was one of only two games lost by Botvinnik, as he dominated that event to become the sixth World Champion. GM Bobby Fischer thought that Reshevsky may have been able to defeat Botvinnik in a world title match in the 1950s. Those two were born in the same year, 1911. One of Reshevsky's greatest feats was, at age TEN, defeating David Janowski, who played two world title matches, in a tournament game at New York 1922!!

[Peter McKillop]

Thank you, Hugh and Frank, for sharing those memories.

[Hans Jung]

In February of 1986 I played in Reykjavik, Iceland in an international that commemorated the 200th birthday of Reykjavik. There were many grandmasters (maybe 40?) from Russia, the States, and Europe. The tournament was so big that it spread to three rooms. Apparently there was betting going on as to which grandmaster would be the first to get "sent" to the third room and which grandmaster would stay there the longest. Walter Browne was the first sent down. Sammy Reshevsky soon followed and stayed there the longest. I played well enough to stay away from the third room but in doing so I missed playing both GM's Browne and Reshevsky.

GM Browne was too surly to talk to during that tournament but GM Reshevsky was eager to socialize. I remember I asked him a lot of questions. He had this flat deadpan voice and was very clipped with his answers. He had much to say about Fischer and when I asked who of the current Americans he thought would reach the top he mentioned Patrick Wolff.

GM Reshevsky had a lot of pride. Even though he was seventy five at the time, he came back to Reykjavik the next year and won the tournament!

The GM that has the best stories about GM Reshevsky is the Fed (John Fedorowicz). Apparently John had an 8-0 score against GM Reshevsky, and that was with one game taken away from him. In May 2015 at the Ontario Open in Brantford I was grabbing a quick lunch at Tim Hortons when I heard a voice behind me: "Mind if I sit down" I looked back and said in astonsihment: " John Fedorowicz!" Of course sit down, I'm honoured." He then proceeded to answer all my questions for well over an hour, including many anecdotes about GM Reshevsky and about fights between grandmasters. Im not sure how the stories evolved from Reshevsky to fights between grandmasters but they came fast and furious.. I wish I had brought along a tape recorder.

[Frank Dixon]

Hans, great post!! Just one minor point about it: GM Reshevsky actually won the Reykjavik Open in 1984, at age 72; and not as you wrote, in 1987.

In his wonderful book on the World Championship from 1973 (published just after his death in late 1972), IM Al Horowitz refers to GM Reshevsky's win over future World Champion GM Mikhail Botvinnik from the 1948 World Championship tournament (third cycle) as 'the game of his life'. It is an exceptional positional masterpiece as Black. Actually, in that event, Sammy's first game with Botvinnik was a loss from a much better middlegame position, due to time pressure, and then he was also better in their second game, which wound up drawn, again with time pressure a factor. Sammy had trouble with the clock, it seems. GM Mikhail Tal, the eighth World Champion, writes about his game with Sammy from the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal in his amazing book 'The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal' (1975): Reshevsky had to play more than 20 moves in a few minutes to make the first time control, in a very complex position, and did so, securing the draw; Tal was quite amazed. From GM David Bronstein's award-winning book 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' (1995), he relates the story of his second-cycle game with Reshevsky from the 1953 Zurich Candidates: "I was ordered by the head of the Soviet delegation to win the game, and once I sat down to start the game, I never moved until the first time control was made." Bronstein, playing Black, did in fact win after adjournment, and he calls this game one of his very best. Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964), best known as author of over 100 books (many on chess), was also a strong Master, who had a plus score against Reshevsky in games from the early 1930s. Another player with a plus score over Reshevsky, in games from the late 1920s and early 1930s, was American Master Norman Whitaker (1890-1975), who was over 20 years older, and who went to the bad with several criminal convictions, including for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder (he was involved in the ransom angle).

Canada's own first GM, D.A. Yanofsky, scored an absolutely amazing win over Reshevsky at the Tel Aviv Olympiad 1964, and this helped Yanofsky to the GM title, with his second norm. My personal opinion is that this game ranks in the top 10 all-time games by Canadian players!!!

To connect Reshevsky and GM Reuben Fine (1914-1993), American rivals from the same generation, GM Arnold Denker and Larry Parr, in their great book 'The Bobby Fischer I Knew And Other Stories' (1995), the authors point out that Fine was NOT able to win the USA Championship because he could not defeat Reshevsky head-to-head between 1936 and 1942. However, GM Denker considered GM Fine to be the superior player, because of his much better international record in the 1930s, including a tie for first with GM Paul Keres at the 1938 AVRO tournament in Holland. Fine scaled back his chess tournament play after World War II, as he was pursuing his doctorate in psychology at the University of Southern California; he turned down his invitation to the 1948 World Championship tournament due to this. Fine retired completely from tournament chess by 1951. Denker and Fine were also close friends; Denker considers his own very best game to be his win over Fine from the 1944 USA Championship, again denying Fine the title, as Denker won it; Reshevsky did not play in that event.