Happy 105th Birthday, Zoltan Sarosy!

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  • #16
    Re: Happy 105th Birthday, Zoltan Sarosy!

    Originally posted by Peter Boross-Harmer View Post
    Nagyon Boldog Szuletesnapot kivanunk a magyar szarmazasu sakkozok neveben!
    What he said.

    As a help to those who are even more Hungarian-challenged than I (this will be like the deaf leading the blind):

    Nagyon - nagy = grand or great or big, nagyon = very
    Boldog = happy
    Szuletesnapot - nap = day, so let me guess Birthday
    kivanunk - a verb form. I'm not smart enough to do verbs. But the kiva- words tend to make a statement more formal.
    a = the
    magyar = Hungarian
    szarmazasu - well, often I don't have a clue
    sakkozok - sakk = chess
    neveben! - neve = name, -ben indicates a prepositional form. I remember Elod Macskasy trying to convince me to learn Hungarian. He said that it's actually not such a difficult language. He said prepositions in English were difficult. These among many other lessons fell on deaf ears. Apologies to any reader who is hearing-impaired.

    So my impaired guess of a translation: Have a very happy chess- and nationally- significant birthday, kind sir!

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    • #17
      Re: Happy 105th Birthday, Zoltan Sarosy!

      Originally posted by J. Ken MacDonald View Post
      Amazing guy!
      Happy Birthday Mr. Sarosy!
      ...Mike Pence: the Lord of the fly.

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      • #18
        Zoltan Sarosy Autobiographical Article of 2010!

        Here is an autobiographical article from Zoltan, published last year in Issue # 12-8 of Dec. 15, 2010, of the Scarborough Community of Toronto Chess News & Views ( the Scarborough Chess Club e-Newsletter ):

        " At the age of 10, I had to go to see a former classmate. He had a checkered board
        on the table with variously shaped figurines on it. After receiving introductory
        explanations, it was love at first sight for me.
        In those days there were no courses for aspiring young players. In the two cities I
        had spent my high school years even chess clubs did not exist. The only opportunity to
        meet opponents was in summer on the benches of swimming pools and parks. In my
        second year at the university in Vienna I saw in the window of a bookstore a magazine,
        Wiener Schachzeitung. I bought a copy and read therein an announcement of the Vienna
        Chess Federation. I wrote to the address and received promptly an invitation. I joined a
        chess club and got acquainted with organized chess. I played in tournaments and read
        chess books so that after graduation back home, on a chance meeting I played 5 games
        against the player who was considered the best in the city, winning 4, he sighed: " Wow!
        You have learned to play in Vienna!"
        My first job took me to Nagykanizsa. There was a chess club and I won the City
        Championship. Returning to Pecs where they founded a chess club in the meantime too
        I encountered tougher opposition. Being a city with a university, there were strong out of
        town student players. In the city championship I succeeded to defeat the favourite
        and won 1st.
        In 1933 we moved to Budapest In the capital city was the real chess life in Hungary with
        some fifty clubs competing in 3 leagues for the main event of the year: the City Team
        Championship. I joined the leading club, Pesti Hirlap, and started right in a tournament
        without masters or master-candidates. I captured first. In summer of the following year I
        entered a tournament arranged by a smaller club. After winning first place, I was
        approached by the president with the proposition to play for them on first board. They
        were in the third league and wanted to fight themselves higher. In Pesti Hirlap I had one
        of the lower boards. So I accepted. With more enforcements we moved up even into the
        First League. About this time I had the opportunity to play in a tournament for the Cup of
        the Mayor and won it.
        Playing on Board 1 in the First League I met strong opposition and was successful even
        against a few masters. The most spectacular was against Geza Fuster, in that year
        Champion of Hungary, ( in the fifties he also "defected" and emigrated to Toronto ). In
        1939 I played in Master Candidates Tournament and ended up with a poor result after
        ruining promising positions. The winner admitted in his interview that he was lost only
        against Sarosy. Dr. Vecsey, the commentator wrote: " Sarosy after reaching an
        advantageous position seems to lose interest in the game."
        In 1943 they held another Master Candidates Tournament in Diosgyor and my club
        president talked me into entering it. From the qualifying round I squeezed into the final as
        sixth, only to win it and the Hungarian Master title However, to prove myself as a
        master was not anymore possible. The war events reached Hungary and all chess activity
        came to a halt.
        On Good Friday of 1945 I hitched a ride on a German army truck and left Hungary never
        to return. Over a three-month stay in Salzburg to near starvation, I caught a repatriation
        train to Germany and found "permanent" residence in a refugee camp in Dorfen/Obb.
        Next year I read about the foundation of the new German Correspondence Chess
        Association and having in the small Bavarian town no opposition that I could not beat
        blind-folded, I joined immediately. The first two tournaments were easy wins. In my
        next, a Master Class group in which one of my opponents was Lothar Schmid, the later
        GM and arbiter of the famous Fischer/Spassky WC match in Reykjavik in 1972. I was
        easily polished off and finished third.
        In 1948 in my aspiration to seek emigration to overseas, I moved to Elsass, the former
        German province annexed by France and in Markirch, a small town with several textile
        factories there was no opportunity for chess. By 1950 I made some contacts and in the
        summer I played on board two for the team of the Colmar C.C. in the annual Coupe de
        France matches. We fought ourselves into the final in which the great Paris Caissa C.C.
        defeated us.
        Then end of August a newspaper notice! Canada revised its immigration laws and I was
        eligible to apply. On Nov.22 I received an invitation to the Consulate in Paris and after
        five long years of struggle I had a visa to leave good old Europe. I arrived in Toronto on
        Dec.27. Reading in the chess column of The Star that the city championship will start in
        the Toronto C.C, I joined and entered the tournament. I finished only 5th in the final
        group. The Ontario Championship was held as a 6 round Swiss over the Easter weekend.
        Despite a couple of not well-played games, in the final round I had to face Frank
        Anderson, the Canadian Champion. I had White and so the opportunity to employ my
        pet variation of English that I developed already in the early thirties. It took him as a
        complete surprise and he got in great time trouble. I won. Even so I was only second but
        this got me to play for Toronto in team matches Board 2 . A few years later I met
        Anderson again, but same variation earned me only a draw.
        In 1953 I joined the German Club "Harmonie" and we won twice the Team
        Championship in which 5 ethnic clubs took part and even in the team of the Toronto
        C.C. were only two players born in Canada. Between 1957 and 1960 I ceased playing
        chess. With my wife we took over a variety store that allowed no free time.
        In those days chess tournaments were mainly 6-round weekend Swiss events which did
        not suit me at all. I usually won my games in the first round, then being by nature a
        "lark", next day I felt sleepy and lost. The third day was better and very often I wound up
        with a 4-2 score.
        I succeeded to win a YMCA tournament that was played on several weekends. In 1963 in
        the Metropolitan Championship I defeated again Geza Fuster, winning the title and the
        trophy. Two years later in the same event I won my games vs. all four of the higher rated
        players, but drew against the two lower rated, and practically throwing away the last in a
        silly Caro-Kann vs .Kegel.
        In one Labour Day six-round Swiss I managed to stay in the fore-front and to face
        Vranesic in the last round. Needing only half a point, he offered a draw after the 7th
        move which I gladly accepted, hardly able to keep open my eyes. In a Swiss I made 2nd!
        From here on I started slipping and my results got worse and worse. In 1967 I was invited
        to play in a correspondence chess match vs. Denmark. From then on I continued to play
        C.C Soon I abandoned OTB altogether and played only in CCCA tournaments.
        Consequently I won four championships and finished 2nd 8 times. I started to play in
        international tournaments too, soon exclusively. After fulfilling a first norm and
        thereafter the second, in 1988 I was awarded by the ICCF the title of International
        Correspondence Master.
        In the mid nineties Mr. Cleeve gave me a chance to fight in a tournament for the GM
        title, but it was once again my old habit that after reaching advantageous positions I
        became careless and let it slip away. By the end of the year 2000 all my postal games
        were running out and I thought I could not finish any new ones started at my age.
        Incidentally, I read an article in the Toronto Star about computer courses for seniors. Oh,
        could that be possible? Instead of those courses I bought a PC, got two lessons
        by my vendor's son, acquired a couple of books and I was on. After purchasing a chess
        program I started to play email tournaments. At first in the CCCA, then in international
        organizations. I advanced in ratings, and was invited to more prestigious tournaments .
        Two years ago in June [ 2008 - Ed. ], after recovering from a severe four week dry cough, I felt that the
        time has finally come "even for me" to give it all up . At my 100th birthday several
        chess magazines ( Hungarian, German, British ) brought articles about my chess career.
        The chess columnist of the Hungarian-Serbian sportjournal claimed in it that I am the
        oldest active chess player in the world. "

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        • #19
          Some Sarosy Games

          Some Sarosy games: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=33198

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          • #20
            Re: Happy 105th Birthday, Zoltan Sarosy!

            452 Sarosy (over the board) games are available on CanBase (scroll down to near the bottom):

            http://canbase.fqechecs.qc.ca/players.htm

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            • #21
              Sarosy Games, etal.

              Originally posted by Hugh Brodie View Post
              452 Sarosy (over the board) games are available on CanBase (scroll down to near the bottom):
              http://canbase.fqechecs.qc.ca/players.htm

              Also available are downloads of CCCA games, of which many are Sarosy's, at:

              http://correspondencechess.com/ccca/....downloads.htm

              For complete events, one can go to:

              http://correspondencechess.com/ccca/downloads.htm

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              • #22
                Happy 105th Birthday, Zoltan Sarosy!

                If anyone can find it on-line, there was supposed to be an interview done with Zoltan by CTV shown at/around NOON today, including pictures taken at his celebration yesterday.

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