Great chess quotes

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

October 23, 2017

In the public library where I went as a teenager, there were a dozen or so chess books in Games. I seem to remember that Evans and Edward Lasker were two of the authors.

I was surprised to find in the Biography section, a life of Emanuel Lasker by Hannak.

Emanuel Lasker The Life of a Chess Master by Dr J. Hannak, Translated by Heinrich Fraenkel, Simon and Schuster, 1959.

Perhaps you are familiar with it – A Foreword by Albert Einstein – then thirty chapters of biography, with most of them followed by annotated Lasker games for the period just discussed. It was a wonderful way to appreciate the life of the master.

Two things have stuck in my mind after reading that book almost 60 years ago.

The first was the draining, semi-tropical climate of Cuba, when the World Championship Match with Capablanca was held in the spring of 1921.

The second was anecdotal. From Chapter Ten, Fads and Fancies:

“Lasker’s notorious absent-mindedness got him into some amusing trouble one day when he went to Paris. He arrived after dusk and rented a room recommended by a friend in London. He dropped his luggage there and hurried to the Café de la Regence, the most famous chess-café in the world, which used to be frequented by Philidor and Labourdonnais (and even by Napoleon) and which, for centuries had been the centre of chess-life in Paris. Lasker met a good many friends and spent an enjoyable evening. It was long after midnight when he thought of going home, but alas, he had forgotten his address; he could not even remember the name of the street. Still, it did not seem much to worry about. Lasker simply went home with one of his friends to stay the night, and before he did so he made a combination worthy of a chess master. He sent a telegram to the London friend asking for the address he had recommended.

Unfortunately, though, the combination had a “flaw” of which Lasker would never had been guilty on the chess board. In his telegram he forgot to mention the address where he was spending the night. Worse than that, by next morning Lasker had forgotten that he had not included this vital information. Getting no reply from London, he was deeply annoyed that his friend had let him down, and wouldn’t send him another wire.

But the situation was now getting serious; he was separated from all his luggage. So there was nothing for it but systematically to comb entire quarters of Paris, in the hope of recognizing the street and the house where he had put up. The search took many hours and at along last – being now extremely methodical about it – Lasker was lucky enough to find the place. His landlady was pleased to see her new tenant. There was a telegram for him. It turned out to be from the London friend, who, for lack of another address, had sent it to the one Lasker was asking for. (I for one cannot help thinking that, had the London friend been gifted with the combinative powers of a chess master, he would have sent the wire to the Café de la Regence).”
_________

That anecdote would have ended there but Edward Winter took it up again at:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/w..._v_Karpov_1972

See Chess Note #9364 – A Lasker Story.

This casts doubt on some versions of the story and identifies Lasker’s Paris address as a comfortable boarding house at 12 Rue de la Tour.

(In the hall, he found a telegram addressed to him. Opening it, he read "TO LASKER TWELVE RUE DE LATOUR PARIS YOUR ADDRESS IS TWELVE RUE DE LATOUR PARIS")

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/12+....2837876?hl=en

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

October 16, 2017

Pia Fransson met William Lombardy at the Mechanics’ Institutes Chess Club in San Francisco on Sept. 20th, 2017. He had unexpectedly appeared at the club only six days before. He had been homeless for a long time but since then he temporarily stayed with a helpful club member and visited the club every day.

She wrote a moving memoir of her conversations with Bill from which I draw these quotable extracts:

Our conversations quickly turned increasingly personal. We discovered that we shared views on what is important in relationships, friends and our appreciation of the true, sincere and genuine. We also had a number of similar experiences both in childhood and adulthood.

The last time we met was for a couple of hours on the day before my trip back to Sweden. Bill told me about his tough times lately, how he had been evicted from his New York apartment where he had lived for 40 years. He had also nearly lost his life after being knocked down and robbed of a few hundred dollars in New York's subway. It had resulted in months in a hospital. When there, his beloved brother tragically died and Lombardy was sorry for being in the hospital and unable to attend his brother's funeral.

Inevitably, we mentioned Bobby Fischer (whom Lombardy coached for several years). 1978 was the last time Bill and Fischer met, by pure chance, in a Los Angeles supermarket. After the 1972 World Championship match in Reykjavik against Boris Spassky, which Lombardy contributed to get completed, they had basically no contact. Fischer had reacted negatively to an article by Lombardy in Sports Illustrated after the World Cup. Substantial parts of it had been changed by the editor. The disappointment was great over Fischer's reaction and that the latter did not understand that Lombardy was unable to betrayal after all the years he had been there for him idealistically. Despite the schism, he later helped Fischer with his Icelandic citizenship. The last conversation they had was after Fischer's move to Iceland. After this, Fischer sent him $ 5,000, the only the payment he ever received.

During one of our conversations he presented a red folder in which he had all his papers and documents. He was not just homeless but without pension, money, computer and telephone. There were phone numbers on post-it stickers to the chess club in San Francisco, as well as to his doctor and closest friends in New York, plus phone numbers to where he lived. I wrote them all down so that I could reach him when back in Sweden. That was the time to ask for an autograph. He took the phone number paper out of my hand and wrote his greeting down, a keepsake for me. There was more in the folder…

I will never forget the feeling of sitting alone at the club opposite to GM William Lombardy. The whole time he radiated - in contrast to the life situation he was now in - style and class in his brown jacket, purple tie and a jeans shirt with a razor next to the cigars in his chest pocket. It's hard to explain, but his charisma was just so cool - and sophisticated. Yes, I find no better words!

He put on his turquoise reading glasses and when I complimented him on those, he said that there were only cheap ones that he had found in a supermarket. From the red folder he took out a pile of beautiful handwritten paper sheets. These were his memoirs in progress. He read some selected sections and, as expected, he also had a wonderful language and a captivating way of story telling in writing. I really hope the memoirs will be published in some form. It was a lovely moment. We agreed that I would interview him further later on so that more people could get to know his amazing life story, which I got a glimpse of during the short time we saw each other. He thought it would be fun.

When we said goodbye, I felt from the depths of my heart that I wanted to do something, something little for him, before I left. I bought him a smartphone with unlimited calls, text and data in the USA until Christmas. I prepped the phone with a mail account, a chess app and the contacts on his list. This present was handed over in the club. He was to turn 80 years on December 4th. He was so happy and grateful and said it felt like Christmas Eve. It warmed me throughout my body and heart. He called me a saint, which meant a lot considering it came from a priest.

The 8th of October was our last talk over the phone.

Serendipity in its most beautiful sense. I was starstruck by being unexpectedly presented to a world famous grandmaster and a junior World Champion, but I actually found an amazingly humble man with both heart and brains. He suddenly entered into my life and sadly disappeared in the same way, like a wind.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/s...een-friendship

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

October 15, 2017

What do you do on the morning of a big match? Why, you run through lines and variations on your laptop, that is what you do.

This from Round 7 of the European Club Cup 2017

https://www.chess.com/news/view/glob...iss-candidates

Ian Nepomniachtchi wasn't having a fantastic tournament, but also for him personally things ended well. He won a nice game after a somewhat spoilt morning on which he couldn't really prepare. The reason he gave is something many of us can relate to: "My Windows decided to update and it really took ages!"

(The game if you are interested is Ivan Popov vs Ian Nepomniachtchi, Round 7, Oct. 14, 2017)

B90 Sicilian, Najdorf, Adams Attack

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.h3 e5 7.Nde2 h5 8.Bg5 Be6 9.Bxf6 Qxf6 10.Nd5 Qd8 11.Qd3 Nd7 12.O-O-O g6 13.Kb1 Nc5 14.Qf3 Bg7 15.Nec3 O-O 16.g4 h4 17.Rg1 Qg5 18.Ne3 Rad8 19.Ncd5 b5 20.Be2 Rb8 21.Qh1 Rfd8 22.Nb4 Rbc8 23.Nf5 a5 24.Nd3 d5 25.Nxc5 Rxc5 26.Bd3 Bf8 27.exd5 Bxd5 28.Qh2 Bf3 29.Rde1 e4 30.Bxe4 Bxe4 31.Rxe4 Qd2 32.Ne3 Rxc2 $1 33.Qe5 Bg7 34.Qe8+ Kh7 35.Nxc2 Qd1+ 36.Rxd1 Rxd1# 0-1

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

September 28, 2017

Peter Svidler to Jan Gustafsson on his matches in the 2017 Chess World Cup in Tbilisi:

His first opponent was Jakhongir Vakhidov.

In the second round he played Viktor Erdos and offered a draw in their second game:

Peter: It wasn’t a large factor but I managed to injure myself before the tournament started so I didn’t mind (the draw).

Jan: Why do you keep getting injured? Every other tournament I hear you’ve got injured again. How do you do that?

Peter: It really requires skill and dedication to your craft. By this point there is no other way to describe it. This time I managed to tear some ankle ligaments getting on a bus. This I think really shows tremendous dedication to the idea of getting injured before important tournaments.

I actually work out these days and am possibly in the best shape of my life. Getting on a bus should be within my capabilities. But, no. Buses are tricky bits right now.
________

Peter reached the quarterfinals where he was beaten by MVL.

Readers may remember Peter breaking his arm during a soccer game at the Gashimov Memorial in 2015. See Quote # 96 in this series (April 21, 2015)

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

September 22, 2017

Readers with a mathematical bent know of G. H. Hardy, the mathematician, famous for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis.

Further, he fostered the talents of the great Indian mathematician S. Ramanujan from 1913.

Anyway, Hardy once said:

Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics

(A Mathematician’s Apology, 1941 – see also http://izquotes.com/quote/234922)
______

In an English Chess magazine I once read a letter from a reader, who said that he had once been walking through the halls of an Oxford College and he saw pinned up on a bulletin board this notice:

Essay Contest

“Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics”

Discuss in 1000 words or more

£10 for the best entry

(Details for submission)

And he often wondered what the students wrote in their essays. And that letter appeared almost sixty years ago and I have been wondering about that all that time too!

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

September 19, 2017

In the introduction to Richard Reti’s Modern Ideas in Chess Golombek says that “the four famous hypermodern chess founders are Breyer, Reti, Nimzowitsch and Tartakower”.

In Chapter V of the book Reti writes this:

30. A COMPLICATED POSITION



“Under the above title Breyer some years ago published an article in which he tried to prove that 1 d4 was better than e4.

Among the moves with which the old masters were in the habit of imitating each other were the opening moves. They began the game with 1 e4 e5: not after individual mature reflection but simply because so many hundreds before them had without considering made the same moves following in the footsteps of hundreds of others

It was that which engendered mistrust in the younger generation of masters and they criticized accordingly.”

Edward Winter has a long article on Breyer quotes:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/breyer.html
________

Rightly or wrongly, the statement

After 1 e4 White’s game is in the last throes

is attributed to Breyer.

I mention all this because as a teenager, I played chess with a friend with a literary turn of mind. We both read of Breyer and when my friend annotated our chess games, he made a point of using the “last throes” comment liberally.

Also, more importantly, a book on Breyer in English, has recently appeared:

Gyula Breyer
The Chess Revolutionary
Jimmy Adams
New in Chess (2017)
880 pages 1770 grams

It contains 242 of Breyer’s games and a large number of articles from newspapers, magazines and archives.

The “complicated position” article appeared in Magyar Sakkvilag, 6 May 1917

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

September 19, 2017

From Edward Winter’s chesshistory.com

Chess Note 10592

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/i...Bardeleben_C.N.

Edward Lasker about Curt von Bardeleben in Chess Secrets I Learned from the Masters (1951):

‘He always wore a black cut-away suit of dubious vintage. Apparently he could never spare enough money to buy a new suit, although I learned one day that at fairly regular intervals he received comparatively large sums – from one to several thousand marks – through the simple expedient of marrying, and shortly after divorcing, some lady who craved the distinction of his noble name and was willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, when he received his reward, it was usually far exceeded by the amount of the debts he had accumulated since his last divorce. Evil tongues had it that the number of the ladies involved in these brief marital interludes had grown so alarmingly that they could easily have made up a Sultan’s harem.’

Richard Forster from Zurich writes that records confirm, at least partly, Edward Lasker’s story, as they show that Curt von Bardeleben married ten times between 1902 and 1919 and he gives the names and birthdates of the ten ladies!

______

For two quotes on the subject of chess and marriage, see post #94 in this thread (Jerry Seinfeld and Henri Grob)

[Frank Dixon]

Re: Great chess quotes

"The opening is the hardest phase of the game, because it is very hard then to know what is going on."
(Richard Reti, 1889-1929). Reti was a world-class player, one of the most profound opening theorists and original players in chess history, and a key member of the hypermoderns, along with Alexander Alekhine, Aaron Nimzowitsch, Efim Bogolyubov, Ernst Grunfeld, and Gyula Breyer.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great chess quotes

Yes Kevin youre a strong chessplayer. You immediately spotted my weakness. I tend to play too creatively at times.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Great chess quotes

Fwiw Hans, I recall a game you played long ago against Robert Morrison. You played 1.e4 e5 2.g3, and he replied 2...b6. Not sure if you won that game. :)

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great chess quotes

Well then you man it and I'll manhandle your position.

[Kevin Pacey]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

August 2, 2017

In Round One of the Sinquefield Cup 2017, four of the five games began with 1.e4 e5 (the other was an English). This caused Teymur Rajabov to tweet:

I feel soon there will be only 1.e4-e5 games everywhere.

If that's the case, I'm surprised it took so long for 1.e4 e5 to become fashionable at the elite level in a big way once again.

After 1.e4, 1...e5 is a man's move.

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

August 2, 2017

In Round One of the Sinquefield Cup 2017, four of the five games began with 1.e4 e5 (the other was an English). This caused Teymur Rajabov to tweet:

I feel soon there will be only 1.e4-e5 games everywhere.

I'm always amazed when I see top GMs (and patzers, for that matters) following opening trends.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

August 2, 2017

In Round One of the Sinquefield Cup 2017, four of the five games began with 1.e4 e5 (the other was an English). This caused Teymur Rajabov to tweet:

I feel soon there will be only 1.e4-e5 games everywhere.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great chess quotes

Why Russians swim in the cold ocean in the middle of the winter - its an epiphany to me