Unsolved Chess Mysteries (27)

By Edward Winter

Anti-Turton

The position below, contributed to C.N. 681 by Michael McDowell (Westcliff-on-sea, England), comes from page 124 of Modern Chess Tactics by L. Pachman (London, 1970):

Lucarelli v Carra, Bologna, 1932. If 1 d4 then 1...Qe2. White therefore played 1 Rd2 Rxd2 2 d4 Qe2 3 Bc1, and Black resigned.

Does any reader have the full game-score? It is one of only two specimens of the anti-Turton theme in over-the-board play which have been given in C.N. so far (see pages 5-6 of Chess Explorations). The other occurrence (C.N. 553) was in the game Edward Lasker v Marshall, New York, 1924:

Wolfgang Heidenfeld’s explanation of the anti-Turton theme, using the above example, was quoted in C.N. 553 from pages 10-11 of his book Lacking the Master Touch (Cape Town, 1970):

‘The Pride and Sorrow of Chess’

In C.N. 5204 we quoted from page 308 of Paul Morphy The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson (New York, 1976):

In fact, that edition of the newspaper (page 7) had a tribute to Morphy by Spens which was a single 14-line poem. Moreover, contrary to what might be inferred from Lawson’s words, no phrase such as ‘the pride and sorrow of chess’ appeared there. It was in the 19 July 1884 issue of the Glasgow Weekly Herald (page 7) that Spens’ five-stanza tribute to Morphy was published. (Lawson noted this on page 310 of his book, quoting the second stanza.) Again, though, the epithet is absent. In an endnote, Spens mentioned that his poem was adapted from previously-published material: not only the above-mentioned stanza in the 1882 Herald but also a composition ‘written about ten years ago at the time of a report as to Morphy’s insanity’ which had appeared, Spens said, in the Chess Player’s Chronicle.

That C.N. item added that although we were focusing on Spens’ poems, it was quite possible that ‘the pride and sorrow of chess’ appeared in his prose. Moreover, C.N. 4403 noted that Golombek attributed the phrase to D.W. Fiske.

At the moment, therefore, we have two poems by Spens specifically about Morphy:

• Glasgow Weekly Herald, 25 November 1882, page 7.  A one-stanza poem, the first line being:
  
  ‘By the bright winter fire I lightly read’.

• Glasgow Weekly Herald, 19 July 1884, page 7. A five-stanza poem, the first lines of the respective stanzas being:
  
  ‘He came to Europe: English sages smiled’
  ‘He played a glorious game: in open field’
  ‘About him was a gentle modesty’
  ‘He came, he saw, he conquered; then he went’
  ‘So o’er his clouded mind the sad years sped’.

The Bismarck family

In C.N. 4908 Olaf Teschke (Berlin) quoted the following passage from page 106 of Living Leaders of the World (Chicago and St Louis, 1889):

Our correspondent asked on what grounds that last claim was made. No information has yet been found.

‘The Brake triangle’

As mentioned in C.N. 3392, on page 107 of Ideas modernas en las aperturas de ajedrez (we have the fifth edition, published in Buenos Aires in 1967) Tartakower affirmed that the pawn formation e3-d4-c3 was known as ‘the Juncosa triangle’ in Spain and as ‘the Brake triangle’ in England. The reference to (José) Juncosa may be related to his advocacy of lines beginning with 1 c3, but what is the explanation for ‘Brake’?

König v Weiss

John Donaldson (Berkeley, CA, USA) wrote in C.N. 4094:

Backwards

C.N. 1323 gave the following game between R. Dzindzichashvili and Y. Zacharov, which the winner concluded by successively retreating three pieces to their home squares:

1 e4 c5 2 c3 Nf6 3 e5 Nd5 4 d4 cxd4 5 cxd4 d6 6 Nf3 Nc6 7 Be2 Bf5 8 O-O dxe5 9 dxe5 e6 10 Bd2 Ndb4 11 Nc3 Nd3 12 Bg5 Nxb2 13 Qxd8+ Nxd8 14 Bb5+ Nc6 15 Nd4 Bd3 16 Nxc6 Bxf1

17 Bxf1 bxc6 18 Bc1 Ba3 19 Nb1 Resigns.

We took the game from pages 8-9 of Roman Dzindzichashvili – Sein Aufstieg zur Weltspitze by Manfred van Fondern (Hollfeld, 1982), which stated that it was played in the 1957 Soviet Junior Championship. However, page 258 of Chess Explorations reported that no such championship had been traced and that Bob Wade’s suggestion was that the game had probably occurred in the 1957 Soviet Junior Team Championship in Vladimir (in which both Dzindzichashvili and Zacharov participated). In C.N. 4090 we added that Black’s resignation looked rather premature.

Brian Karen (Levittown, NY, USA) wrote in C.N. 4097:

Infectious

As mentioned in C.N. 4497, in CHESS, 30 September 1963 (‘page 400’, but in fact page 12) Salo Flohr wrote:

This has become a famous quote, being featured at the start of The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (New York, 1965). Since it is often cited without a source, we should like to know more about the genesis of Flohr’s article in CHESS, which was entitled ‘How to become World Champion’. Was it an original piece for the magazine or a translation from, for instance, a Soviet publication?

Bogoljubow and the Nazis

A number of C.N. items (most recently, C.N. 4821) have touched on the subject of Bogoljubow and the Nazis. For instance, Reuben Fine’s unsubstantiated claim that Bogoljubow had some of his rivals put in concentration camps by the Nazis was dealt with on pages 183-184 of Chess Explorations and pages 191-192 of Chess Facts and Fables, whereas page 92 of the latter book referred to Bogoljubow’s attempts at rehabilitation vis-à-vis FIDE in 1946. Has any chess writer ever published a rigorous, extensive study of Bogoljubow’s conduct during the Third Reich?

As regards Alekhine’s wartime record and the anti-Semitic articles published under his name, see our feature article Was Alekhine a Nazi?

Koltanowski games

As discussed in C.N. 2378, ‘Dunkelblum’ is frequently given as the name of the player who lost two of the most frequently published games featuring George Koltanowski, i.e. the 13 Qd8+ brilliancy (‘Antwerp, 1923’) and this more sophisticated encounter (‘Antwerp, 1929’): 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 O-O Nf6 5 d4 exd4 6 e5 d5 7 exf6 dxc4 8 Re1+ Be6 9 Ng5 Qd5 10 Nc3 Qf5 11 Nce4 Bb4 12 c3 dxc3 13 bxc3 Ba5 14 g4 Qg6 15 Nxe6 fxe6 16 f7+ Kxf7 17 Ng5+ Kg8 18 Rxe6 Qd3 19 Qe1 Rf8 20 Re8 Qd7 21 Rxf8+ Kxf8 22 Ba3+ Ne7 23 Rd1 Qxg4+ 24 Kf1 Qxg5 25 Rd5 Qh4 26 Rh5 Qf6 27 Rf5 Resigns.

On page 27 of his book Adventures of a Chessmaster Koltanowski gave the former game as played against A. Dunkelblum in ‘an eight-game blindfold exhibition at Antwerp in 1923’. However, on page 35 of Checkmate Strategies (co-authored by Koltanowski and M. Finkelstein) the heading was ‘Antwerp, 1931’. As regards the second game, both books agreed on ‘Antwerp, 1929’, but the former (page 38) gave Black’s name as ‘P. Dunkelblum’ (Koltanowski also referred to ‘my boyhood chum, Dunkelblum’) whereas the latter volume had ‘Dunkelbaum’. Where Arthur Dunkelblum (see page 82 of Histoire des maîtres belges by M. Wasnair and M. Jadoul) may fit in with all this is more than we would dare guess.

The Caro-Kann miniature with 13 Qd8+ was published on page 268 of the September 1931 Wiener Schachzeitung with notes by A. Becker. Black was not identified, but the heading specified that the game had been played in Koltanowski’s record-breaking 30-board blindfold exhibition in Antwerp on 10 May 1931. The first problem here is that Koltanowski gave all 30 games from that display in two of his books, “En Passant” Chess Games and Studies (Edinburgh, 1937) and George Koltanowski: Blindfold Chess Genius (Anaheim, 1990); the brilliancy is not among them.

Secondly, on page 348 of the November 1931 Wiener Schachzeitung Dyckhoff pointed out that the Caro-Kann game had already been played in October 1930 by Tarrasch, in a casual encounter against an unnamed Munich opponent, and had been published in the Stuttgarter Illustrierte Zeitung of 21 December 1930, as well as the Bayerische Radio-Zeitung of March 1931. Moreover, the queen sacrifice line had been given by Blümich in the notes to the game Fajarowicz v Blümich, Leipzig, 24 November 1930, on page 87 of the March 1931 Deutsche Schachzeitung.

Thirdly, there is a discrepancy over the move order. Whereas in Adventures of a Chessmaster Koltanowski gave 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Bf5 5 Bd3 Qxd4 6 Nf3 Qd8 7 Qe2 Nf6 8 Nxf6+ gxf6 9 Bxf5 Qa5+ 10 Bd2 Qxf5 11 O-O-O Qe6 12 Qd3 Qxa2 13 Qd8+ Kxd8 14 Ba5+ K moves 15 Rd8 mate, the Wiener Schachzeitung had the opening as 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 5 Bd3 (‘A bold pawn offer recently recommended by Tarrasch, with the aim of quick development.’) 5…Qxd4 6 Nf3 Qd8 7 Qe2 Bf5 8 Nxf6+ gxf6 9 Bxf5 Qa5+.

Finally, lest it be thought that 5 Bd3 was, in any case, Tarrasch’s invention, we found an earlier instance of 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 5 Bd3: a correspondence game between George W. Sweetser and Leander Turney, published on page 33 of the February 1922 American Chess Bulletin. Regarding 5 Bd3 Turney wrote: ‘This was probably an oversight, but is almost good enough, the development of White nearly compensating for the lost d-pawn.’

Can anything further be discovered about what was, and was not, played by George Koltanowski?

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All articles by Edward Winter

Edward Winter is the editor of Chess Notes, which was founded in January 1982 as "a forum for aficionados to discuss all matters relating to the Royal Pastime". Since then over 5,500 items have been published, and the series has resulted in four books by Winter: Chess Explorations (1996), Kings, Commoners and Knaves (1999), A Chess Omnibus (2003) and Chess Facts and Fables (2006). He is also the author of a monograph on Capablanca (1989).

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