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Koltanowski 
Photograph circa 1975; courtesy of Cleveland Public Library.  
Georges Koltanowski
Number of games in database: 374
Years covered: 1921 to 1994
Overall record: +91 -38 =63 (63.8%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
      Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
      182 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Queen's Pawn Game (56) 
    D05 D04 A46 A40 D02
 Two Knights (29) 
    C55 C56
 Giuoco Piano (21) 
    C50
 Orthodox Defense (19) 
    D51 D63 D62 D53 D64
 Sicilian (12) 
    B20 B60 B27 B22
 King's Indian (11) 
    E67 E60 E70 E64 E81
With the Black pieces:
 King's Indian (28) 
    E60 E67 E72 E94 E90
 Philidor's Defense (14) 
    C41
 Queen's Pawn Game (7) 
    A50 A40 D04 A41 D00
 Ruy Lopez (6) 
    C73 C64 C87
 Grunfeld (5) 
    D95 D82 D92 D80
 Two Knights (5) 
    C55 C58 C59
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   Koltanowski vs M Defosse, 1936 1-0
   Koltanowski vs A Dunkelblum, 1923 1-0
   Koltanowski vs NN, 1946 1-0
   Koltanowski vs Diller, 1960 1-0
   Koltanowski vs Day, 1960 1-0
   Koltanowski vs A Dunkelblum, 1924 1-0
   Koltanowski vs H Bogart, 1952 1-0
   Koltanowski vs NN, 1941 1-0
   Koltanowski vs T Allen, 1960 1-0
   Koltanowski vs J O'Hanlon, 1937 1-0

GAME COLLECTIONS: [what is this?]
   colle & related systems by gmlisowitz
   blindfold masters by biohaz
   Hastings 1935/36 by Phony Benoni
   Hastings 1928/29 by suenteus po 147
   KKW's 'Minature chess games' by KKW
   Sicilian Wing Gambitz by fredthebear
   wing gambit victories by InspiredByMorphy
   WingGambit by lord1412
   Colle System Classics (Koltanowski variation) by Dudley
   Wing Gambit by azaris

Search Sacrifice Explorer for Georges Koltanowski
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GEORGES KOLTANOWSKI
(born Sep-17-1903, died Feb-05-2000) Belgium (citizen of United States of America)

[what is this?]
Georges Koltanowski was born on the 17th of September 1903 in Antwerp, Belgium. He was awarded the IM title in 1950, an honorary GM title in 1988 and became an International Arbiter in 1960. More than a player, "Kolty" was also an exhibitor, writer, promoter and showman. Occasionally, he edited a column for newspapers such as the Kitchener Record & others.

His best tournament wins were Antwerp 1932, Barcelona 1934 and Barcelona 1935. He was Belgian Champion in 1923, 1927, 1930 and 1936, but was best known for his exploits in simultaneous blindfold play.

Of his many exhibitions, one stands out above the rest: in 1937 at Edinburgh Scotland he played 34 games simultaneously without sight of the boards, scoring +24 =10 in thirteen and a half hours, a world record. When his exhibitions were over, as a finale, he would often recite the complete moves of the games without looking at the board.

When the Nazis overran Belgium during World War II, several of his family members perished in the Holocaust. Koltanowski was in Guatemala at the time and was allowed to immigrate to the United States, due partly because a chess-playing consul in Cuba had been amazed by one of his exhibitions.

He directed the 1947 US Open, the first time the Swiss System was used for that event, and was greatly responsible for popularizing the Swiss System for tournaments in the US. His last International appearances were playing for the US Olympiad team of 1952 and a match against Henri Grob in 1953. He was also President of the USCF from 1975 to 1978.


 page 1 of 15; games 1-25 of 374  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves Year Event/LocaleOpening
1. Tchabritch vs Koltanowski  ½-½33 1921 simul blind 1/2C25 Vienna
2. E Sapira vs Koltanowski  0-139 1921 ch?C48 Four Knights
3. A Dunkelblum vs Koltanowski  0-138 1922 Belgium chC64 Ruy Lopez, Classical
4. Koltanowski vs Colle 1-030 1922 ch BELA03 Bird's Opening
5. Koltanowski vs Colle  ½-½29 1923 rapid playA01 Nimzovich-Larsen Attack
6. Koltanowski vs A Dunkelblum 1-015 1923 AntwerpB18 Caro-Kann, Classical
7. Koltanowski vs Colle 1-041 1923 rapid playA01 Nimzovich-Larsen Attack
8. Colle vs Koltanowski 0-171 1923 ch BELE60 King's Indian Defense
9. Koltanowski vs Colle  1-050 1923 ch BELA10 English
10. Koltanowski vs V Soultanbeieff 1-026 1923 ch BELC49 Four Knights
11. Koltanowski vs K Sterk  1-065 1924 ol final BE60 King's Indian Defense
12. Koltanowski vs K Piltz  1-063 1924 ol prelim 2D11 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
13. Koltanowski vs A Selezniev  ½-½41 1924 MeranoC25 Vienna
14. Hromadka vs Koltanowski  ½-½69 1924 ol final BB13 Caro-Kann, Exchange
15. Koltanowski vs A Dunkelblum 1-027 1924 simul blind 1/10C55 Two Knights Defense
16. J Schulz Sr vs Koltanowski  ½-½64 1924 ol final BC41 Philidor Defense
17. Cenni Giovanni vs Koltanowski  0-136 1924 ol prelim 2C25 Vienna
18. B Patay vs Koltanowski  0-152 1924 MeranoA40 Queen's Pawn Game
19. Spielmann vs Koltanowski 1-044 1924 MeranoB13 Caro-Kann, Exchange
20. J O'Hanlon vs Koltanowski  0-127 1924 ol final BD46 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
21. Euwe vs Koltanowski  1-041 1924 ol ?D30 Queen's Gambit Declined
22. G Oskam vs Koltanowski  0-124 1924 ol prelim 2D46 Queen's Gambit Declined Semi-Slav
23. Colle vs Koltanowski 0-140 1924 MeranoD10 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav
24. Koltanowski vs D Reca  0-129 1924 ol final BE14 Queen's Indian
25. S Rosselli del Turco vs Koltanowski  1-024 1924 MeranoB10 Caro-Kann
 page 1 of 15; games 1-25 of 374  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Koltanowski wins | Koltanowski loses  
 

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·  Later Kibitzing >
Jun-18-07   Karpova: <Definitions by Koltanowski> http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Jul-15-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  BishopBerkeley: A number of nice images of "Kolty" here:

http://cplorg.cdmhost.com/cdm4/resu...

(Click any image for the larger image.)

(: B Bishop Berkeley B :)

Sep-01-07   Karpova: A feature article from 1986 on Koltanowski - the author: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

and excerpt:

<A (relatively brief) selection of examples of general carelessness in With the Chess Masters: Page 9: ‘Mizowitch’ at London, 1922?? Page 10: ‘Giuco ... Pianisimo’. Pages 15-16: The best part of two pages are devoted to a story of how L. Steiner cheated against Colle at ‘the Budapest International, 1928’. Neither player was there. Page 48: ‘Twice Tarrasch mounted a campaign to take the world title from Lasker – and twice Lasker beat him badly.’ When was the second time? Page 49: ‘My first encounter with Dr Tarrasch was in 1924 at the International Chess Tournament in Merano, Italy. I was in my early teens.’ Yet he was born in 1903. Page 54: He appears to believe Scotland is in England. Pages 67-68: Another cheating anecdote, according to which Dyckhoff pretended only to have drawn against John at Hanover, 1902, so that his close rival Bernstein would not go for a win against Kagan. Yet Dyckhoff and John did only draw. Page 80 and page 81: ‘R.F. Mitchell’. Presumably R.P. Michell. Page 90: ‘James Cross’. Rupert Cross would be correct. Page 92: for (Emanuel) Sapiro read Sapira. Page 100: ‘Marotzy’ (twice). Page 101: ‘Bekker’ (twice). Page 101: Flohr did not play at Carlsbad, 1929. Page 101: ‘ ... ahead of Reifir, Spielman, Astalosh and the younger Widmar’. Read: a) Rejfíř, b) Spielmann, c) Asztalos, d) Vidmar. Page 101: Alekhine and Euwe did not play at Moscow, 1935 (it is even said that there Menchik ‘beat Euwe twice!’). Page 141: Rejfíř has a wrong year of birth. And so on ...>

Regarding <Page 48: ‘Twice Tarrasch mounted a campaign to take the world title from Lasker – and twice Lasker beat him badly.’ When was the second time?> Sure, Winter was referring to the fact that the match in 1916 was not a WC match, only the one in 1908. That's obvious one might think but it wasn't obvious to everyone: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Sep-17-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  playground player: One of the treasures of my youth was Koltanowski's TV show, which was aired here in the New York metro area as "Koltanowski on Chess." I loved the way he would downplay blindfold chess--and then of course you'd have to try it, and you'd see it was quite a bit harder than he was letting on! Anyhow, it was a great show, and I wish someone would rerun it. Anybody else remember it?
Oct-13-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  jackpawn: I remember seeing 'Koltanowski on Chess' on the local PBS station in the early 70's. I was new to chess and I loved it. The one thing I remember from it was blanket statements he would make. Once he was going over a Larson game and stated Larson started all his games as white with 1 c4. I was new, so I simply accepted his statement. A little time later I discovered that wasn't always the case.
Oct-13-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Calli: Kolty was great story teller, but always take them with a grain of salt. Maybe two grains...
Nov-25-07   nikolaas: A short profile (in dutch) and a database containing 460 games are now available on my site. Go to http://www.freewebs.com/schaakhisto... follow "schaken"
scroll until you see a list. On that list is Koltanowski's name. Click on it en follow "de database". With "online naspelen" you can play through it and with "download" you can download it. Enjoy!
Apr-09-08   gerardo beltran: It´s Excellent all information

Congratulations

Jul-18-08   myschkin: <Dean of American Chess> Title of George Koltanowski.
Aug-28-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  GrahamClayton: According to Edward Winter, Koltanowski was part of a plot to stop Edward Colle winning the 2nd Belgian championship, which was held in Antwerp in September 1922. Koltanowski defeated Buruchowitz, the winner of the 1921 championship, in 2 moves 1. f3 e5. 2 g4 Qh4#.

Sep-02-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  GrahamClayton: Source: CN 2928 Edward Winter, "Chess Facts and Fables", McFarland Publishing, 2006
Sep-04-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  whiteshark: Quote of the Day

" [Blindfold-chess legend] <Koltanowski> is survived by his wife, Leah, who never learned to play chess and often joked that her husband could not remember to bring bread home from the grocery. "

-- The New York Times

Boys will be boys and gals will be gals. :D

Sep-04-08   sallom89: 34 games without looking at any board!? how come, just cant imagine it.
Dec-24-08   gauer: Did anyone ever try to estimate his rating strength after the 70's, when the ELO system was taking form? - many games show up as simuls, & of the 300+ to date in the database here, that would only account for about 5 or 6 simuls' worth of events, given that all the simuls could be pooled into only a few tourneys ;). Having Koltanowski paired to Alekhine in tandem (each player of each side alternate each kth turn in tandem to decide a team's strategy) / team play must've been like a GM reading a textbook when it came to reeling off an opening repertoire. A FIDE card didn't show up, & there don't seem to be many classical-pace time games that he'd played which had game-scores recorded to the database.
Jan-08-09   PhilFeeley: <sallom89> Chessbase published an article today about a book that may question his simultaneous claims:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...

Jul-20-09   Dredge Rivers: Blindfold is for wimps! He should have tried blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed! Now, that's HARDCORE! :)
Oct-06-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  Fusilli: Second longest-lived GM, after Enrico Paoli.
Oct-06-09   AnalyzeThis: I guess Smyslov is 'only' 88 and Dake was only 90.
Oct-06-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  Fusilli: Actually, I made a mistake. The GM with the longest life span is Andre Lilienthal, who is 98 and therefore outlived Enrico Paoli (who died at 97) and Koltanowski, who died at 96. The second oldest living GM is, indeed, the great Vasily Smyslov, who is 88.
Jan-02-10
Premium Chessgames Member
  Jedzz: I received a couple of old, old school chess books for Christmas, and bookmarking one of them was a yellowed newspaper clipping of a chess column by Koltanowski, which I'd thought I'd replicate here:

First was a game between an O.I. Truelsen and C. Madsen , played in Norway in 1957. Neither player is in the database, for soon-to-be obvious reasons in Madsen's case. This was originally in descriptive notation, which I've translated to algebraic.

"ENGLISH OPENING
1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. e4 d5 4. e5 d4 5. exf6 dxc3 6. bxc3 Qxf6 7. d4 Be7(a) 8. Nf3 h6 9. Bd3 Nd7 10. Qe2 O-O 11. h4(b) Bd6 12. g4 c5 13. g5 Qe7 14. gxh6 g6 15. h5(c) gxh5 16. Rg1+ Kh8 17. Rg7 e5 18. Bg5 Qe8(d) 19. dxe5 Nxe5(e) 20. Rh7+ Kg8 21. Rh8+ Kxh8 22. Bf6+ Kg8 23. h7# 1-0

(a) Better would have been 7. ... Bd6. (b) White threatens 12. Bg5 hxg5 13. hxg5 Qf4 14. g3 Qg4 15. Bh7+ Kh8 16. Bb5+ etc. (c) White is putting on pressure, and will finish in brilliant style! (d) After 18. ... Qe6, there can follow 19. d5 Qh3 20. O-O-O. (e) 19. ... Bxe5 staves off the defeat by one more move."

Next was a puzzle:


click for larger view

"White is to play and mate in two moves."

See if you can figure this one out.

Jan-03-10   HeMateMe: Doesn't B-f8# win at once? Or, is the trick to make it a legal mate in two, which would be more difficult?
Jan-03-10
Premium Chessgames Member
  Jedzz: HeHateMe, 1. Bf8+ Kxc5. White is moving up the board, and thus the knight is en pris.
Jan-03-10   HeMateMe: oops. My chess GPS navigotor was off.
Aug-14-10
Premium Chessgames Member
  wordfunph: According to George Koltanowski in his book TV Chess, a player came complaining that he had just been mated by a rook and that he protested the outcome. His 20-year-old opponent had a long wide beard and he had "covered his rook with his beard". And then, when it was his turn to move, had lifted his beard and mated with the "hidden" rook!
Aug-14-10   HeMateMe: Ha!, I love that--Capa's 'submarine piece'!
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