| Jan-17-06 | | EmperorAtahualpa: Apparently Laszlo Witt has passed away on December 27, 2005. |
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| Jan-18-06 | | EmperorAtahualpa: Looking at his first name, I assume he was of Hungarian origin? Or of Hungarian ethnicity at least? |
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| Jan-18-06 | | sleepkid: ...obituary here: http://members3.boardhost.com/echep... |
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| Jan-18-06 | | EmperorAtahualpa: Indeed, on the obituare <sleepkid> provided (thanks!), it is written that Lazslo Witt emigrated from Hungary in 1956. Now I am wondering if his emigration had anything to do with the 1956 Hungarian Revolt? |
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Jan-18-06
 | | IMlday: Yes, the Budapest revolt resulted in all the Soviet Border Patrol troops being called into Budapest. For a day, the border was open and lots of advnturesome Hungarians emigrated (spontaneously!) to the West. Canada got four major chess-players: Witt, Elod Macskasy, Geza Fuster and young (then) Andy Kalotay.
Eventually they all made 60's-1970 Canadian Olympic teams. |
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| Jan-19-06 | | EmperorAtahualpa: Thank you for that info, Mr. Day. Laszlo Witt must have had an exciting life! |
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| Jan-31-06 | | fishsanwitt: Thank you for all the kind words about my father, Laszlo (Leslie) Witt. His obituary is online at the Montreal Gazette site, under 'Remembering' and there is also a guestbook that can be signed. Sylvia Sankey (nee Witt) |
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Feb-01-06
| | IMlday: From my column:
Leslie Witt has died at the age of 73. The International Master from Scarborough had his peak years in the 1960's. The Canadian Open in Ottawa, 1962 was my first rated event. Witt was in impressive form scoring a perfect 9-0 'picket fence'. He had come to Canada after escaping Hungary during the brief revolt of 1956. Settling in Montreal he worked in electronics. Witt won the Quebec Championship many times and played for our Olympic teams at Tel Aviv 1964, Havana 1966 and Siegen 1970. His best score came in Cuba, +7=7-4. FIDE awarded him the IM title in 1969. One memorable event was the CNE Open in Toronto, 1971 where there were a lot of players and only six rounds. American Grandmasters Pal Benko and Robert Byrne shared first at 6-0 while Witt and then World Champion Boris Spassky shared third at 5.5-.5. I was Witt's last round victim. I had also lost to him in the 1969 Canadian Closed where he surprised me with the defence 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 g6!? 3.d4 Bg7, the Pterodactyl line which later became one of my own favourites. My first draw with him came at the 1972 Canadian Closed where he surprised me again with 1.e4 b6!?. With White he often played quite positionally, but one never knew what weird ideas he would come up with for Black. A game Bohatirchuk-Witt from a mid-sixties Ottawa-Montreal match started 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6 4.Nc3 c6 5.Bc4 b5!? 6.Nxb5!? d5 7.Bb3 dxe4 8.Ng5 f5 with crazy complications and an eventual draw. In 1974 there was a match tournament for Olympic qualification between Witt, Vlad Dobrich and Leon Piasetski. Youth prevailed with Piasetski taking the spot. By 1979 Montreal had a new top dog: Kevin Spraggett. He defeated Witt in a match for the championship.
From the 1980 Montreal Invitational:
White: L. Witt Black: K. Spraggett
King's Indian Defence
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.d4 d6 6.Nf3 Nbd7 7.O-O e5 8.e3
[Unusual.]
8..Re8 9.Qc2 c6
[Combative compared to 9..exd4 10.exd4 Nb6 equalizing in Bogolubov-Pilnik, 1952.]
10.Rd1 e4 11.Nd2 d5 12.b4!
[Not the superficially appealing 12.cxd5 cxd5 13.Nb5?! because then 13..Re6! is strong.]
12..a6 13.a4 Nf8 14.Ba3 Ne6 15.b5 Ng5 16.bxc6 bxc6 17.Rdb1 Nh3+ 18.Bxh3!
[After 18.Kf1 Nxf2!? is an interesting gambit.]
18..Bxh3 19.Rb7 Bc8 20.Rb2 Bf5 21.Rab1 Ng4 22.Bc5 Bh6 23.Nf1!
[Again avoiding any gambits.]
23..dxc4 24.Rb6 Qc8 25.a5 Be6 26.Qa4 Qd8 27.Qxc6 Rc8 28.Qa4 Bf8 29.Bxf8 Rxf8 30.Rxa6
[Winning a pawn.]
30..Qf6 31.Rb2 Qf3 32.Qc2 Bf5 33.Rab6 Rfe8 34.a6 Nh6 35.Qe2 Qxe2 36.Rxe2 Re6 37.Reb2 Kg7 38.Nd2 Ra8 39.Rxe6 Bxe6 40.Ra2 Bc8 41.a7
Black resigned.
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| Feb-13-06 | | fishsanwitt: Today's Toronto Star (Feb. 13) has an article on my father, Laszlo Witt. I just thought people might be interested. Thank you.
Sylvia Sankey |
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Feb-26-06
 | | PhilFeeley: Too bad we don't have any of the Fischer games, especially the win by Witt. It looks like they were all rapid plays. |
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Feb-26-06
| | PhilFeeley: That's a pretty good story about the Witt family. Everyone should read it. |
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| Feb-28-06 | | SickedChess: can someone put the URL link about this player? |
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| Mar-01-06 | | Resignation Trap: <SickedChess> Here's the URL: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co... . |
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| Mar-31-07 | | gauer: Laszlo (Leslie) Witt (1933-2005)
International Master 1969. Canadian Open Champion 1962 with a perfect score. Represented Canada at Olympiads (1964, 1966, 1970). |
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Kibitzing
