paulalbert
Member since May-03-03 · Last seen Jun-19-13
|
 |
**I am a serious player ( playing for about 60 years ) but better known as a chess patron: Trustee of the American Chess Foundation in NY ( now called Chess-in-the Schools) for 27 years until 2003. I am best known for providing the Paul M. Albert, Jr. Brilliancy Prizes for U.S. Chess Championship, both men's and women's ( when championships were separate ) from 1983 to 2003. All the 64 prize winning games are the basis for a book ( for which I wrote the Foreword ) by IM Danny Kopec and GM Lubomir Ftacnik titled "Winning the Won Game: Lessons from the Albert Brilliancy Prizes", published by Batsford in 2004. I also have been a financial supporter of military chess, especially in the past the U.S. Army Championship, reflecting my strong support of the U. S. military and status as a veteran U.S. Army Artillery Officer.More recently I have been sponsoring events at the Marshall Chess Club(see below) as well as continuing general financial support of chess.** My rating is a modest 1400+ reflecting that business [investment banker, capital market consultant, family hedge fund manager, and corporate board director for 47 years and not yet retired], family, and military obligations prevented me from playing rated games for 40 years. Even now, with corporate board and family investment obligations and an intensely anti-chess spouse, playing in a rated tournament once a year in a minor tournament in August in 2010,2011, and 2012 is the best I have been able to do. Although some with whom I play feel my official rating does not reflect my knowledge and ability, and I do beat 1600 and 1700 players in rated tournaments, the fatigue and inconsistency of old age and losing to highly talented, but surprisingly low rated, youngsters makes rating progress difficult. I am encouraged by my recent 2012 tournament playing all higher rated players I added 60 rating points and am now approaching 1500, but unfortunately blew a win in the last round. But perhaps not all hope of further progress is lost. My draw against GM Roman Dzindzhichashvili in a simul reflects that I am not a complete patzer ( Dzindzhi thought I was a 2000 player ). Playing in the bigger tournaments at July 4th, Thanksgiving, and Easter is off limits from a family perspective, and even I have reservations about playing chess on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.** As my posts frequently reflect,I have had the honor and pleasure over the past 56 years of meeting many of the world's great and near great player including on May 17th, 2010 Magnus Carlsen ( and his father ) and again Karpov and Kasparov at the fundraiser in New York city for the Karpov run for FIDE President. Others include Adams,Agdestein,Anand,Averbakh,Fischer,Huebner, Ivanchuk,Kamsky,Karpov,Kasparov,Korchnoi,
Kramnik,Larsen,Lautier,Lombardy,Reshevsky,Seiraw-
an, Short,Smyslov,Spassky,Speelman,Tal,Van Wely,and Yusupov and virtually all the other top U.S. men and women players, many of whom have been the winners of my brilliancy prize. I especially treasure the opportunity I have had to meet GM Lothar Schmid, Arbiter of the 1972 Fischer-Spassky Match and the owner of the world's greatest chess book collection; Edward Lasker; and Susan,Sophia, and Judith Polgar as well as their parents. As a result of my access to the top of the chess world, included in my collection of chess books are many autographed by some of the all time great players. I greatly admire the great past GMs such as Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, Schlechter, Nimzowitsch, etc. as well as many of the GMs who followed, particularly those who were or are both outstanding,creative chessplayers as well as highly learned men and women.[ I regret that I never had the opportunity to meet the late Mikhail Botvinnik, David Bronstein ,Yefim Geller, Paul Keres, Andor Lilienthal, Miguel Najdorf, Tigran Petrosian, or the just departed Svetozar Gligoric ( or the still living legends such as Mark Taimanov and Alexander Beliavsky ) certainly all on my list of great chess artists, or Leko, Shirov, Topalov, and the new, younger geniuses, although I finally got to meet Magnus Carlsen and will see him again next week at the Marshall Chess Club. Unfortunately, because I no longer serve in any official position related to chess and also because there are few ,if any, world class type events held in the United States, frequent future opportunities for my meeting more of the world's elite players seems unlikely, but I first met Hikaru Nakamura when he was still young , since I have known his father Sunil for a long time ]. I particularly admire strong women players, all three Polgars whom I know to some extent, as well as others such as Alexandra Kosteniuk,Zhu Chen, and Pia Cramling all of whom I've met. My interest is in both chess history and players as well as playing and understanding the game itself and supporting it to the extent I can. In all ways I am a chess fan and supporter of chess and am a member of the Marshall Chess Club in NY. However, I live 50 miles from NY City so getting to the club is infrequent, but I was able to participate in the Fischer symposium on March 6 and 7, 2009, including as a speaker recounting my contacts with Bobby in 1957 and 1965; also I have been sponsoring the Bobby Fischer Memorial Blitz Tournament at the Marshall in 2010 and 2011 around Bobby's March 9th birthday, and will do so in 2013 for Bobby's 70th birthday. Bobby and I were both born in 1943, I a couple months earlier on January 15th.**I enjoy this site, but too frequently it can be overloaded with invective,inane comments,and disputes over trivia, which in my opinion reflects a disrespect for our royal game, rather than a love of it, and the non chess discussions belong elsewhere. Nevertheless, I am a regular, almost daily, visitor to the site because of the predominance of thoughtful and interesting posts and the high quality chess content provided by chessgames.com., and comment occasionally.** Paul Albert (Revised August 17,2012) |
|
|
