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Jul-11-04
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| Joshka: <IMlday> Thanks for sharing this personal info on Tarjan! Just found out today who you are! Thanks for chatting and giving info. I'm sure I speak for many low rated players, very nice to know you guys at the top, GM Keene as well, take time to help us out:-) Tarjan no killer instinct?..uhmmm how do you get to be a GM without one?!...maybe you mean that he wasn't going to beat experts at local tourneys just to collect a few hundred bucks like some GM's do here? |
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Jul-11-04
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| Joshka: <chessical> Love this screen name! Thanks for your links to some of these guys who were unknown to me. Also please thank your country for me, one of our only true friends in the world:-)....well you gave us great music in the 60's thats for sure!...and now "Mickey"!...think he's gonna make it? |
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| Jul-12-04 |
| cincinnatifan: Jim Tarjan used to play some of his chess at the Camera Obscura club in Santa Monica back in the days when I was a junior player (early-mid 70's). He was the strongest player at the club, I think even stronger than Kim Commons, who used to show up now and then. The few times I spoke to Tarjan, he was gracious and soft-spoken. |
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Jul-13-04
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| IMlday: Jim didn't play chess as a sport, aiming to win. He treated a game more like a poem, winning zen accidentally, in a sort of regretful mood that the poem had ended.
Of course one has to eat. Therefore winning prize money makes sense. Arnold Denker told me that back in the 1930's depression when the department stores went bankrupt, their window display areas were rented cheap to chess players for speed chess. He recalled a day when he, Sammy Reshevsky and Humphrey Bogart (!) were in adjacent windows playing passersby for dimes.
Jim Tarjan put a lot of thought into making a living. Like chess tournaments, libraries are quiet and thoughtful, he liked them. He settled on being a GM-level librarian--running them.
Tarjan-style speed chess, circa 1979, required reversing the starting position of bishops and knights. Suddenly, no theory, he prefered it that way! |
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Jul-14-04
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| Joshka: <IMlday> "treated a game like a poem" wow, the more i hear about this guy, the more interesting he becomes, in a way. Dang when does one find time to go over even more games!!LOL...yikes thanks for relating the Denker story..what a picture that brings to my mind! It's a shame Hollywood can't make a chess movie with some of these types of scenes from the past! Since we're about the same age, I always recall sayings from my folks about the "depression era", and a phrase "we didn't have two nickels too rub together" guess had those guys lived in the Cleveland area, they would have settled for pennies instead of dimes!:-) |
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| Apr-23-05 |
| Poisonpawns: Tseshkovsky vs Tarjan, 1979
Here is a nice win by tarjan. |
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Apr-23-05
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| Caissanist: I've heard of many chess pros belittling the swiss tournaments that are their best chance to make a living. Winning swisses seems to require a different style than the "real chess" of international events. Apparently Tarjan was not as willing as others to play "swiss style" in order to try and make a buck. |
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| May-08-05 |
| soberknight: If chessgames ever has a GOTD with "Tarjan the elephant," you heard it from me first. |
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| Jul-19-05 |
| aw1988: Me Tarjan. You Jane. |
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| Apr-28-08 |
| DarthStapler: This guy's name always reminds me of Tarzan |
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| May-02-08 |
| Resignation Trap: <DarthStapler> You don't mean: "Me: James E Tarjan , you: Akash Jain ", do you? |
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| Jul-08-08 |
| sleepkid: Picture of James Tarjan:
http://cplorg.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item... |
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| Sep-16-08 |
| medstu56: raymond keene dissed this guy in his profile |
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Sep-17-08
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| ray keene: did i? i dont recall-i have beaten tarjan a couple of times but thats all |
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| Feb-22-09 |
| BIDMONFA: James E Tarjan TARJAN, James E.
http://www.bidmonfa.com/tarjan_jame...
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| Feb-22-09 |
| dumbgai: Happy birthday Jimmy! |
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| Feb-22-09 |
| NyP: To my best knowledge, Tarjan's name is of Hungarian origin. Tarján is a small town some 40 miles from Budapest. It's pronunciation is pretty far from Tarzan :-) |
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Feb-22-09
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| malthrope: Happy Birthday Jimbo! :)
And, many more! ;)
Jim and I go way back to the early 1970's when he relocated up here from Sherman Oaks, California to study at the U.C. Berkeley campus. It was here that Jim honed his chess skills and became a Grandmaster! :) I fondly remember the countless number of hours we spent over at the Fritzinger manor playing Blitz Chess well into the dawn! ~lol~ Here is a fine color snapshot of Jim taken around 1975 in my apartment on Atherton Street where I lived for over 31 years... We always had fun weather it be going out to movies, plays, art festivals, dinners out, BBQ's in the backyard during the summertime, coffee shops, field trips and hikes in the woods, or sporting events (of which 'baseball' being the favorite amongst the top Chess players). Naturally <Chess> was always the main entrée at various bars and coffee houses as well as private parties all organized by us! <grin> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v... Here Jim is analyzing a devious endgame puzzle that I gave him to solve... :) He was just a great all around guy! ;) Your pal, - Mal
Berkeley, CA |
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| Feb-22-09 |
| Octal: He played a few interesting games in the Dragon. |
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| Feb-22-09 |
| Crocomule: Malthrope.. I was there with you. Is Hammie still around? |
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Feb-22-09
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| malthrope: <Crocomule: Malthrope.. I was there with you. Is Hammie still around?> He's gotta be! :) Hammie wouldn't ever leave the sublime cozy confounds of the 'Berkeley-Oakland' sanctuary. <grin> Not to mention that he'd ever stray to far away from Stanford and UC Berkeley Universities <math chaos grin explodes>. Of course, cheating in Palo Alto (where his mom lives) is naturally a strong magnet as well! :) BTW: Reading your kibitzes here it was really good to see - Hammie :) <Octal: He played a few interesting games in the Dragon.> He sure did <Octal> and the story on how Jim got to be so good in the complex Dragon Sicilian lines, at the time when he was active, is an interesting story all to itself! ;) |
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| Feb-22-09 |
| WhiteRook48: happy birthday Tarjan! |
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| Feb-22-09 |
| belgradegambit: As a Dragon player, Tarjan and Soltis were 2 of my idols as a young man. "Tarjan the Apeman" was already used in a GOTD A Planinc vs Tarjan, 1974
Happy Birthday Jim. |
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| Jul-09-09 |
| myschkin: . . .
His older brother is Prof. Robert Tarjan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert... |
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| Aug-24-09 |
| Keith Dow: The last I heard is Tarjan was working in Santa Cruz California. For extreme trivia fans, he played a simultaneous exhibition as part of the opening of the the shopping center "Northridge Fashion Mall". I beat him there with the help of a few of his friends. |
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