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| Jul-17-06 | | Oniyate: I remember meeting him when I was about 13 years old with a 1200 rating. I remember he constantly smoked during the tournaments, often walking out for a break with only 20 minutes on his clock, taking atleast 10. He had conversations with my dad also. In fact, I was planning to find out if he would do lessons over ICC at a tournament coming up in august. I remember him lecturing me on the bad side affects of soda. Nothing quite like a GM giving advice and whipping you in a blitz game at the same time. RIP |
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| Jul-17-06 | | tud: I know what kind of courage it takes to say NO to the Soviet Red Army in communist age. All my admiration to this fellow - he was more than a chess example he was a real MAN. |
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Jul-17-06
 | | Ron: Someone should put up a bio at least for the sake of posterity. |
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| Jul-17-06 | | I3illieJoe: My deepest and most sincere condolences to Alex's family and friends. I can't believe he died. I saw him less than a month ago in Philly...he didn't look too good, his stomach was huge but the rest of his body was skinny and his facial expressions were not very happy. Still, I just found out today and I couldn't believe it...one day you see a person and the next one he's gone... |
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| Jul-19-06 | | Father Karras: RIP Alex. And enjoy playing up there with Philidor, Morphy, Alekhine, Capa, Botvinnik and all the greats! |
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Jul-20-06
 | | WannaBe: Someone care to take the information from here and compile a bio? http://beta.uschess.org/frontend/ne... |
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| Jul-20-06 | | Gala: Aleks in the Bronx, Staten Island, and Poland:
http://www.nagrocki.net/Alek.htm |
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| Jul-20-06 | | Gala: Yuri Ehlvest (Jaan's brother) is taking care of Aleks' biography. |
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| Jul-20-06 | | summer rain: Those are some really nice pictures of Aleks Gala. Were you close with him? If so my condolences, and I extend them to all who were close with him. Aleks was a man of great charecter, incredible knowledge and insight, and a good heart. Chess tournaments will not be the same without him, he will really be missed. RIP Aleks |
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| Jul-20-06 | | Gala: I met Aleks in 1989 during New York Open and since then Aleks was a friend of my boyfriend Zbyszek and stayed with us when he was in NYC. |
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| Jul-21-06 | | nezhmet: I have a cool photo ID admitting Aleks to the Libyan playing hall - recent WC knockout event in Tripoli. It speaks of the "Great Socialist Libyan People" etc. etc. has a photo of Aleks and places he is allowed to be. How did I get it? He was yelling about how crappy Libya was in Fort Lauderdale 2004, tossed it on the bar, stormed off, and fortunately I rescued it from the circular file. |
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| Jul-21-06 | | MaxxLange: very sad |
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| Jul-21-06 | | Chris C: Just to set the record straight, Aleks died from a perforated intestine and resulting blood loss, not "liver problems," according to his attorney Elizabeth Karnazes (bottom of http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail... ). |
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Jul-21-06
 | | Eric Schiller: <chris> I spoke to Elizabeth yesterday and can confirm that. |
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Jul-22-06
 | | plang: What would cause that to happen? |
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| Jul-22-06 | | nezhmet: I'm not sure why his total liver failure is being covered up. It was a consequence of heavy drinking, yes. We who knew him knew he was capable of prodigious alcohol intake. At the World Open, and for some months previously, he had ascites and spontaneous bleeding from venous endpoints that are consistent with the liver no longer functioning. This took its toll on his appearance, doctors and non-doctors alike noticed the changes at the World Open. At the World Open, I was standing around with Nick DeFirmian and Wojo mentioned he had taken a breather from drinking to give his liver some recovery time. As we know, this is well intentioned but livers don't recover in that manner, unfortunately. The intestinal blockage could well have been caused by the stasis (blood backup) and clotting (obstruction) since the liver is not processing the expected blood volume per time unit. To sum up, he had a perforated instestine as well as end-stage liver disease. To suggest that he only had a perforated intestine and to wipe away the alcohol abuse is strange obfuscation - it's not necessary to sanitize biographies in this day and age. His alcohol use and effervescent personality lent truth to the trite adage 'he burned his candle at both ends' that we hear so often about celebrities. |
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| Jul-22-06 | | Resignation Trap: For a win by Wojo over NM Brian Wall , annotated by his opponent, and illustrated, see: http://www.walverine.com/index.php?... . |
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| Jul-22-06 | | I3illieJoe: Nezhmet is right. Wojo was known to be a heavy drinker. I saw Wojo at the last World Open and you could tell there was something quite wrong about him. Does anybody know if he died of cirrhosis ? |
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| Jul-22-06 | | Knight13: He died of internal bleeding. |
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| Jul-24-06 | | Ethereal Spirit: Nezhmet (and I3illieJoe): Having class and being sensitive are no "cover-up". Many would think that consideration for those left with the sorrow and grief of their loved one's passing is more important than satisfying some petty's thirst for morbo. Why do you revel in those meaningless (and unplesant) details? (that, BTW, you cannot even provide proofs of other than for the drinking itself)- Dying is a private act, and it's nobody's business to talk about the dets of someone else's death. The important thing is that they're gone, and how they LIVED--not how they died. |
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| Jul-24-06 | | nezhmet: "Ethereal Spirit" (whoever that is) totally missed the point. I was offended by the Maoist revisionism that was going on and so were the people closest to him. Look at Susan Polgar's blog site for examples of how this distorted version is hurting people's feelings. I have already pointed out he was a fun guy and we played several interesting games together. I provided the bare minimum of information to refute the revisionism and as for proof, I am guessing "Ethereal Spirit" did not attend the World Open. I think it's important to celebrate the guy's lifestyle the way he was and not change things around afterward. |
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| Jul-24-06 | | whiskeyrebel: nezhmet, I'm glad for one you've made this point. I enjoyed your earlier comments and thought they were quite respectful. This situation reminds me of the way some baseball fans and journalists think it's disrespectful to point out the fact that greats like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle enjoyed the night life frequently shall we say. Soon after my own Father passed away long ago my Mother began to deny loudly any conversation by loved ones that included what she considered to be negative behavior. Some people are just that way. Personally, I don't want to hurt them..but neither do I want to deny reality. Frankly, I'm not even sure where these folks want to draw the line as far as what are acceptable memories. I've read lots of great things on the net about A.W. He was clearly a brave man with principles and of course loaded with chess talent. His reputed knack for having fun is a positive thing to lots of us. |
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Jul-24-06
| | plang: When someone dies so young it is natural to have curiousity about what happened. I don't think this is disrespectful at all. Besides, if heavy drinking contributed to his death maybe someone with a similar problem would use this outcome to seek help. |
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Jul-24-06
 | | keypusher: <Besides, if heavy drinking contributed to his death maybe someone with a similar problem would use this outcome to seek help.> Or someone in despair will realize that there is a relatively pleasant way out. |
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| Jul-24-06 | | I3illieJoe: I never meant any disrespect with my comments and I don't think I disrespected Alex with what I said. I even admire the man for being able to play at such a high level with the amount of alcohol he consumed. But let's be honest, his liver failure was probably due to his consumption of alcohol, which it is not a secret. |
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