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Daniel Yanofsky

DANIEL YANOFSKY (born Mar-26-1925, died Mar-05-2000, 74 years old) Poland (federation/nationality Canada) [what is this?] Daniel Abraham ("Abe") Yanofsky was born in Brody, Poland. After being born in Poland to Russian parents he was taken to Canada by them when eight months old. Awarded the IM title in 1950, the GM title in 1964 and the International Arbiter title in 1977, he was British Champion in 1953 and Canadian Champion on eight occasions. He learned to play at age eight and made such rapid progress that at the age of fourteen he represented Canada on second board at the Buenos Aires Olympiad in 1939, accumulating 13.5 points in his first 16 team games at 2nd board. After the Second World War he played in several tournaments including the Saltsjobaden Interzonal of 1948 where he finished in 11th= place. He won his 1st Canadian Championship by age 16 in 1941 (scores 9.5/11 at his home-town of Winnipeg, with a sole loss to Leo Moser during his 1st successful title capture), & until 1975 subsequently also won or tied for 1st during each of his tries (except at Arvida, 1949, when a loss to Fedor Parfenovich Bohatirchuk (Montreal's Maurice Fox led, & he finished 2nd) placed him in a tie for 3rd-4th; Vancouver, 1951, when 1st place finisher Paul Vaitonis drew him, but losses to both 2nd-3rd place finishers Frank Ross Anderson & Bohatirchuk, as well as Rea B Hayes took him out of contention; & possibly 1942, because the cross-table is missing) in the following years: 1943 (registers his 1st perfect 11/11 - at Dalhousie), 1945 (tied for 1st-2nd with Frank J Yerhoff at 10.5/12 in Saskatoon), 1947 (clear 1st with 12/13 at Quebec), 1953 (tied for 1st-2nd with Anderson at 7/9 in Winnipeg), 1959 (registers his 2nd perfect 11/11 in Montreal), 1963 (clear 1st with 13/15 at Winnipeg) & 1965 (clear 1st with 10/11 at Vancouver). But in 1975, he suffered his next 2 Canadian championship losses (against Kevin Spraggett & Peter Biyiasas at Calgary; he tied with Lawrence Day & Bruce M Amos for 5th-7th at 9/15) in more than 24 years, when he came in 4th at Vancouver with 8/12. He tried for his final championship at Winnipeg in 1986, capturing share of 3rd-4th place with Fletcher Baragar at 9.5/15 - suffering defeats to tournament winners Igor Vasilievich Ivanov & Spraggett. At Toronto in 1938, his 13/18 again placed him at share of 4th-6th after scoring 5/10 at Quebec during the previous year. His chess took second place to his law studies which he completed brilliantly, as a result he was offered five scholarships for postgraduate work. He chose Oxford in England to further his studies. Returning to Winnipeg he became a successful lawyer but he still found time to represent Canada in several Olympiads, scoring 77 points in 141 team games played overall. Between 1954-81, he edited a chess column in the Winnipeg Free Press. As a player his greatest strength was in the endgame. If he had devoted himself entirely to chess he would certainly have gone much further. References: http://www.olimpbase.org/ (team & Olympiad chess archives), http://www.chess.ca/yanofsky-daniel (Canadian Chess Federation), http://www.fide.com/ (international Chess Federation), Winnipeg Free Press. Wikipedia article: Daniel Yanofsky

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page 1 of 25; games 1-25 of 613  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. Yanofsky vs J Therien   0-1 55 1938 Canadian Championship E38 Nimzo-Indian, Classical, 4...c5 2. Yanofsky vs P Brunet   1-0 34 1938 Canadian Championship E10 Queen's Pawn Game 3. Ryner vs Yanofsky   0-1 38 1938 Canadian Championship C11 French 4. Yanofsky vs A Schaeffer   1-0 53 1938 Canadian Championship E36 Nimzo-Indian, Classical 5. M Fox vs Yanofsky   1-0 49 1938 Canadian Championship E00 Queen's Pawn Game 6. E Wainwright vs Yanofsky   0-1 29 1938 Canadian Championship A03 Bird's Opening 7. Yanofsky vs J Belson   1-0 35 1938 Canadian Championship C87 Ruy Lopez 8. Yanofsky vs M Dion   1-0 19 1938 Canadian Championship D08 Queen's Gambit Declined, Albin Counter Gambit 9. Yanofsky vs W Zombory   1-0 34 1938 Canadian Championship D31 Queen's Gambit Declined 10. D LeDain vs Yanofsky   0-1 62 1938 Canadian Championship C77 Ruy Lopez 11. S Kitces vs Yanofsky   1-0 62 1938 Canadian Championship D11 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav 12. R E Martin vs Yanofsky   0-1 51 1938 Canadian Championship C13 French 13. Yanofsky vs C Smith 1-0 20 1938 Canadian Championship D67 Queen's Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line 14. Yanofsky vs J Morrison   ½-½ 42 1938 Canadian Championship C99 Ruy Lopez, Closed, Chigorin, 12...cd 15. J Rauch vs Yanofsky   ½-½ 47 1938 Canadian Championship E00 Queen's Pawn Game 16. R Drummond vs Yanofsky   0-1 44 1938 Canadian Championship A15 English 17. W Holowach vs Yanofsky   1-0 40 1938 Canadian Championship A20 English 18. Yanofsky vs B Blumin   1-0 49 1938 Canadian Championship E11 Bogo-Indian Defense 19. Fine vs Yanofsky   ½-½ 43 1939 US Open Prelim A31 English, Symmetrical, Benoni Formation 20. Yanofsky vs H Seidman   0-1 45 1939 40th ACF Congress. Prelim 2 B73 Sicilian, Dragon, Classical 21. B Garfinkel vs Yanofsky 0-1 39 1939 US Open Prelim E38 Nimzo-Indian, Classical, 4...c5 22. Yanofsky vs M Peckar   1-0 47 1939 40th ACF Congress. Prelim 2 D67 Queen's Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line 23. G Hellman vs Yanofsky   0-1 34 1939 US Open Prelim C14 French, Classical 24. Yanofsky vs B Friend   0-1 57 1939 40th ACF Congress. Prelim 3 B13 Caro-Kann, Exchange 25. B Friend vs Yanofsky   0-1 53 1939 40th ACF Congress. Consolation E48 Nimzo-Indian, 4.e3 O-O 5.Bd3 d5  page 1 of 25; games 1-25 of 613

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< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing> Mar-11-03    kostich in time: Yanofsky wrote an autobiographical games collection entitled Chess the Hard Way Jul-08-03    fred lennox: Alekhine predicted a promising future to the then 14 year old Canadian, complimenting his typically neat and incisive artistry. For those who like Maroczy, here is a GM you might enjoy. Nov-05-03    Resignation Trap: The first Canadian Grandmaster and also the first in the British Commonwealth. An excellent biography by Irwin Lipnowski can be seen here: http://www.chess.ca/Yanofsky/yanofs... Feb-14-04    marcus13: It is one of the better canadian player. His complete name is Daniel Abraham Yanofsky. He won 8 time the canadian champion title. Aug-06-04    ruylopez900: Is Daniel Yanofsky the same as Canadian GM Abe Yanofsky? (i.e. Abe is his middle name and I don't know it.) or a brother/cousin? Thanks. Aug-06-04    Zenchess: They're the same person; people usually called him by his middle name Abe. Aug-06-04    cuendillar: Does he have some kind of connection to David Janowski? Their last names sounds similar in spite of the different spelling. Aug-06-04    Zenchess: No, they are not related. Aug-06-04    fred lennox: In his day one of the best endgames player along with Smyslov and whoever else belongs on the list. Aug-06-04    ruylopez900: <fred> I believe Capa was excellent at endgames as was Benko. Oh yes and these days anyone with the Nalimov tablesbases at their fingertips and 30+ GB to spare! :) Aug-06-04    Zenchess: He also had extraordinary foresight; in Yanofsky vs Dulanto, 1939 his Q was tied to the g-file on pain of instant mate, but he had worked out the whole continuation from move 13. In Yanofsky vs Botvinnik, 1946 Yanofsky, on move 33, saw further than Botvinnik when he set a vicious trap. Botvinnik took the base and went down to colossal defeat. Aug-07-04    ruylopez900: Yes, the game vs. Botvinnik was quite good. Oct-27-04    nikolaas: Two Janofsky brothers met for the first time in Buenos Aires olympiad, each of them playing for different country. J. Janowski, 45, was born in the Ukraine and left for Argentina in 1919. His father stayed home and later on moved to Canada along with his 6-month-old son Abe Janowski (English spelling: Yanofsky). Abe became the strongest player in Canada and was named to play first board at the Buenos Aires Olympiad. Reading the list of the participants J. Janowsky was very surprised and was eager to meet one A. Yanofsky from the Canadian team. He showed the photo of his father and Abe exclaimed: "that's my father too!" They happily embraced each other. Jul-16-06    Phony Benoni: A couple of tidbits from Chess the Hard Way: In 1937, Yanofsky won the championship of Manitoba at age 12. He repeated every year through 1942, when nobody else even bothered to show up. Thereafter, he was banned from further participation in the provincial championship to encourage others to play in it. In 1939, Yanofsky played at the U.S. Open in New York. At that time, the Open was organized in preliminaries from which you qualfied for various final sections. Yanofsky tied for the last qualifying spot for the top section in his prelim, but lost a tie-breaking coin flip for the spot. The coin was flipped by Tournament Director Fred Reinfeld--who, oddly enough, did not write a book about it. Mar-26-08    BIDMONFA: Daniel Yanofsky YANOFSKY, Daniel A. http://www.bidmonfa.com/yanofsky_da... _ Aug-28-08    GrahamClayton: After scoring 9.5/10 at the 1939 Buenos Aires tournament, Yanofsky was given a silver cigarette holder, an unusual prize for a 14 year old who wasn't old enough to be smoking! Sep-02-08    GrahamClayton: Source: CN 3003 Edward Winter, "Chess Facts and Fables", McFarland Publishing, 2006 Feb-09-09    Banoboy: <phoney Benoni> "The coin was flipped by Tournament Director Fred Reinfeld--who, oddly enough, did not write a book about it." LOL! Feb-14-09    Freelix: GM Spraggett posted a nice profile of Daniel Yanofsky in his blog http://kevinspraggett.blogspot.com/.... He analyzes positions from several of Yanofsky's games: Yanofsky vs A Dulanto, 1939 N Divinsky vs Yanofsky, 1945 Ragozin vs Yanofsky, 1948 Szabo vs Yanofsky, 1967 O'Kelly vs Yanofsky, 1968 J Penrose vs Yanofsky, 1952 Feb-14-09    Freelix: Hmm, it looks like Spraggett features a different Penrose-Yanofsky (1952) that is not in chessgames and is even more brilliant than the one I just linked. Mar-26-09    WhiteRook48: happy birthday Mr. Yanofsky! Mar-23-10    sdrumovic: I'm looking for the ranking/cross-table from the Stevenson Memorial played ad Southsea 1952. Yanofsky participated and Wade too; also the italian Scafarelli (3rd). Mar-23-10    TheFocus: <sdrumovic> I will check in my British Chess Magazine. Have it for you tomorrow. Have you tried finding tournament cross-tables that took place in England at BritBase.com? Mar-24-10    sdrumovic: Yes TheFocus, I've already checked on Britbase: there's nothing on Southsea 1952; the only references to that tournament I could find in the net are: http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic... http://xoomer.virgilio.it/cserica/s... I also saw your answer on Romi pages; thank you for your help. Mar-24-10    TheFocus: <sdrumovic> I must apologize. Last night we had testing in my class and I got home too late to check my BCMs. Will check them tonight. search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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