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| Jul-03-14 | | john barleycorn: Pachman's bio needs an overhaul, most definitely. |
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| Dec-28-14 | | zanzibar: <You know, comrade Pachman, I don't enjoy being a Minister, I would rather play chess like you, or make a revolution in Venezuela. - Che Guevara>
Anybody know the source of this quote offhand? |
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| Dec-28-14 | | john barleycorn: <Che Guevara, quoted by Ludek Pachman in:
Checkmate in Prague: Memoirs of Ludek Pachman
London, Faber and Faber. 1975> |
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| Dec-28-14 | | zanzibar: Thanks Mr. barleycorn. |
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| Dec-28-14 | | parisattack: <john barleycorn: Pachman's bio needs an overhaul, most definitely.> I fully concur. Eminent player, theoretician and writer. In the mid-60s when MCO 10 was the standard opening reference his four volume Modern Chess Opening Theory (Open, Semi-Open, Queen's Gambit, Indian Systems) was much sought after. I was just recently looking through volumes of a periodical he did in the 1980s - Eroffnung-Up to Date. Great stuff. |
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Jan-28-15
 | | Chessical: From the "Hastings and St Leonards Observer" - Saturday 20 November 1954, p1.2. "Ludek Pachman, the Czechoslovakian chess champion who is ornamenting the Premier at Christmas, has sent me quaint little game which he won blindfold performance. He doesn’t say how many he was taking on at once; I expect It was about 20. Apart from the two rook sacrifice which leaves the black queen marooned, note the futility of the black queen’s side". 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e5 Nfd7 6. h4 Bxg5 7. hxg5 Qxg5 8. Nh3 Qh6 9. Qg4 g6 10. Bd3 c5 11. f4 cxd4 12. Nb5 Kd8 13. Ng5 Qxh1+ 14. Kf2 Qxa1
click for larger view
<In for a penny, in for a pound! Black takes everything he can see lying around, crosses his fingers and hopes that he will be able to fiddle his way to the end-game.> 15. Nxf7+ Ke7 16. Qg5+ Kxf7
<"I expect he thought that the blindfold player had overlooked this. What a hope!"> 17. Nd6+ Kg7 18. Qe7+ Kh6 19. Nf7+ Kg7 20. Ng5+ Kh6 21. Nxe6 Nf6 22. Qg7+ Kh5 23. Qxf6 h6 24. Be2# 1-0 ===
Houdini recommends <15...Qh5> which it believes saves Black. It prefers <14.Kd2> which it concludes is advantageous for White. |
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| May-03-15 | | john barleycorn: There is a free download available of Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy https://www.google.de/search?q=lude... |
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| May-08-15 | | TheFocus: <You know, comrade Pachman, I don't enjoy being a Minister, I would rather play chess like you, or make a revolution in Venezuela> - Che Guevara. |
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| May-23-15 | | TheFocus: <It would also be feasible to look for parallels between the growth of chess ideas and the general development of thought in human society, for despite its individual characteristics chess cannot be divorced from other aspects of culture. Our game mirrors the intellectual level and cultural trends of the times. However, such a theme would require a separate, comprehensive treatment of its own, beyond the scope of this work> - Ludek Pachman. |
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| Mar-06-16 | | TheFocus: Rest in peace, Ludek Pachman. |
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| May-11-16 | | RookFile: He wrote some first class chess books. |
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May-11-16
 | | gawain: I learned a lot from Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy. |
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May-11-16
 | | perfidious: < PhilFeeley: How is it possible this guy doesn't (or didn't, I guess) have a rating?> Pachman was 2510 on the January 1975 FIDE list, though clearly past his prime by then, aged fifty: http://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo197... |
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| May-11-16 | | RookFile: He must have been a top 20 player in the world at one point. |
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| May-11-16 | | Howard: Probably back in the late 50's---that was probably his peak period. |
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| May-11-16 | | john barleycorn: <Howard> Pachman's peak year was 1959 according to various sources. |
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May-11-16
| | perfidious: < RookFile: He must have been a top 20 player in the world at one point.> Hard to imagine that was not the case: a strong, professional GM who was a tough out, though not quite of candidate stature. |
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May-11-16
 | | eternaloptimist: <gawain> That book is 1 of the best books of all time IMO! |
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| May-11-16 | | diagonal: <He must have been a top 20 player at one point> His peak ranking was #14 in October 1959 (SONAS ELO, according to historical chessmetrics data). Pachman was a solid player around the top twenty during the 1950s, and consistently a top fifty player of the world (today labelled as supergrandmaster) from 1947 to 1967, in a period when the top ten was heavily 'occupied' by players from the Soviet Union. In 1958, at the Interzonal in Portoroz, Yugoslavia (Slovenia), he missed a possible play-off spot for the Candidate's only by half a point: the tournament was won by young and meteoric rising <Tal> with 13.5/20, <Gligoric> was second with 13, followed by <Benko> and <Petrosian> with 12.5, then <Olafsson> and <Fischer> (who was on friendly terms with Pachman these days) both with 12.0 points (all six players qualified to join <Smyslov> and <Keres> for the Candidate tournament in 1959 of the best eight players to determine the Challenger of reigning Champion Botvinnik in 1960). Ludek Pachman finished that Interzonal with 11.5 points (together with Bronstein, the unlucky World Champion Challenger from 1951, and others; great Larsen, already a GM since 1956, born the same year as scandinavian compatriot, advancing (then IM) Olafsson, was sole 16th, Averbakh, Szabo, Filip, Matanovic (the only player to beat Tal) Panno, Rossetto failing all, it was pretty close in a strong field: <http://soloscacchi.altervista.org/w...> 21 participants, and one Interzonal tournament per three-year-cycle. FIDE ELO started later, just when Pachman's otb strength began to fall considerably. |
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| May-12-16 | | diagonal: In 1955, at the previous Interzonal tournament in Gothenburg (it was a 21-player round robin, with the top nine players qualifying for the Amsterdam Candidate’s in 1956), Pachman already was missing a possible play-off spot to advance only by half a point. The winner was <Bronstein> with 15/20 (an impressive +10 =10 -0), <Keres> was sole second with 13.5, <Panno> was clear third at 13, followed by <Petrosian> 12.5, <Geller> and <Szabo> each had 12 and the other qualifiers were <Filip>, <Pilnik> and <Spassky> with 11. Just missing out with 10.5 were Ilivitsky and Pachman, they even played a reserve playoff match for the gallery: Prague Candidates Reserve Playoff (1956). |
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| Aug-21-16 | | Pyrandus: Pachmann vs Portisch? |
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| Dec-19-16 | | parisattack: <RookFile: He wrote some first class chess books.> Agree!
Back when single-volume Evan's MCO 10 and Horowitz's Theory and Practice were about all available in the English language on chess openings, along came the translation of Pachman's four volume set Modern Chess Theory. It was a very hot property at the local chess club! I probably loaned out Indian Systems a dozen times. (The others - Queen's Gambit and Closed Games, Open Games, Semi-Open Games.) The Spring Books editions were most collectible. Then came the English Invasion with the Batsford 'Whites' and of course Ken Smith's many monographs on specific openings. In the early 1980s Pachman did a serial similar to Euwe's Schach Archiv - 'Eroffnung - Up to Date' with some fine variation-specific analysis. |
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| Dec-19-16 | | zanzibar: <parisattack> I guess you're talking about the 1960's then? If it were the 1970's, do the Chess Digest series on opening qualify? (I'm not too familar with the Batsford series, but the Chess Digest series also had white covers - and were very extensive in topics: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_... I think Smith's pamphlets were also published by this company.) |
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| Dec-19-16 | | parisattack: Those are what I call the Batsford 'whites' because of the covers. I think Chess Digest/Batsford had some sort of arrangement as some of mine say the former, some the latter. Chess Digest/Ken Smith did a zillion of those little opening monographs, I don't have a full listing, but think first were late 60s. Soltis did many of them - some good, some bad, some ugly. :) The early 'bis' series came out in the same time period but those never got translated into English. |
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| Dec-19-16 | | zanzibar: <Those are what I call the Batsford 'whites' because of the covers. I think Chess Digest/Batsford had some sort of arrangement as some of mine say the former, some the latter.> That's what I thought then, although I think I've only seen the Chess Digest label (but admittedly, I haven't seen too many). <Chess Digest/Ken Smith did a zillion of those little opening monographs, I don't have a full listing ...> Yes, it would be quite a task to document the entire list. I was happy to find the Tartan series documented
http://twchesssafari.blogspot.com/2... (etc.) I haven't looked too deep, but there's this link with some Ken Smith stuff: http://chesspowa.blogspot.com/2009/... which includes many positive comments about Smith. (Might have to hop over to his bio...
Kenneth Ray Smith Is this the guy? His bio only mentions his publications on the Smith-Morra) |
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