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| May-01-06 | | ughaibu: Or. . . . the US government didn't want to invest in crappy players. |
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| May-01-06 | | Resignation Trap: As far as I know, the US government never invested in good players, either. |
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| May-01-06 | | ughaibu: REVOLUTION!! |
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| May-02-06 | | technical draw: <ughaibu> Great Beatles song. |
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May-02-06
 | | chancho: You asking for a revolution, yeah, you know, we all want to change the world .... |
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May-02-06
 | | keypusher: State-sponsored chess! The masses demand it! |
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| May-03-06 | | Gypsy: <keypusher: State-sponsored chess! The masses demand it!> The story how chess got its priviledged status in the Sovied era is somewhat amusing: In Tzarist times, Russia-controled teritories produced such GMs as Chigorin, Rubinstein, Bernstein, Nimzovich, Alekhine, Bogolubov, Levenfish, and scores of strong masters. Even ammong the top lieutenants (Ilin-Genevsky) and comisars (Leon Trocky) of the October revolution were great chess enthusiasts of master or first-class strength. But the capricious new order after the revolution decided upon a random whim which activities would be considered wholesome, worthy amusements of the new, socialistic working man; and which would be considered a burzhoa, decadent abominations of the social parasites of the past (tennis). At that critical time came a huge stroke of luck. In some god-forsaken place behind Urals or so, a chess enthusiast posted on the local club's buletine board: <Chess is a gymnastics of the mind! - V.I. Lenin>. It was a stroke of brilliant inspiration, for Lenin never said anything to that extent. But that came to light only recently when russian chess historians tryid to trace down the origins of the famous quote. The catchy slogan was flatering to Lenin's vanity, and competitive chess thus received the official stamp of aproaval. This aproval quickly solidified despite all the PR disasters like the defections of Alekhine and Bogolubov. The good grace, unfortunately, did not extend to more exoteric fields of chess composition. Those were still considered rather decadent, and overall unheathy and self-indulgent pursuits; pursuits to be eradicated from the fabric of Sovied life. But the unfortunate story of Russian problemists is different story, this is about how a total fabrication and a dictator's vanity gave the rise to the Soviet School of Chess. |
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| May-03-06 | | Ziggurat: For some reason I always thought that <wmd> was British. But what do I know. |
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| May-03-06 | | Akavall: <Ziggurat> I thought <WMD> was German, and lived in a different time frame, maybe 1939. |
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| May-03-06 | | Akavall: <Gypsy> Interesting story, maybe the fact that Lenin himself was a chess player (and pretty strong one, I think) had to do with chess getting approval. On the other hand, I am not sure chess had 'privileged' status when compared to other sports, so maybe it didn't have much effect at all. |
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| May-03-06 | | acirce: It was <tpstar> who implied, for some reason, that <WMD> was Taylor Kingston. Eric Schiller <Mar-29-05 Eric Schiller
tpstar: <Eric Schiller> Thank you very much for joining our community and answering our questions. As to your latest fan, I think you two know each other: http://www.chessville.com/Editorial... <WMD> Is this chess site a "swamp of misinformation" too? Harsh.> |
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| May-03-06 | | Gypsy: <acirce> Thx for unearthing that post; it is the one I recall. |
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| May-03-06 | | technical draw: <Ziqqurat> Do you mean that WMD is not British? I thought he was. |
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| May-03-06 | | whatthefat: <Gypsy>
I believe the quote "Chess is the gymnasium of the mind" is originally attributed to Pascal. |
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May-03-06
| | keypusher: Thanks for interesting post on the origins of the Soviet school, <gypsy>. Did you read the musings of Roshal I posted somewhere? |
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| May-03-06 | | Akavall: <Chess is intellectual gymnastics. – Wilhelm Steinitz> <Chess is the gymnasium of the mind. – Peter Pratt (also incorrectly attributed to Blaise Pascal, Yakov Rokhlin & Vladimir Lenin)> http://www.chessville.com/misc/Quot... According to this it's Peter Pratt... I guess this explains why England has a quite strong olympic team, without any immigrants on it :). |
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| May-03-06 | | Akavall: Our own Ray Keene, however, had a different explanation for the phenomenon: <There's something in the British psyche. We're very good at being buccaneers and pirates, and we're very good at being merchant bankers. Chess is very much like that, a sort of piracy of the mind, a sort of opportunism. – Raymond Keene> |
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| May-03-06 | | Gypsy: <keypusher: ... Did you read the musings of Roshal I posted somewhere?> Where is somewhere? |
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May-03-06
| | keypusher: If I knew where I would have said so. :-)
Here you are. I always thought of Roshal as a little apparatchik, and maybe he was, but a complicated little apparatchik with an interesting family history. http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skitt... |
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| May-03-06 | | Resignation Trap: I have been looking through my many issues of <Chess Review> from 1946-1948 in the last few days. A truly interesting time for International Chess! I believe that the most interesting article appeared on page 5 of the January 1947 issue. <<GORDIAN KNOT>> <<<The World Championship tangle had grown even more complex and difficult to solve. The FIDE (International Chess Federation) had definitely withdrawn from the organization of the World Championship Tournament, had abandoned its grandiose scheme for determining future candidates.Newer troubles developed. Holland, having raised $16,000 for the FIDE tournament, was eager to settle this important chess event. The Dutch Chess Federation designated Dr. Max Euwe, only living ex-World Champion, to negotiate with the Russian Chess Federation to bring such a tournament to fruitition. A meeting of the six prospective contestants (Euwe, Fine, Reshevsky, Botvinnik, Keres and Smyslov as decided by the FIDE and sanctioned by the Dutch Federation) was arranged in Moscow during the U.S.A.-USSR match. Here, Botvinnik stated angrily that, during the Groningen tournament, one Dutch paper had said that the Russian participants might work together to put him into first place. He, therefore, refused to play for the championship in Holland. However, it was finally agreed to stage the event half in Holland, half in Russia, but there was further question of where the first half should be held.> >> |
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| May-03-06 | | Resignation Trap: The article continued:
<<<Time troubles developed as well. The Russians wanted the tournament held in April, while Reuben Fine, his mind on his academic duties, favored August as the earliest date.In Holland, backers of the proposed tournament saw the costs rising, estimated that their half of the tournament might run to $24,000 or even $28,000. Further, the U. S. Chess Federation had indicated before the recent U. S. Championship that it would regard the players finishing first and second as its candidates for the World Tournament. Now it stood by its word, declined to recognize any arrangement which would not accept Reshevsky and Kashdan as the U. S. representatives. Before any tournament was held, however, there were many conflicting points of view to reconcile, many details yet to be settled. Only the spade-work had been done.> >> |
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| May-04-06 | | Gypsy: <keypusher> Thx for the article! He is about of my parents' generation. My impression is that it would not be accurate to think of him as of an apparatchik. Best that I can come up with is that he was a capable oportunist, it seems, so that he could run his enterprise in the gray stratas of the partly undeground economy. He did put together a rather impressive life in chess. And he probably never realy hurt anyone, and that, in turn, is the key test for anyone; especially for those who lived under those kinds of systems. The fate of his family is hard to comprehend and so are the times and people that with wanton disregard routinely did things like that. |
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May-04-06
| | keypusher: Thanks, <Resignation Trap>. More! More! Where did you get these old Chess Reviews, by the way? <And he probably never realy hurt anyone, and that, in turn, is the key test for anyone; especially for those who lived under those kinds of systems.> Well said! |
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| May-04-06 | | Resignation Trap: <keypusher> These issues of <Chess Review> most likely belonged to Lucille Kellner,one of the stronger female players in the USA from about 1950-1962. She died in 1964 and her collection went to Tom Jenkins. About 20 years after that, Mr. Jenkins was reducing the size of his collection, and they ended up in my hands. In the December 1946 issue, the original program to the 1946 US Championship was between two pages. No Americans were at the International Tournament in Prague 1946, primarily due to short notice, and most of them had already committed to playing in the US Championship:
http://members.aol.com/graemecree/c... . |
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May-04-06
| | chancho: Reuben Fine wrote about Paul Keres: <"After the war Keres became a Soviet citizen by incorporation, when the Baltic countries were returned to the USSR. It was no secret that he was an avowed enemy of communism; in fact, it was widely reported that in the bloody purge of his countrymen by the Stalinist regime, Keres's life was saved only because of his chess prowess. When I met him again in person in Moscow in 1946, he visited me in my hotel room (which the other Soviet masters were afraid to do at that time) and castigated the regime mercilessly. It was no doubt because of his political feelings that the Soviet regime waited for years before they would let him travel out of the country, and even then only under the most strigent regulation of his movements. After the war Keres remained among the best in the world but could never quite make the world championship. At times his old unsteadiness returned; thus shortly after the AVRO victory he finished twelfth in a field of eighteen at Leningrad-Moscow. Five times he finished second in the various candidate tournaments to select the challenger, never first, thereby missing the official chance to play Botvinnik. Unofficially he should have been allowed to try in the light of his magnificent record, but political considerations took precedence over the interests of chess, it may be that his surprisingly bad results against Botvinnik were in part due to his anticommunist attitude, which made him exceptionally nervous in their individual games."> source: The World's Great Chess Games. pg.233. |
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