We remember IM Adam Hunt who passed away on Tuesday, December 3rd 2024 following a nine year battle with cancer.
Adam Ceiriog Hunt was born on Tuesday, October 21st, 1980 in Oxford and his mother’s maiden name was Williams. The UK Number one single was “Woman in Love” by Barbara Streisand. Adam shares his birthday with Kim Kardashian.
Adam attended The Cherwell School and The University of Sussex to study general biology.
Jeremy Morse, Adam Hunt (12), Nick Pert (11) and Nigel Short at the Lloyds Bank Masters
Adam became an International Master in 2001 and then a FIDE Trainer in 2016. According to Felice and Megabase 2020 his attained his peak FIDE rating of 2466 in January 2008 at the age of 28.
Adam Hunt in 1998 Cathy Rogers
In 2004 Adam was living in Headington, Oxfordshire and in 2007 he moved to Ipswich in Suffolk and was married in 2019. Recently, Adam and his partner became parents to Henry.
As a junior (and together with Harriet) Adam first played for Cowley Chess Club.
Most recently Adam has played for 4NCL Blackthorne Russia, prior to that Bettson.com, Midlands Monarchs and Perceptron Youth with Witney being his original team.
He is Director of Chess at Woodbridge School in Suffolk and is the brother of IM Harriet Hunt
With the white pieces is (almost exclusively) an e4 player playing the main line of Ruy Lopez (8.c3) and favouring the Fischer-Sozin against the Najdorf.
As the second player Adam plays the Sicilian Najdorf and a 50:50 mixture of the King’s Indian and Grünfeld Defences.
He was British Correspondence Champion in 1972 and awarded the IMC title in 1981.
According to Kings Indian I Attacking Systems:
“British Correspondence Champions 1971/72. Placed second in an ICCF master tourney 1973/76. A member of the British team in the 9th Olympiad 1977/80. Gained the IMC title in the European Team Championship 1978/81.”
According to Chessbase Correspondence Database 2020 Frank achieved his highest (ICCF) rating in January 1991 of 2410.
Incomplete crosstable from the European Championship, 1973.
As White Frank would play the Queen’s Gambit via a 1.Nf3 move order. He did not play 1.e4
As the second player he would defend the closed Ruy Lopez and the Nimzo-Indian Defence.
BCN remembers GM Daniel Yanofsky OC QC (25-iii-1925 05-iii-2000)
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976)by Anne Sunnucks:
YANOFSKY, Daniel Abraham (1925- )
International Grandmaster (1964), Canadian Champion in 1941, 1943, 1945, 1947,1953, 1959, 1963 and 1965, British Champion in 1953. Abe Yanofsky, was born in Brody, Poland, on 26th March 1925. His parents were Russian and had left their native country a few months earlier on their way to Canada, to which they were emigrating. They eventually arrived at their destination when Yanofsky was 8 months old.
When he was 8 Yanofsky saw a chess set in a shop window and persuaded his father to teach him the game. He joined Winnipeg Jewish Chess Club and when he was 11 his obvious talent was noticed by Bernard Freedman, Treasurer of the Canadian Chess Federation, who was visiting Winnipeg. Freedman was responsible for Yanofsky playing in his first tournament a few months later in Toronto. Yanofsky arrived in Toronto determined to get as much chess as possible and put his name down for three tournaments: the Junior Boys’ Championship, which was to be played in the morning; the Senior Boys’ Championship, which was to be played in the afternoon; and the Major Championship, which was to be played in the evening. He withdrew from the Junior Boys’ Championship after 1 round at the request of the organisers, who realised that he was far too strong for that event, and went on to win both the other events.
Daniel Yanofsky playing Max Euwe in 1946 at the Staunton Memorial, Groningen
This was the first of a number of successes which to his selection as a member of the Canadian team to play in the Chess Olympiad at Buenos Aires in 1939, where on 2nd board he scored 84.4 per cent and attracted the notice of the World Champion, Alekhine, who spent many hours going over Yanofsky’s games with him.
Daniel Yanofsky, 1946
On his return to Canada Yanofsky had to divide his time between earning a living, completing his education and playing chess. Before joining the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1945, Yanofsky graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Science degree, and, apart from his victories in the Canadian Championship, won lst prize at Ventnor City 1942 and the United States Open Championship the same year.
After his discharge from the Navy Yanofsky played at Groningen 1946 and came 14th out of 20. However his score included a win against Botvinnik and a 50 per cent score against the five top Russian players. After Groningen he ‘played in Switzerland, Spain, England, Denmark and Iceland before returning to Canada. His main successes were 2nd
at Barcelona 1946; lst at Reykjavik 1947 and 2nd at Copenhagen 1947.
Back in Canada, Yanofsky enrolled at Manitoba Law School and played little chess until he had graduated in 1951, having won the University Gold Medal in Law and five scholarships. He decided to do a post-graduate course in Law at Oxford University and left for England later that year. In 1952 he was awarded the Viscount Bennett Scholarship as the most outstanding law student in Canada by the Canadian Bar Association.
From the 1952 Ilford Congress (30 May – 2 June) and originally published in BCM, July 1952, page 187. (l-r) : Harold Israel, Alan Phillips, Bob Wade, Otto Friedman, Abe Yanofsky, Alfred William Bowen and Harold Meek. Thanks to John Saunders and Leonard Barden
{[%evp 0,76,31,30,28,-9,35,35,45,45,58,46,33,34,24,32,61,49,79,64,95,83,96,71,64,43,46,51,53,73,176,154,142,146,167,146,144,109,215,-50,48,73,73,73,73,-97,-97,-181,-155,-170,-116,-49,-41,-58,16,16,31,-37,114,-19,-43,-59,-59,-55,-29,-51,-51,-153,-164,-202,-229,-264,-204,-201,-343,-532,-669,-913,-913]} {This game does not appear in Megabase 2023 or chessgames.com etc. It was culled from British Chess Magazine, Volume LXXIII (73, 1953), Number 1 (January), page 2, game #11,203.} 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 (3. g3 Bg7 4. Bg2 O-O 5. Nc3 d6 6. Nf3 c5 {in which form was played by Barden in the present match.}) 3… Bg7 4. e4 O-O 5. Nf3 d6 6. Be2 c5 {This comparative novelty is not mentioned in M.C.O. In Chess Archives Euwe refers to the move as a Yugoslav innovation (see elsewhere). In any case Black’s idea is to play …Nc6, …Qa5, and …a6 and …Qb4. There is hardly sufficient evidence for a final judgment on the system; it would appear Black’s game is difficult to play, but he has undeniable practical chances in the complications that easily arise.} 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5 Na5 9. h3 {A necessary prelimary to his next move} ({A promising alternative plan is} 9. a3 {to be followed by Rb1, Qc2, if necessary, and b4}) 9… a6 10. Be3 Rb8 {[#]} 11. Qc2 $146 (11. Nd2) 11… Bd7 {Playing for …b5} 12. a4 Ne8 13. Ra3 Qb6 {This loses valuable time} ({better was the immediate} 13… Qc7 $142) 14. Rb1 (14. b4 $2 Qxb4 15. Rb1 Qxa3 16. e5 dxe5 17. Bc1 Qb4 $19 {When White’s win of the queen is a pyrrhic victory}) 14… Qc7 15. b4 cxb4 16. Rxb4 b6 17. Qb1 f5 18. Nd2 $2 {Here I personally feel that White misses his way; in the ensuing complications the game appears touch and go for a long time but analysis suggests it is really is on Black’s favour.} ({After the simple line} 18. Bxb6 Rxb6 19. Rxb6 fxe4 20. Nxe4 Nxc4 21. Bxc4 Qxc4 {White may possibly not be able to winbut at least he should escape loss.}) 18… b5 19. axb5 f4 20. bxa6 ({As Dr. Friedman suggested afterwards,} 20. Bxf4 Rxf4 21. bxa6 Ra8 {falls to be considered here but the threats of …Qc5 and …Bd4 are hard to meet in this line too.}) 20… fxe3 21. Rxb8 exd2 22. Rb7 {Despite appearences it is doubtful that White has a satisfactory line here and this tricky move is apparently his best chance.} ({If} 22. Qb4 Bd4 23. Rxa5 Bxc3 {etc}) ({SF suggests} 22. Nd1 Bd4 23. Ra2 $18) 22… Qc5 ({If Black plays} 22… Nxb7 23. axb7 Nf6 24. Ra8 Rb8 25. Rxb8+ Qxb8 26. Qb6 $11 {he has a difficult game, in spite of his extra peice and could even lose.}) 23. Nd1 Qxa3 24. Rxd7 {[#]} Nf6 {This wins all right} ({but} 24… Bd4 {decides more quickly with the threat of …Rxf2, which follows even if 25 a7.}) {Both players were under severe time-pressure from hereabouts till the control on move 40.} 25. Rxe7 Nb3 26. a7 Nc5 27. Qb8 Ncd7 28. Qc7 Qc5 29. Rxd7 Nxd7 30. Qxd7 Ra8 31. h4 Rxa7 32. Qe8+ Bf8 33. h5 $2 $19 (33. Qe6+ {is better though Black must now win in the end. SF claims position to be level!} Kg7 34. e5 dxe5 35. Qxe5+ Kg8 36. Qf4 $11) 33… Re7 34. Qa4 Rxe4 35. Ne3 Qd4 36. hxg6 hxg6 37. Qc2 Bh6 38. Bd3 Bxe3 {White resigns. A most exciting game, very difficult for both players. I (HG) must acknowledge my debt in my notes to post-mortem analysis by the players.} 0-1
[/pgn]
While in England Yanofsky added to his chess reputation by winning the British Championship in 1953 and tying for 1st prize at Hastings in the same year.
Yanofsky with Edward Lasker at the 1952/3 Hastings Congress, They are studying a (then) new line of the Marshall Ruy Lopez pioneered by Oxford don Sir Theodore Tylor.
Since then he has played regularly for Canada in Chess Olympiads since 1954.
Daniel Yanofsky
From The Oxford Companion to Chess (OUP, 1984) by Hooper and Whyld:
YANOFSKY, DANIEL ABRAHAM (1925- ), Canadian player. International Grandmaster (1964), international Arbiter (1977). He was born in Poland of Russian parents who took him to Canada when he was eight months old; his childhood was spent in Winnipeg where he learned the moves of the game when he was 8 and improved so rapidly that at the age of 14 he was selected to
represent Canada in the Buenos Aires Olympiad 1939; In this event he made the highest percentage score at second board (+12=3 — 1), In 1941 he came equal first with H. Steiner in the US Open Championship, won the title on tie break, and also won the Canadian Championship (for the first of eight times). After the Second World War Yanofsky played in several tournaments including the Saltsjöbaden interzonal 1948, in which he shared eleventh place.
Daniel Yanofsky
He then began law studies, completing them so brilliantly that he was offered five scholarships for postgraduate work. He chose Oxford, While in England he won, with case, the British Championship 1953, Returning to Winnipeg he became a successful lawyer active in civic politics. His chess career took second place although he found time to play in several tournaments and in many Olympiads from 1954. Yanofsky wrote of his early life in Chess the Hard Way! (1953); he excelled in the endgame and there are many examples in this book of his prowess in this phase.
Chess the Hard Way!, Daniel Yanofsky, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1953.
The second edition (1996) of Hooper & Whyld reduces DAFs entry to a mere five lines!
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977) by Harry Golombek (but written by Nathan Divinski):
A Canadian grandmaster, Yanofsky was born in Poland, came to Canada in 1926 and was raised in Winnipeg. He played 2nd board for Canada in the 1939 Olympiad and won his first (of eight) national titles in 1941, dethroning the eight-time champion Maurice Fox, Yanofsky had wins at Ventnor City 1942, The US Open 1942 and was =1st at Hastings 1953.
Tournament Crosstable for Hastings Christmas Congress, 1952/53 Premier
He won the British Championship in 1953, 1.5 points ahead of the field:
Tournament crosstable for British Championship, 1953 at Hastings
Yanofsky tied for 4th in the 1957 Dallas tournament and became a grandmaster in 1964.
At Groningen 1946 Yanofsky beat Botvinnik in their individual game. He has led many of the Canadian Olympiad teams.
Yanofsky is a lawyer with post-graduate studies at Oxford. He edited Canadian Chess Chat for several years and is active in civil politics.
Daniel Yanofsky
He is an expert on the Ruy Lopez and the French Defence, though his strongest point is his endgame play.
From Chess Facts and Fables, Edward Winter, McFarland Publishing, 2006, page 91:
Yanofsky’s Prize
From page 39 of Chess the Hard Way! by D.A.Yanofsky (London, 1953), comes this passage regarding the 1939 Olympiad in Buenos Aires:
“By winning the next two games I scored 9.5 points out of a possible 10 and was awarded a silver cigarette holder inscribed : “Mejor Jugador del Torneo” (best player of the tournament)”
Times have certainly changed, as it is hard to imagine that organisers today would offer a 14-year old boy anything smacking of smoking. (3003).
Daniel Yanofsky
From British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (120, 2000), Number 4 (March), pp. 223 (presumably by) John Saunders we have this obituary:
DANIEL ABRAHAM YANOFSKY
Obituary of “Abe” Yanofsky (26 iii 1925 – 5 iii 2000)
ABE YANOFSKY has died in Winnipeg after a long illness. Born in Poland, he emigrated to Canada with his family when eight months old. Learning the moves at eight, Yanofsky lost his first three games to his father but next day scored his first chess victory. He was already an acknowledged chess prodigy at 11, giving simultaneous displays and winning the championship of Manitoba at the age of 12. His big break came at the age of 14 when he was selected to play for Canada at the 1939 Buenos Aires Olympiad, achieving an 85% score, including a famous win over Dulanto which moved world champion Alekhine to watch all his remaining games in the tournament.
{[%evp 0,55,34,28,40,23,31,30,69,32,23,24,32,37,25,17,17,32,63,41,48,37,44,51,46,39,36,15,83,3,139,118,118,139,110,112,254,179,244,295,321,329,308,285,878,898,916,931,931,974,950,1093,29981,29984,29985,29986,29995,29996] With this game Yanofsky caught the attention of the chess world. The final combination also caught the eye of World Champion Alexander Alekhine who invited the 14-year old Yanofsky to analyse the game with him. And with his strong performance on board 2 (84.4 +12 =3 -1 according to Walter Árpád Földeák (WAF) in Chess Olympiads, Corvina Press, 1966) for Canada (John Stuart Morrison was top board) Abe Yanofsky made a name for himself in Buenos Aires.} 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 dxe4 {[WAF] According to Alekhine, the contemporary view of this variation needed to be thoroughly revised, for he two Bishops that Black has in the main line do not compensate for White’s greater freedom of action.} 5. Nxe4 Nbd7 ({[WAF] The best continuation for Black is} 5… Be7 6. Bxf6 Bxf6 {followed by developing the knight to c6.}) 6. Nf3 Be7 7. Nxf6+ Nxf6 8. Bd3 c5 9. dxc5 Qa5+ 10. c3 Qxc5 11. O-O O-O {[#]} 12. Re1 $146 ({Relevant:} 12. Qc2 Kh8 13. Rad1 b6 14. Qa4 Bb7 15. Qh4 Bxf3 16. Bxf6 Qh5 17. Qxh5 Bxh5 18. Bxe7 Rfe8 19. Be4 Bxd1 20. Bxa8 Bh5 21. f3 Rxe7 22. Rd1 g5 23. Kf2 f5 24. Bc6 Kg7 25. b4 e5 26. Rd6 Bf7 27. Bd7 f4 28. a4 e4 29. fxe4 Rxe4 30. Rc6 Rc4 31. Rxc4 Bxc4 32. Bb5 Be6 {½-½ Janowski,D-Maroczy,G Wien Imperial Jubilee Vienna 1898}) 12… Rd8 13. Ne5 {[#]} b6 $2 {[%csl Ga8] Black seems to lack a sense of danger. Black is not yet fully developed but opens another diagonal. Moreover the rook on a8 is a “lose piece” and might easily fall victim to a double attack. Yanofsky uses Black’s error to launch a strong attack.} (13… h6 $142 $16 {[WAF] was essential} 14. Bf4) 14. Bxf6 ({Maybe immediately} 14. Qf3 {was even stronger. White wins at least an exchange} Rb8 (14… Rd5 15. Bc4 Bb7 16. Bxd5 Bxd5 17. Qf4) 15. Bxh7+ Nxh7 (15… Kxh7 16. Bxf6 Bxf6 17. Qh5+ Kg8 18. Qxf7+ Kh7 19. Re3 $18) 16. Qxf7+ Kh8 17. Ng6#) 14… Bxf6 (14… gxf6 15. Qh5 Rxd3 16. Qxf7+ Kh8 17. Nxd3 Qd6 18. Re3 $18) 15. Bxh7+ {the typical sacrifice} Kf8 (15… Kxh7 16. Qh5+ Kg8 17. Qxf7+ Kh7 18. Re3 Qxe5 (18… Qxe3 19. fxe3 Bxe5 20. Qh5+ Kg8 21. Qxe5 $18) 19. Rh3+ $18 {mating}) 16. Qh5 {White is a pawn up but keeps the initiative} (16. Qf3 Bb7 $1 17. Qxb7 Bxe5 $16) 16… Bxe5 17. Rxe5 Qc7 18. Be4 Bb7 {Now White has a number of winning moves. Young Yanofsky concludes with a nice finish!} 19. Bxb7 Qxb7 20. Qh8+ Ke7 21. Qxg7 Rg8 {[#] [WAF] Black had gone this far with his calculations; his fourteen-year old opponent, however, had penetrated still further into the secrets of the position.} {[MB] At first sight it would appear that White has blundered. However, he has a strong counter:} 22. Rxe6+ Kxe6 23. Re1+ {Black’s king is exposed and will be mated.} Kd6 24. Qf6+ Kc5 25. Re5+ Kc4 26. b3+ Kd3 27. Qd6+ Kc2 28. Re2+ 1-0
[/pgn]
In 1941 Yanofsky won the first of eight Canadian Championships.
Daniel Yanofsky
After war service in the navy, he played in a number of tournaments in Europe, defeating Botvinnik in a game at Groningen 1946.
Later that year he finished second to Najdorf in Barcelona, and then fourth at Hastings L94617. Other continental tournaments followed, including the Saltsjöbaden Interzonal of 1948. He returned to Canada where he was an outstanding law student, returning to Europe in 1951 to embark on a post-graduate law course at University College, Oxford, the funding being subsequently supplemented by his winning a $1,000 scholarship for being the most outstanding Canadian law student of 1952.
Yanofsky finished second at the I951/2 Hastings Premier, and took part many other UK competitions, crowning his UK-based period by winning the 1953 British Championship at Hastings: he scored a (then) record 9.5/11 despite a first round loss to DM Horne. In 1953 he also published an account of his chess adventures entitled Chess The Hard Way!
He returned to Canada to establish a successful career as a lawyer and politician in Winnipeg, though finding time to play in national championships and 11 Olympiads between 1939 and 1980. He edited Canadian Chess Chat for a number of years.
How to Win End Games, D.A. Yanofsky, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd., 1957
He became the British Commonwealth’s first FIDE grandmaster in 1964 (ed: although some might claim that Jacques Mieses was the first)
100 Years of Chess in Canada, D. A. Yanofsky, Chess Federation of Canada, Winnipeg., 1967
We lived in the same house in Oxford for a year, but never played or analysed together during all that time, as Dan’s focus was entirely on his academic work and his then pregnant wife, Hilda.
We remember Raaphy(i) Persitz who passed away on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009.
From British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), Number 3 (March), pp. 130-134 by John Saunders we have this detailed obituary:
Raaphy Persitz
A tribute to a great friend of British chess, by John Saunders
Raphael Joseph Arie (Raaphy) Persitz (26 vii 1934, Tel Aviv – 4 ii 2009, Tel Aviv)
28th December 1955: Israeli chess player Raaphy Persitz in play at the International Chess Congress at Hastings. (Photo by Folb/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
Raaphy Persitz, one of the strongest players resident in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s and also one of BCM‘s most popular contributors, has died aged 74. Raaphy was born in Tel Aviv, the grandson of Shoshana Persitz (1893-1969), a publisher who became an early member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Raaphy became Israel’s first junior champion in 1951 and shortly afterwards came to study PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at Oxford University where he was a member of their very strong chess team and a close friend of Leonard Barden and others.
Raaphy Persitz (26-vii-1934 04-ii-2009). 26 year-old Raaphy Persitz at the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad playing on board four for Israel. He scored +6, =2, -4.
One of his most publicised feats was to win his Varsity match game and also a county match against Hugh Alexander on the same day (see the May 1954 or March 2004 issues of the magazine for further details). Raaphy played three times in the Varsity match and also represented England in three Students Olympiads in the mid-1950s. He represented Israel in the 1960 Leipzig Olympiad on board four, and also played twice in the Hastings Premier, in 1955-56 and 1968-69, the latter being his swansong in competitive chess as he turned his attention to a career in banking which took him first to Switzerland and eventually to his home town of Tel Aviv. As a player his best result was probably finishing third behind Reshevsky and Szabo at the first major international tournament held in Israel, Haifa/Tel Aviv 1958.
Despite giving up competitive play, Raaphy never lost his love of the game and remained an avid reader of magazines and follower of the game until the end of his life. And, of course, he remained a perceptive and humorous writer on the game though his output was much lower than in the 1950s. The news of his death came as a particular shock to me as, only a couple of weeks previously, he had sent me a fax saying how moved he had been by the tribute I had writ- ten to Bob Wade in the January 2009 issue of BCM. That was typical of his kindness to wards me which dated back to when I took my first tottering steps as BCM editor in 1999. We never actually met in person but spoke occasionally on the telephone and exchanged faxes (Raaphy didn’t seem to communicate by email).
Raaphy Persitz (26-vii-1934 04-ii-2009)
As a long-time reader of the magazine I had enjoyed his Student’s Corner column contributions. The column had been initiated by Abe Yanofsky in the early 1950s and Raaphy had inherited it in 1958. I was particularly delighted when, in 2004, after I had written about his 1954 feat in winning his Varsity match game and a county match against English number one CHO’D(Hugh) Alexander on the same day, Raaphy consented to write another column (which appeared in the May 2004 issue of BCM). I never succeeded in getting him to write another one but it was such a pleasure to have him write for the magazine during my spell as editor.
Raaphi Persitz agreed to play for Oxford v Cambridge in London and also on the same day for Oxon v Gloucester in a county match in Swindon.
This is the second game, he won both games.
Be aware that Bruce Hayden in ‘Cabbage Heads and Kings’, which is where I got this game from, mentions this but also added that these games took place on the same day as the 1954 Grand National (won by Royal Tan). This is wrong as the Grand National that year was run on the 10 April.
I think that maybe Bruce saw the score of the games with the two games a day story in a Sunday newspaper covering Saturdays Grand National and perhaps got the dates mixed up.
)
The fax he sent me on 7 January 2009 seems particularly poignant now but it is a good example of Raaphy’s kindness and self-deprecating humour. Here is the full text:
“Dear John, I was moved by your wide-ranging obituary of Bob Wade in the BCM[January 2009, p34l. I dare say you did justice to his contributions and devotion to chess, spanning well over half a century. I have several pleasant recollections of conversations and over-the-board encounters with Bob. One such tussle, a hard-fought draw, was reproduced by Bob, with comments (in the Student’s Corner) in a book containing his eventful games.
Another, somewhat less felicitous, recollection harks back to a game we contested at Ilford, where, in extreme time trouble, I blithely played Rxh7+, expecting …Qxh7, but overlooking the simple …Kxh7, leaving me a whole rook down with no compensation, whereupon I duly resigned. What impressed me at the time was the lightning speed with which Bob reacted to my ill-fated blunder – as if it were nothing but inevitable…
With warmest wishes for a healthy,
happy, fruitful 2009. Raaphy.”
I had hoped to publish the above as a Letter to the Editor but, sadly, it must now appear as part of Raaphy’s obituary. The draw with Bob Wade referred to in the fax was played in Dublin in 1962 and featured in Student’s Corner in BCM in the December 1966 issue on page 356. It seems appropriate to reproduce the game here in tribute to these two recently departed and much-loved chessplayers.
Notes by Persitz
Unlike the majority of games that have, over the years, appeared in the Student’s Corner, the following dour struggle between Bob Wade (White) and myself (Black), from Dublin, 1962, is in no way outstanding: it does not contain any brilliant combinations; it is not a positional masterpiece; it is certainly not devoid of mistakes. Nor is it amusing, or original, or of theoretical interest or particularly instructive. Yet (with the aid of the interspersed comments) it ought to give the student a pretty shrewd and realistic idea of the stuff competitive chess is made of: the endless number of laborious variations that have to be examined; the annoying little threats that must be attended to; the treacherous pitfalls to be sidestepped; the technical hurdles to be surmounted; the frustrating little details, indifference to which may be fatal; in brief, the drudgery that has become part and parcel of contemporary tournament practice, without which success is unimaginable.
{[%evp 0,1,-80,-94] [#] White’s position does not inspire much confidence:} {
After 40 minutes reflection, White hits upon a drastic solution which displays
a profound understanding of the position.} 19. b4 $1 {The idea behind this
remarkable move is a simple as the move itself is startling: since White’s
central pawns exercise a cramping influence on Black’s king’s flank, he will
go out of his way to hold on to them, even if this involves jettisoning both
his queenside pawns. Black’s b-pawn will be subjected to a frontal attack
along the b-file.} ({the straightforward} 19. Be3 {, to protect the hanging
d-pawn, will not do because of} f4 20. b3 Rb4 {etc}) ({whilst if} 19. Bb5 {
simply} Rxd4) 19… Nxb4 $2 {Frittering away most of his advantage.} ({
Admittedly neither} 19… Rxb4 20. Ba3 Rxd4 21. Bxf8) ({nor} 19… Nxd4 20.
Rxd4 Bxe5 21. Bb2 Bxd4 22. Bxd4 Rxb4 23. Rd1 {yields Black any superiority.}) (
{But the tranquil} 19… Rfa8 {does} {For example} 20. a3 Rxb4 21. Be3 (21.
axb4 Rxa1) 21… Rb2) 20. Bb5 $1 (20. a3 $2 Nc2) 20… Rxa2 $2 {Unnecessarily
jeopardising the black kinght., thus handing over the initiative to White.} ({
The safe course is} 20… Raa8 21. a4 Nc6 (21… Rfc8 $2 22. Bd7) ({or} 21…
Kf7 22. Ba3)) ({Less good is} 20… Nc2 $2 21. Bxa4 Nxa1 22. Bb2 Ra8 23. Bd7
Nc2 24. Bxe6+ Kf8 25. Bxd5 {when White’s connected passed pawns carry the day.}
) 21. Rxa2 ({After} 21. Rb1 Nc6 (21… Na6 $2 22. Bd7) 22. Bxc6 bxc6 23. Rxb6
Rc2 {White does not appear to have enough for his minus pawn.}) 21… Nxa2 22.
Bd2 Ra8 {[#] The text move is aimed at rescuing the knight} ({Black had
originally intended to follow up 20…Rxa2? with} 22… Kf7 $2 {preparing for
23…Rc8-c2 (which is not feasible right away on account 23.Bd7).} {but he had
not noticed that White would trap the displaced knight by means of} 23. Ra1 Ra8
24. Bd3 {etc.}) 23. Rb1 ({If} 23. Ra1 Bf8 24. Bd3 Ra3 25. Bb1 {and the rescue
completes} {by way of} Nc1 $1) 23… Kf7 24. Bd7 $2 ({If} 24. Be2 {then either}
Rc8 ({or} 24… Ra4 {suffices} 25. Bd1 ({or} 25. Rxb6 Rxd4 26. Rxb7+ Kg8 27.
Rb8+ (27. Rb2 Ra4) (27. Be3 Rb4 28. Ra7 Nc3) 27… Kf7 28. Rb7+ Kg8 29. Rb8+ {
with a draw by repetition of moves.}) 25… Rxd4 26. Rb2 Nc3 $1) 25. Rxb6 Rc2 {
etc}) ({More promising is} 24. Rb2 $1 {with Rc2 and Rc7 to follow whereupon
Black would find it extremely difficult to avoid the loss of his weak e-pawn.})
24… Ke7 (24… Ra6 25. Bc8) 25. Rxb6 (25. Bb5 Rc8 $1 26. Bg5+ Kf7 27. Bd7 (
27. Rb2 Nc3 $1) 27… Rc7) 25… Kxd7 (25… Bxe5 26. Bxe6 Bxd4 27. Bg5+ Bf6
28. Bxf6+ Kxf6 29. Bxd5+ {which peters out into a draw.}) 26. Rxb7+ Kc6 {
The king is destined to play a leading part in the ending.} 27. Rxg7 {The game
now enters a new and tricky phase. White’s king is out of play, but so is
Black’s knight.} Ra4 (27… Kb5 {, in order to answer} 28. Re7 (28. Rxh7 Kc4
29. Be3 {and White’s h-pawn becomes dangerous.} (29. Rg7)) 28… Ra6 {, is too
slow.}) 28. Re7 (28. Rxh7 {tends to favour Black} {i.e.} Rxd4 29. Bg5 Rd1+ 30.
Kh2 d4) ({Worse is} 28. Be3 Nc3 29. Rxh7 (29. Re7 $142) 29… f4 $1 30. Bd2
Ne2+ 31. Kf1 Nxd4 $17) 28… Rxd4 29. Rxe6+ Kb5 {[#]} 30. Be3 {Setting Black a
discreet pitfall:} Re4 (30… Rd1+ 31. Kh2 d4 32. Rd6 d3 (32… dxe3 33. Rxd1)
(32… Kc5 33. Bxd4+ $1) 33. e6 {and White wins.}) 31. Rb6+ Kc4 32. Rc6+ Kd3 (
32… Kb5 $2 33. Rc5+) 33. e6 Nc3 {The knight returns from the cold.} ({instead
} 33… d4 {loses outright to} 34. Rd6) 34. Rd6 ({If} 34. Bc5 Ne2+ (34… d4
35. Rd6 Nb5 36. Rb6 Kc4 37. Bf8 d3) (34… Re1+ 35. Kh2 Ne4 36. Be3 f4 37. e7
fxe3)) 34… f4 {warding off 35.Bg5 and denying the white king of access to
the flight square g3.} 35. Bc5 ({The alternative is} 35. Bb6 {(threatening 36
Bd8, 37 e7, 38 Rf6 and 39 Rf8 etc.)} Re1+ 36. Kh2 Re5 37. Bd8 Ne4 38. Rd7 {
with a draw after} Rxe6 (38… Nxf2 39. Bh4 Ne4 40. e7 g5 41. Rxd5+ Rxd5 42.
e8=Q gxh4 43. Qf7 {being advantageous to White.}) 39. Rxd5+) 35… Re1+ 36. Kh2
Kc4 ({abstaining from} 36… Ne4 $2 37. Rxd5+ Kc4 {which goes down to} 38. Re5
$1) 37. Bb6 {angling for Bd8 followed by e7, Rf6-f8 and e8=Q.} Ne4 38. Rd7 (38.
Rc6+ Kb5 39. e7 {would lead to disaster after} Nd2) ({Likewise, if} 38. Ba5 $2
Ra1 {menacing three white pieces}) ({if} 38. Rd8 Ng5) 38… Nd2 {attacking the
e-pawn and threatening mate in three moves.} ({To} 38… Nf6 {White retorts not
} 39. Rd6 ({nor} 39. Rc7+ Kb5 40. Bd4 Rxe6) ({but} 39. Re7 {with a level
position.}) 39… Ne8 40. Rc6+ Kb5) 39. Ba5 {Making the draw inescapeable.}
Nf1+ 40. Kg1 ({Of course, if} 40. Kh1 $4 Ng3+ {and mates next move; which goes
to show that other things being equal, double check causes more damage than
discovered ones.} 41. Kh2 Rh1#) 40… Nd2+ 41. Kh2 Nf1+ ({On} 41… Rd1 {
White’s safest course is} 42. g4 {, when Black does not appear to have
anything more promising than} (42. Bxd2 Rxd2 {favours Black}) ({whilst the
consequences of} 42. h4 h5 {are obscure.}) 42… Nf3+ 43. Kg2 Nh4+ 44. Kh2 Nf3+
{drawing by perpetual check.}) (41… Re2 42. e7) 42. Kg1 Ra1 {A last, albeit
harmless, gesture.} 43. g4 Nd2+ {and a draw was agreed in anticipation of} ({
The careless} 43… fxg3 $2 44. Kg2 Rxa5 {would invite White to queen his
passed pawn after} 45. e7 Ra8 46. Rd8 Ra7 47. e8=Q) 44. Kg2 (44. Kh2 Nf3+ 45.
Kg2 Nh4+ {and so on.}) 44… f3+ 45. Kh2 ({if} 45. Kg3 {he gets the worst of
the ending after} Ne4+) 45… Nf1+ {and so on and so forth.} 1/2-1/2
[/pgn]
Raaphy Persitz Tributes
Leonard Barden: Raaphy was probably my best friend at Oxford – certainly so among chessplayers. We played hundreds of blitz games in the junior common room at Balliol and later for some months in 1957 we shared a London flat, analysing Russian championship games over breakfast. He was a wonderful man to know, bright, witty, gentle, sympathetic and knowledgeable.
Leonard Barden (centre) with Raaphi Persitz, JB Sykes, OI Galvenius and DM Armstrong, Ilford, May, 1953
A tribute by Amatzia Avni: Ordinary people have a mixture of good qualities and bad ones. After 20 years of friendship with the late Raaphy Persitz I can attest that he was a distinct type: one sided, positive-only; pure gold.
I first met him in 1989. I had just written my first chess book (in Hebrew) and was searching for someone to write me an introduction. The word was that Persitz was back in town, after long years abroad. Having seen glimpses of his amazing linguistic skills, I contacted him and he agreed immediately. He didn’t know me, hadn’t read a single sentence of the book, yet he didn’t hesitate: “yes, sure, I’ll be glad to”.
That was typical Persitz: always ready to help, unconditionally. The introduction, needless to say, was a sheer delight, a class or two above the rest of the book. In later years he gave me a hand several times polishing my texts and making them more reader-friendly to English-speaking readers. Somehow he seemed to know what I wished to express better than I did. His suggestions enabled me to convey my meaning in a clear and precise manner.
Raaphy was modest and reserved. Once I called him and realized he was upset. “My mother had passed away some weeks ago,” he said. I was puzzled why he didn’t tell me the sad news at the time. “I didn’t want to bother you” was his reply.
A couple of years ago I stumbled upon Bruce Hayden’s old book Cabbage Heads and Chess Kings. One of the book’s chapters was headed “Raaphy Persitz star or comet?”. I learned that, in the 1950s, Persitz gained bright victories in England, against Penrose, Alexander, Milner-Barry and others. Searching a Chessbase database I found out that he also done battle with some out- standing international players. Yet, in all our meetings and hundreds of hours of conversation, he never said a thing about that!
Persitz was a master of understatement. I learned that if I wrote “very fine” or “extremely strong”, the ‘very’ and ‘extremely’ would fly out of the window. If I made a firm stand on a certain issue, he would add “probably”, “apparently’ or “it may be argued that”, because it was indeed only an opinion, not a fact. Over time, following his line of thought made me improve the way I expressed myself and thought about chess.
Persitz’s distinctions in chess, in linguistics and in journalism are evident to anyone who ever read his chess books and articles. He also excelled at economics, but I am unqualified to comment on this.
God bless you, Raaphy. I feel privileged to have known you. Amatzia Avni.
BCN remembers Ken Messere who passed away on Thursday, March 31st 2005 aged 76 in Paris-16E-Arrondissement, Paris, France.
Kenneth Charles Messere was born on Monday, April 16th, 1928 in Richmond-on-Thames, Surrey. His father was Charles (George) Messere (1901-1974) or Eisenberg and aged 26. His mother was Gertrude Marie Newman (1899-1978) and aged 29.
Ken had three siblings: Barbara Marie Messere (1930–2005), Hugh Martin Messere (1932–1985) and Derek R Messere (1934–2012)
Ken attended St. Peter’s College, Oxford from 1946 – 1951 to read philosophy and is reported in the 1951 St. Edmund Hall Magazine, as a member of the Trillick (debating) Society as follows:
‘ That this House would rather be a live Communist than
a dead Democrat.’ The proposer established to his own satisfaction that democracy was founded on ‘selfishness, capitalism and bourgeois hypocrisy.’ He did not satisfy J. F. R. Bonguard of St. Peter’s Hall who opposed, using arguments taken from Hindu philosophy. K. C. Messere of St. Peter’s Hall, spoke third and added some able arguments.
In June 1954 Ken married Mary Elizabeth Humphrey (1929-2003) in Ealing. They had a son Miles Jonathan Messere born in 1964 who passed away in 1965.
Prior the time of his passing his wife Mary was living at 142B, Herbert Road, Woolwich, London, SE18 3PU.
In 1991 he was awarded the OBE (Civil Division) in the Queen’s Birthday honours list. The citation reads: Kenneth Charles Messere, lately Head of Fiscal Affairs Division, OECD, Paris.
Ken appears each year from 1953 to 1967 in the noted publication Britain, Royal And Imperial Calendars the function of which is to list entries for those engaged in UK public service. He worked for HM Customs and Excise. Prompted by this we consulted the venerable A History of Chess in the English Civil Service by Kevin Thurlow (Conrad Press, 2021) on page 447 and found
“He played for Customs. In 1964, he went to work for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and was head of fiscal affairs from 1971 – 1991. In 1954 he began playing postal chess and became a leading player. He won a semi-final of the 5th World Correspondence Championship (1961 – 64) and became the first English player to compete in a World Championship Final.”
There are 31 games listed at his personal entry at chessgames.com starting with games from 1965.
Chessbase’s Correspondence Database 2020 records 69 games the earliest being from 1958 listing Ken’s federation as being France.
From British Chess (Pergamon Press, 1983) we have this lengthy contribution from Ken himself:
“Between the ages of 6, when I learnt to play and 23 (ed: 1951), when I ceased to be a student, chess had a relatively low priority among various time-competing interests and activities, so I never got around to studying theory. Things changed when I became a civil servant and needed a replacement for philosophy as an intellectually absorbing subject which could be argued about with friends over beers, and for the next 12 years chess became my main interest.
Since 1964 I have been working for the OECD in Paris, where my friends are not chess enthusiasts and, although chess remains a major pleasure, my commitment to it has lessened. Nowadays, out-side correspondence chess, I play only occasional blitz games.
Coming late to serious chess has probably had at least some influence on my deficiencies and stylistic preferences. The deficiencies include an inability to visualize ahead with sufficient clarity to support accurate analysis, slow sight of the board which leads to silly errors through time trouble or failing stamina and less familiarity with theory than my better opponents. As to chess style, I have had to play romantically and subjectively to get good results.
If a game takes the form of a clear-cut position, where strategical objectives are clear and superior technique prevails, then mine generally does not. Consequently I have tended to play either sharp gambits or counter-gambits or to try to render the position sufficiently obscure for imagination and intuition to assume maximum importance. In keeping, my chess heroes have been Alekhine, Bronstein and Tal who revel in fantasy, however much Alekhine may claim that it is logically based.
When I took up competitive chess seriously in 1952, I made some progress and won a few minor tournaments, but in view of the defects already mentioned, it soon became clear that my potential for improvement was limited and that nearly all my games were aesthetically flawed. Fortunately, these defects represent no great handicap at correspondence chess, where I found myself pleased with a reasonable proportion of the game I played, and in addition, capable on the day (or more accurately over the years) of winning against almost anyone. Thus, against world champions I have two wins and one loss, (see below). I also have 80 per cent from five games against Russian grandmasters, even if a meagre 28 per cent from my eighteen games against all correspondence grandmasters. In 1954 when I began playing postal chess competitively, I did sufficiently well in a few British Postal tournaments to be accepted at a reasonably high level in the official international tournaments.
{[%evp 0,11,-29,-29,-59,-59,-11,-90,0,65,207,237,260,260] [#]} 46. d5 $1 {
KCM: Capturing either b or c-pawn loses.} ({In fact} 46. Rxc4 $16 {is also
winning but not as strong.} g4 47. d5 h5 48. e6 Bb5 49. Kc7 $1 Bxc4 50. d6+
Kxe6 51. d7 $18) (46. Kxb7 $2 g4 47. d5 g3 48. Rxc4 h5 49. Rc2 h4 $19) 46… g4
47. Rxc4 h5 48. e6 $18 Bb5 $2 {KCM: the move played enables White to sacrifice
rook and pawn to win with his last pawn.} ({KCM: Correct is} 48… Bxe6 $1 {
KCM: which should draw after} 49. Re4 $1 Kd6 $1 50. Rxe6+ $1 (50. dxe6 $2 Ke7
$1 {KCM: wins for Black. BCN: in fact this is winning for white as follows:}
51. Kc5 g3 52. Re1 b5 53. Kd4 h4 54. Ke5 g2 55. Rc1 a5 56. Rc7+ Ke8 57. Kd6 Kf8
58. e7+ Kf7 59. Rc8 Kf6 60. e8=Q {etc but this was hideously complicated to
work out and SF10 did the work for us!}) 50… Kxd5 51. Rh6 $11) 49. Kc7 $1
Bxc4 50. d6+ Kxe6 51. d7 {and Black resigned six moves later.} 1-0
[/pgn]
Not without luck (see Diagram l), I secured the 75 per cent necessary in two seven-player tournaments to qualify for the fourteen player preliminaries, the winner of which was to qualify for the following world championship. In the 1961-64 preliminaries, I played the best chess of my life, including valid opening innovations, imaginative pawn and piece sacrifices and even a technically efficient win in a queen and pawn end-game. I won the tournament with eleven wins, one draw and one loss, 1.5 points ahead of Maly of Czechoslovakia and two points ahead of Masseev, the Russian favourite, thereby obtaining my first norm towards the International Master title. My first annotated game is the win against Maly (ed: to be inserted once we have tracked down the game score!) which was typical stylistically and also crucial, since if he had won it, he would have qualified for the World Championship instead of me: the second against Bartha of the United States is the most compulsive and difficult tactical game I have ever played, the last five moves alone requiring over 100 hours of analysis.
The quality of my chess in the 1965-68 World Championship was much inferior. The tournament began disastrously. I went in for three losing variations as Black and made a suicidal clerical error in the opening so that after 3 months I had four losses from four games. Later, there were compensations. I won against V. Zagarovsky, the reigning world champion (the third annotated game) and obtained just (but only just) the necessary 33.3% per cent to obtain the correspondence chess international master title. For this I needed a win and draw from my last two games which
after 3.5 years, had to be adjudicated.
1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 e5 3. Nf3 exd4 4. Nxd4 Bc5 5. Nb3 Bb4+ 6. c3 Be7 {[#]} 7. Be2
$146 ({Relevant:} 7. f4 d6 8. Bc4 Nf6 9. O-O Nxe4 10. Bxf7+ Kxf7 11. Qd5+ Be6
12. Qxe4 Bf6 13. f5 Bxb3 14. axb3 Re8 15. Qd5+ Kf8 16. Bf4 Qe7 17. Nd2 a6 18.
Ra4 Qf7 19. Qd3 d5 20. Nf3 h6 21. Qd2 Re4 22. Rxe4 dxe4 23. Nd4 Nxd4 24. cxd4
Rd8 25. Qb4+ Kg8 26. Be5 Qd5 27. Bxf6 gxf6 28. Qe7 Qd6 29. Qxe4 Qxd4+ 30. Qxd4
Rxd4 31. Rc1 c6 32. Rc3 Rf4 33. Rg3+ Kf7 34. Rg6 Rxf5 35. Rxh6 Kg7 36. Rh3 a5 {
Lazarevic,M-Gaprindashvili,N Leningrad 1964 1/2-1/2}) 7… Nf6 8. N1d2 d5 9.
exd5 Nxd5 10. Nf3 O-O 11. O-O Bf5 12. Nbd4 Nxd4 13. Nxd4 Bg6 14. Qb3 Nb6 15.
Bf3 c6 16. Bf4 Bd6 17. Ne6 fxe6 18. Qxe6+ Rf7 19. Qxd6 Qxd6 20. Bxd6 Nc4 21.
Rfd1 Nxb2 22. Rd4 Re8 23. h4 h6 24. a4 Nd3 25. a5 Ne1 $16 {Here I offered
Estrin a draw but he turned the offer down.} 26. a6 $17 (26. Bd1) 26… Nxf3+
27. gxf3 b6 28. f4 {KCM: I refused draw offers from Estrin at 28 and 30 and
later the shadow of adjudication came into play.} c5 29. Rdd1 Bc2 30. Re1 Rc8
31. Re3 Rc6 32. Be5 b5 33. Kh2 h5 34. Rg3 g6 35. Ra2 Bf5 36. Rg1 Rd7 37. Re1
Kf7 38. Ree2 b4 $2 {KCM:Believing there were only three moves left to play, I
wanted to show the adjudicator a passed pawn on the sixth rank and sent this
and the 39th move as a conditional; BCN: The engines both rate this as the
best move by some margin.} ({KCM: Both the slower} 38… Ke6) ({and} 38… Be6
{were both better.}) 39. Reb2 (39. Rab2 Rb6 40. cxb4 cxb4 $19) 39… Rb6 $2 {
BCN: The ? is rather harsh since this move is still good for Black.} ({KCM:
Better} 39… Be6 40. Ra4 b3 41. c4 Rb6) 40. Ra5 bxc3 41. Rxb6 $2 (41. Bxc3 $1
{draws after} Rxb2 42. Bxb2 c4 ({or} 42… Rc7 43. Be5 {KCM: Another
adjudication induced error?}) 43. Rc5) 41… axb6 42. a7 Be4 $1 43. Ra4 $1 {
KCM: Other moves lose quickly.} Ba8 $1 ({BCN: According to SF} 43… c2 $1 44.
Rxe4 Rxa7 45. Rc4 Ra2 46. Bc7 b5 47. Rxc5 b4 $17) 44. Bxc3 Ke6 ({KCM: Not}
44… b5 $2 45. Ra6 {draws. At this point we learnt adjudication was postponed
5 months, but now I am winning. BCN: SF evaluates this as dead level!}) 45.
Ra6 Rd6 46. Ra1 b5 $1 47. Ra5 Rb6 (47… b4 {KCM: Not} 48. Be5 {draws}) 48. Bd2
$11 Kd5 49. Be3 Kc4 50. Ra1 Rc6 51. Rd1 Rc8 ({KCM: Not} 51… Rc7 $4 52. Rd8 $1
Rxa7 53. Rc8 {draws}) 52. Rd6 $2 {BCN: this is Black’s losing move although
KCM does not mention this.} ({BCN: In fact, Estrin should have played} 52. Rc1+
Kd5 53. Rd1+ {and Black cannot make progress.}) 52… b4 $1 {KCM: Only this
pawn sacrifice wins} 53. Rxg6 ({KCM: is no better} 53. Rb6 Rc7) 53… b3 54. f5
Rc7 55. f6 b2 {and wins} 0-1
[/pgn]
Fortunately, the win and draw were relatively clear, though this would not have been so a few moves earlier. An an illustration of how the threat of adjudication breeds irrationality, Diagram II gives the closing stages of my win against J.Estrin of the USSR – a more recent correspondence chess world champion. My only other game against a world champion was against the winner of this tournament, Hans Berliner of the United States, with whom I collaborated on a book of the tournament. The collaboration was stimulating but not without friction, since I had to write 75 per cent of the book to see it ever finished. It took a year to complete, 3 years to appear (published by BCM) but in the end was well-reviewed, sold over 2000 copies and royalties are still (gently) drifting in.
The Fifth Correspondence Chess World Championship, Hans Berliner & Ken Messere, British Chess Magazine, BCM Quarterly Nunber 14, 5th December 1971, ISBN 978-0-900846-05-2.
In the early seventies, in order to reduce numbers of games, I retreated altogether from individual tournaments, just playing twice for England in the Olympiads. Whether team play did not suit my style, or whether my technique had improved but imagination withered, I drew nine of my seventeen games from the two tournaments, winning four and losing four. As England looked likely to aspire to medals for the first time ever, my 50 per cent would not help matters and I gladly retreated to first reserve, which to my dismay required taking over five unfinished games of Hugh Alexander, who died during the tournament, and who, for me, has always been England’s most attractive player and writer. My most uncomfortable decision in correspondence chess was a rejection of Hugh’s intended continuation in one of these games, {Diagram III). Of these five games, I lost one and drew four and England won a bronze medal.
In 1974 was invited to compete in the Potter Memorial Tournament of four postal grandmasters and nine international masters. After so many years of responsible’ team chess for England, I went beserk and sacrificed a pawn in ten of the twelve games, trying later to salvage inferior end-games. Result 33 % per cent. B. H. Wood invited me to write a book of the tournament, to which a number of the players contributed and this was published in 1979.
The Potter Memorial, Ken Messere, CHESS (Sutton Coldfield), 1975
Also in 1979 I began to play in another invitation tournament of thirteen players organised by the Australian Correspondence Chess League, which became a memorial to CJS Purdy, its president and the first world postal champion, who died soon after the tournament began. At the time of writing, this tournament, comprising four grandmasters (including one former world champion and two runners-up) and eight international masters, is still in its early stages.”
From British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXV (125, 2005), Number 5 (May), page 226 we have this obituary:
“Kenneth Charles Messere (16 iv 1928, Richmond – 31 iii 2005, Paris) was one of Britain’s strongest correspondence players (he held the correspondence IM title) and well-known author of books on the subject. After graduating from Oxford University, Ken Messere went to HM Customs and Excise, and thence to the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) where he became head of the fiscal affairs division and a world expert on fiscal law. He reached the final of 1965-8 world correspondence championship, beating world champions Zagorovsky and Estrin, and wrote the book of the tournament with Hans Berliner (published by BCM)”
From The Potter Memorial by Ken Messere, CHESS (Sutton Coldfield), “Chess for Modern Times” Series, 1975 we have this potted biography:
“Compiler of this book, took 3rd place in 1957 and 2nd in 1968 in the championship of the Postal Chess Club. Scores of 4.5 out of 6 in the ICCF Masters 1957-8 and 4/6 in the 1959-61 Championship took him to victory with 11/5 out of 13 in the 1961-3 semi-finals, securing him his first international master norm and qualifying him for the 5th World Championship 1964-7 in which he scored 5.5, just enough for the IM title, with wins over Zagorovsky, then world champion and Estrin, world champion now. Ken Messere collaborated with Berliner, who won it, in a book on the tournament.
He then switched to play exclusively as a member of the British Olympiad team, taking over 2nd board when Alexander died.
The switch back from rather cautious team play to enterprising individual games in 1974-7 provides some of the subject matter of this book.”
The Tax System in Industrialized Countries, Ken Messere, Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 10: 1982933135 / ISBN 13: 9781982933135
The Life and Games of Vasily Smyslov Volume I: The Early Years 1921-1948, Andrey Terekhov, Russell Enterprises, 1 Dec. 2020, ISBN-13 : 978-1949859249
From the publishers blurb:
“Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957.
Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63!
In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume.”
I’ve always considered Vasily Smyslov (1921-2010) one of the more underrated world champions. I enjoy the combination of logic and harmony in his games along with his endgame expertise, so I was looking forward to reading this book.
Terekhov suggests in his introduction that Smyslov is arguably the least known of all world chess champions.
Perhaps the primary reason for Smyslov’s relative obscurity was his character. Smyslov was a reserved and deeply private man who did not strive for the spotlight.
And again…
Another factor was Smyslov’s playing style, which was classical and logical, but not necessarily flashy. To make a comparison, both Smyslov and Tal were world champions for only one year, but Tal won millions of fans for his dashing style and remains an iconic figure to this day, whereas Smyslov’s popularity largely waned after the period when he held the championship.
Up to now there have been few books, apart from those written by Smyslov himself, about his games, and they have limitations, partly because they were written in the pre-computer age and partly because they lacked biographical detail.
A few years ago, I decided to write a book that would fill in these blanks. Initially, it was conceived as a traditional best games collection, interspersed with a few biographical details. However, it quickly became apparent that Smyslov’s long chess career cannot be covered in a single volume. I amassed an extensive library of books, tournament bulletins and magazines which cover Smyslov’s chess career from the 1930s onwards. I also kept unearthing new material, including Smyslov’s manuscripts and letters.
What we have here, then, is the first volume of a hugely ambitious project, a combination of biography and best games collection, taking Smyslov’s career from his first competitive games in 1935 through to the 1948 World Championship Match-Tournament. A second volume will take the story up to 1957, when he became world champion, and further volumes will cover the remainder of his career, up to his last tournament games in the 21st century and the endgame studies he composed towards the end of his life.
What you don’t get is Smyslov’s complete games: you’ll need to look elsewhere if you want them.
The book comprises ten chapters, each covering a different part of Smyslov’s career. Each chapter in turn is divided into biography and games.
There are 49 complete games in this volume, all annotated in considerable depth. Terekhov has used an impressive range of sources: Smyslov’s own annotations, Soviet chess magazines and other contemporary sources, later commentators such as Kasparov, and skilfully combined these with computer analysis using today’s most powerful engines. Many annotators make the mistake of going overboard with reams of computer-generated variations, but Terekhov avoids this pitfall. While not everyone wants this sort of detail, the annotations in this book are some of the best I’ve read. A nice touch is that you also get brief biographical notes on his opponents.
The scope of the biographical sections, too, is impressive. There’s a lot of fascinating material from Soviet sources with which most readers will be unfamiliar. You’ll learn a lot from this, not just about Smyslov’s life, but also, in general, about how chess in the Soviet Union was promoted and organised in the 1930s and 1940s. You’ll expect full reports of the tournaments Smyslov played in, along with cross-tables. They’re all there, along with much more chess: many snapshots from games, some endgame studies, all illustrated with a profusion of photographs, many of which will be new to most readers. There’s plenty there to keep every chess lover happy.
Let’s look at a couple of the snapshots.
[fen]r1r3k1/1pq1ppbp/3p1np1/1B1Pn3/1QP5/pP2BP2/P5PP/1KNRR3 b – – 0 19[/fen]
Here’s a remarkable position from the game Panov – Smyslov 12th USSR Championship 1940 demonstrating his defensive skills.
Smyslov continued with the extraordinary 19… Nc6!!?.
This desperate move evokes the memories of Spassky’s famous Nb8-c6 in a strategically lost position against Averbakh (Leningrad 1956), but Smyslov came up with the idea 16 years earlier!
20. dxc6 bxc6 21. Ba4 Rcb8 22. Qxa3
At first glance, White is completely winning, as he is a bishop up and Black does not even have a single pawn to show for it. However, even the engine agrees that Black has some initiative in exchange for the piece, although far from full compensation.
Smyslov eventually won this game after Panov blundered on move 41. If you buy the book you’ll see for yourself what happened.
In the 1941 USSR Absolute Championship, Smyslov found himself a pawn down in a minor piece ending against Lilienthal.
At some point, Smyslov took a brilliant, although practically risky decision to sacrifice both of his pieces for the remaining Black pawns. The game transposed to the following rare endgame, which was studied in great detail by the Russian composer Alexey Troitsky:
[fen]8/7n/7P/8/3n4/8/3k1K2/8 w – – 0 84[/fen]
This position was evaluated by Troitsky as a draw and modern tablebases confirm this assessment. However, defending this position in practice is no fun, as a single bad move can lead to a forced mate. Smyslov managed to hold it and the game was agreed drawn on the 125th(!) move.
But there’s much more than chess in the biographical sections. The game was so popular in the Soviet Union that Smyslov received fanmail from young female admirers, some of which have survived. Here’s Klara, writing to her hero in 1941. Can you send me a photo of yourself, even if a tiny little one, but with your signature? If you cannot give it to me, please send it to me so I could take a look – I will return it. If you only knew how I want to see you, hear you talk – but alas – these are just dreams which cannot come to life for at least another year…
Most poignantly, we have a letter Smyslov wrote to the mother of his friend Bazya Dzagurov in 1942, asking for news of her son, who had been serving in the war. How are you doing? Do you have anyone left by your side? Is there any information about Bazya? I heard that you have not received letters from him for a long time, but I don’t know anything for certain. Please write to me about your life and let me know something about your son and my friend. Tragically, Dzaghurov had lost his life several months earlier.
Right at the end of the book there are a few bonuses. Chapter 11 introduces us to Smyslov’s wife Nadezhda Andreevna, Appendix A covers the Smyslov System in the Grünfeld Defence, and Appendix B, contributed by GM Karsten Müller, tells us more about Smyslov’s Endgames.
Here are a couple of short game which you’ll find annotated in the book. Click on any move for a pop-up board.
Although Smyslov’s fame rests mainly on his positional and endgame skills, he could still play aggressively when the opportunity arose, and some of his earlier games featured here are quite complex.
In this game (Moscow Championship 1939) he scored a quick attacking victory against the now centenarian Averbakh.
I’ve said before that we’re living in a golden age of chess literature. There are several reasons for this, two of which are relevant to this book. Firstly, we have much greater access to archive material than ever before, and, secondly, powerful modern engines ensure accurate analysis. This is an outstanding and important work which should be on the shelves of anyone with any interest at all in chess history. Excellent writing, painstaking research and exemplary annotations, along with first class production values (barring the inevitable one or two typos and errors): the book is an attractive and sturdy hardback which will look good in any library.
Congratulations are due to Andrey Terekhov, and also to Russell Enterprises. Very highly recommended. I can’t wait to read the next volume in the series.
The Life and Games of Vasily Smyslov Volume I: The Early Years 1921-1948, Andrey Terekhov, Russell Enterprises, 1 Dec. 2020, ISBN-13 : 978-1949859249
From British Chess (Pergamon Press, 1983) by Botterill, Levy, Rice and Richardson : (article by George Botterill)
“Penrose is one of the outstanding figures of British chess. Yet many who meet him may not realize this just because he is one of the quietest and most modest of men. Throughout the late 1950s and the whole of the 1960s he stood head and shoulders above any of his contemporaries.
See caption belowPress agency caption for photograph above
His extraordinary dominance is revealed by the fact that he won the British championship no less than ten times (1958-63 and 1966-69, inclusive), a record that nobody is likely to equal in the future.
At his best his play was lucid, positionally correct, energetic and tactically acute. None the less, there is a ‘Penrose problem’: was he a ‘Good Thing’ for British chess? The trouble was that whilst this highly talented player effectively crushed any opposition at home, he showed little initiative in flying the flag abroad. There is a wide-spread and justifiable conviction that only lack of ambition in the sphere of international chess can explain why he did not secure the GM title during his active over-the-board playing career.
See caption belowPress agency caption for above photograph
It would be unjust, however, to blame Penrose for any of this. The truth is simply that he was not a professional chessplayer, and indeed he flourished in
a period in which chess playing was not a viable profession in Britain. But even if the material awards available had been greater Penrose would almost certainly have chosen to remain an amateur. For he was cast in that special intellectual and ethical tradition of great British amateurs like H. E. Atkins, Sir George Thomas and Hugh Alexander before him.
Travel Chess 2nd January 1951: British chess champions Jonathan Penrose and Leonard Barden ponder over a portable travel game in a restaurant. (Photo by Walter Bellamy/Express/Getty Images)
His family background indicates early academic inclinations in a cultural atmosphere in which chess was merely a game something at which one excelled through sheer ability, but not to be ranked alongside truly serious work. It is noteworthy that Penrose, unique in this respect amongst British chess masters, has never written at any length about the game. He has had other matters to concentrate on when away from the board, being a lecturer in psychology. (His father, Professor L. S. Penrose, was a distinguished geneticist.)
IM Dr. Jonathan Penrose OBE
Being of slight physique and the mildest and most amiable of characters, it is probably also true that Penrose lacked the toughness and ‘killer instinct’ required to reach the very top. Nervous tension finally struck him down in a dramatic way when he collapsed during play in the Siegen Olympiad of 1970. We can take that date as the end of the Penrose era.
Jonathan Penrose Chess Grandmaster Jonathan Penrose pictured during a chess match, circa 1960. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images))
Since, then though he has not by any means entirely given up, his involvement in the nerve-wracking competitions of over-the-board play has been greatly reduced. instead he has turned to correspondence chess, which is perhaps the ideal medium for his clear strategy and deep and subtle analysis. So Penrose’s career it not over. He has moved to another, less stressful province of the kingdom of chess.
IM Dr. Jonathan Penrose OBE
For the first game, however, we shall turn the clock right back to 1950 and the see the Penrose in the role of youthful giant killer.
{[%evp 0,61,19,31,72,53,68,72,74,26,26,35,78,54,64,49,91,81,85,45,69,69,49,55,
46,30,64,74,93,97,132,124,124,98,152,152,152,76,65,59,51,64,64,64,20,20,38,14,
116,159,216,216,216,223,223,223,511,570,615,900,1224,2338,29993,29994]} {
Jonathan was 17 years old when this game was played.} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4
cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nbd7 {A pretty rare continuation, not hitting White’s
centre but maybe aiming for c5 at some point.} 6. g3 a6 7. Bg2 e6 8. O-O Be7 9.
b3 (9. Be3) 9… Qc7 10. Bb2 O-O 11. Kh1 $146 {This was a novelty in 1950} (11.
a4 Rb8 12. a5 b5 13. axb6 Qxb6 14. g4 {was Dubov – Korobov, 2017.}) 11… Rd8
12. Qe2 $146 (12. f4 Nc5 {was Rayner – Arakhamia Grant, 2001, 0-1.}) 12… Nf8
$2 {“With a knight on f8 I cannot be mated”, as Larsen is fond of saying. But
here it is more important that Black loses control over e5.} (12… Bf8 {
to be followed by …Rb8, …b5 and …Bb7 seems a better scheme of
development. With the rooks on d8 and b8 Black must beware of White’s little
tactic e5 dxe5 Nc6 forking the rooks. But in most cases Black should get at
least one pawn and fair value for the exchange.}) 13. f4 $16 Rb8 14. Rad1 Bd7
15. e5 (15. g4 d5 16. e5) 15… Ne8 {[#]} 16. Nf5 $1 {A familiar trick in the
Sicilian} Ng6 ({if} 16… exf5 17. Nd5 $18) 17. Nxe7+ Nxe7 18. Ne4 d5 19. Nd6
$1 Qa5 $2 (19… Bc6) 20. Qh5 (20. g4) 20… Nxd6 21. exd6 Nf5 22. g4 Nxd6 {[#]
} ({Of course not} 22… Ne3 $4 23. Qe5 $18 {with a double attack on g7 and e3}
(23. Qg5 {is crushing also} g6 24. Qf6 d4 25. Bxd4 e5 26. fxe5 Nxg4 27. Qxf7+
Kh8 28. e6+ Ne5 29. Qf6+ Kg8 30. Bxe5 {and its mate in 6.})) 23. f5 $1 Qxa2 24.
Be5 (24. fxe6 Bxe6 25. Qe5) 24… Ne8 {Giving up the exchange does not help
much.} (24… Bb5 25. Rf2 {[%cal Gd1a1] threatening Ra1} Qa5 26. fxe6 {wins
quickly}) 25. fxe6 Bxe6 26. Bxb8 Rxb8 27. Qe5 $1 Rc8 28. Bxd5 Nf6 29. Bxe6 Re8
30. Bxf7+ Kxf7 31. Rxf6+ $1 1-0
[/pgn]
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (BT Batsford, 1977) by Harry Golombek :
“British international master and ten times British Champion, Penrose was born in Colchester and came from a chess-playing family.
Lionel Sharples Penrose, FRS (11 June 1898 – 12 May 1972)
His father and mother (Margaret) both played chess and his father, Professor Lionel Sharples Penrose, in addition to being a geneticist of world-wide fame, was a strong chess-player and a good endgame composer. Jonathan’s older brother Oliver, was also a fine player.
Oliver Penrose FRS FRSE (born 6 June 1929) is a British theoretical physicist
Roger Penrose won the Nobel prize for physics in 2020.
Roger Penrose. Nobel Laureate
Shirley Hodgson (née Penrose) is a high flying geneticist.
Prof. Shirley Hodgson
Jonathan learnt chess at the age of four, won the British Boys championship at thirteen and by the time he was fifteen was playing in the British Championship in Felixstowe in 1949.
Press agency caption for photograph abovePress agency caption for photograph above
A little reluctant to participate in international tournaments abroad, he did best in the British Championship which he won a record number of times, once more than HE Atkins. He won the title consecutively from 1958 to 1963 and again from 1966 to 1969.
Boy Chess Champion. New York Times photo shows 14 year old J. Penrose 14 year old by chess champion of Britain, in play at the British Chess Championships at Bishopsgate Institute today. He has had great success in the tournament so far, beating men far above his age and experience. 2nd September 1948. Photograph by Reginald WebsterPress agency caption for photograph above
He also played with great effect in nine Olympiads. Playing on a high board for practically all the time, he showed himself the equal of the best grandmasters and indeed, at the Leipzig Olympiad he distinguished himself by beating Mikhail Tal, thereby becoming the first British player to defeat a reigning World Champion since Blackburne beat Lasker in 1899.
ARB Thomas and Jonathan Penrose at the Hastings Congress of 1950/1951
{[%evp 0,77,14,29,8,5,0,0,58,58,90,90,99,98,98,98,92,41,71,54,67,47,50,50,60,
17,11,11,11,29,25,-24,26,32,78,97,133,100,113,100,96,82,124,87,113,107,150,179,
179,220,220,229,229,229,269,201,201,201,201,201,206,205,252,252,252,252,308,
319,432,402,479,480,534,549,866,881,888,888,895,895] Jonathan Penrose war
Jahre lang einer der führenden englischen Spieler. 1979 spielte er seine
letzten Partien, die auch von der Mega Datenbank erfasst sind; seine
Schachlaufbahn war damit aber noch lange nicht beendet, denn nun stieg er im
Fernschach zur absoluten Weltspitze auf. Doch im Nahschach wird sein Name wohl
für immer mit dieser einen Partie von der Schacholympiade in Leipzig verknüpft
sein. Die Sowjetunion war auf einem Triumpfmarsch sondergleichen – jedes
einzelnen Match wurde gewonnen und bis zur letzten Runde gab es auch keine
einzige Niederlage in einer Einzelpartie, bis eben zu dieser.} 1. d4 $1 {
Penrose war ein e4-Spieler und warf Tal nun aus der Vorbereitung.} Nf6 2. c4 e6
3. Nc3 c5 {Tal will den vollen Punkt. Objektiv ist Ben-Oni aber leider
minderwertig.} 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5 g6 6. e4 d6 7. Bd3 Bg7 8. Nge2 O-O 9. O-O {
Ich spiele diesen Aufbau selbst und glaube an ihn. Weiß wird das Feld g4 mit
h2-h3 schützen und steht dann schon zu f2-f4 bereit. Schwarz krankt an seiner
Raumnot – ein Zug wie Bg4 steht hier nicht zur Verfügung.} a6 {Alternativen
wie Na6-c7 und erst dann a6 sowie auch 9…b6 gelten heute als
aussichtsreicher. RR: Diese aus schwarzer Sicht pessimistische Einschätzung
gilt seit dem Buch von John Watson über die Ben-Oni-Verteidigung nicht mehr.
Viel mehr scheint der Aufbau mit 9…a6 sogar am besten zu sein.} 10. a4 Qc7
11. h3 Nbd7 12. f4 Re8 13. Ng3 c4 14. Bc2 Nc5 (14… Rb8 $1 15. Be3 Nc5 {
ist die Hauptvariante.}) 15. Qf3 (15. Be3 Nfxe4 16. Ncxe4 Nxe4 17. Bxe4 f5 18.
Qe2 fxe4 19. f5 $13) 15… Nfd7 ({Schwarz sollte} 15… Rb8 {spielen, um
möglichst schnell b5 durchzusetzen. Nach} 16. e5 dxe5 (16… Nfd7 17. Nce4 Nxe4
18. Nxe4 dxe5 19. f5 $36) 17. fxe5 Rxe5 18. Bf4 Nfd7 {erhält Schwarz Spiel für
die Qualität.}) 16. Be3 b5 17. axb5 Rb8 18. Qf2 axb5 {Das nun folgende
Bauernopfer ist zum Standardverfahren für diesen Stellungstyp und die ganze
Variante mit Ld3 und Sge2 geworden.} 19. e5 $1 dxe5 20. f5 $1 (20. fxe5 Rf8 21.
d6 Qc6 22. Nce4 Bxe5 $13) 20… Bb7 21. Rad1 Ba8 $2 ({Es gibt eine Grundregel
bei dieser Bauernstruktur: Wenn Schwarz den “störenden” Bauern e5 zurückopfern
kann, sollte er es auch tun.} 21… e4 $1 {mit unklarer Stellung; Schwarz kann
z.B. nach Bf4 immer ganz gut die Qualität opfern, weil der Bg7 dann noch mehr
zum Riesen wird.}) 22. Nce4 $16 {Ein Traumfeld für jeden Springer.} Na4 $6 {
Verliert glatt.} 23. Bxa4 bxa4 24. fxg6 fxg6 25. Qf7+ Kh8 26. Nc5 Qa7 27. Qxd7
(27. Nge4 $1) (27. Rf2 $1 {droht Springerabzug}) 27… Qxd7 28. Nxd7 Rxb2 29.
Nb6 Rb3 30. Nxc4 Rd8 31. d6 Rc3 32. Rc1 Rxc1 33. Rxc1 Bd5 34. Nb6 Bb3 35. Ne4
h6 36. d7 Bf8 37. Rc8 Be7 38. Bc5 Bh4 39. g3 1-0
[/pgn]
Jonathan Penrose vs Mikhail Tal, Leipzig Olympiad, 1960, 1-0, Modern Benoni
A deep strategist who could also hold his own tactically, he suffered from the defect of insufficient physical stamina and it was this that was to bring about a decline in his play and in his results. He collapsed during a game at the Ilford Chess Congress, and a year later, at the Siegen Olympiad of 1970, he had a more serious collapse that necessitated his withdrawal from the event after the preliminary groups had been played. The doctors found nothing vitally wrong with him that his physique could not sustain.
He continued to play but his results suffered from a lack of self-confidence and at the Nice Olympiad of 1974 he had a wretched result on board 3, winning only 1 game and losing 6 out of 15.
Darga V Penrose 29th December 1955: Klaus Darga of Germany in play against Britain’s Jonathan Penrose during the International Chess Congress at Hastings. (Photo by Folb/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
Possibly too his profession (a lecturer in psychology) was also absorbing him more and more and too part less and less in international and national chess.
Jonathan Penrose
Yet, he had already done enough to show that he was the equal of the greatest British players in his command and understanding of the game and he ranks alongside Staunton, Blackburne, Atkins and CHO’D Alexander as a chess figure of world class.”
From The Oxford Companion to Chess by Hooper & Whyld :
“The leading English player during the 1960s, International Master (1961), International Correspondence Chess Master (1980), lecturer in psychology. Early in his chess career Penrose decided to remain an amateur and as a consequence played in few international tournaments. He won the British Championship from 1958 to 1963 and from 1966 to 1969, ten times in all (a record); and he played in nine Olympiads from 1952 to 1974, notably scoring + 10=5 on first board at Lugano 1968, a result bettered only by the world champion Petrosyan.
IM Dr. Jonathan Penrose OBE
In the early 1970s Penrose further restricted his chess because the stress of competitive play adversely affected his health.”
The second edition (1996) adds this :
“He turned to correspondence play, was the highest rated postal player in the world 1987-9, and led the British team to victory in the 9th Correspondence Olympiad.”
{[%evp 0,59,19,38,40,41,41,32,50,22,81,63,88,56,68,60,55,48,91,78,64,64,36,62,
41,29,56,56,50,30,34,3,32,38,18,31,48,48,41,40,90,31,30,51,183,-72,-72,177,164,
164,160,310,262,262,275,253,253,299,726,726,29991,29992]} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3.
d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 {The Sicilian Kan or Paulsen} 5. Nc3 {It’s a matter of
taste between this} ({and} 5. c4 {although in correspondence play the more
lively alternative is generally preferred.}) 5… Qc7 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. Be3 Nf6 8.
O-O Ne5 ({Alternatives are} 8… Nxd4 9. Bxd4 Bc5) ({or} 8… b5) 9. Be2 $1 {
Perfectly justified by the fact that Black is wasting time with his knight.
White withdraws in order to kick back with f4.} ({9.Be2! is a clear
improvement on} 9. h3 {, which does rather weaken the king position for no
other reason than to prevent the illusory threat of Ng4.}) 9… b5 10. f4 Nc4
11. Bxc4 Qxc4 12. e5 {[#]} Nd5 ({Some thought must have been given to the
complicated alternative} 12… b4 {which gives White a dangerous attack but
nothing clear.} {A sample line illustrates the difficulty Black would face is}
13. Qf3 {[%cal Gf3a8]} (13. exf6 bxc3 14. b3 Qd5 15. fxg7 Bxg7) 13… Rb8 (
13… bxc3 $1 14. Qxa8 cxb2 15. Rab1 Nd5 16. Bf2 Bb4 17. Qb8) 14. exf6 bxc3 15.
b3 Qc7 16. f5 Bb7 17. Bf4 d6 18. Qe3 e5 19. fxg7 Bxg7 20. f6 $1 {Perhaps he
could survive such a position but the king would be trapped and uncomfortable
on his central perch.}) 13. Nxd5 Qxd5 14. Qe2 Bb7 15. Rad1 Qe4 {It is
essential for the black queen to remain in the centre to try and inhibit the
white attack by keeping active.} ({To that end grabbing material with} 15…
Qxa2 {would be equivalent to suicide; after} 16. b3 $1 {shutting off the white
square escape followed quickly by f5 White would have a winning attack.}) 16.
Qf2 Be7 17. f5 Bh4 $146 (17… O-O $2 18. f6 $18) (17… O-O-O 18. Rd3 {
[%cal Gd3c3]}) 18. Qd2 {[%cal Gf1f4] threatening Rf4 and a double capture on e6
} Qd5 19. c3 h5 {[%cal Gh5h3] attempting to get the pawn to h3. a very slow
procedure which is rapidly punished.} ({better was} 19… Bd8 20. a4 {keeping
the black king centralised.}) 20. a4 $1 {Stopping any thoughts of queenside
castling and weakening Black’s hold on the critical white squares.} Be7 21.
axb5 Qxe5 $2 {[#]} (21… axb5 22. fxe6 dxe6 23. Qf2 O-O-O $16) 22. Nc6 $1 dxc6
23. Qd7+ Kf8 24. Bd4 $18 Bc8 ({If} 24… Qb8 25. fxe6 f6 26. Bxf6 {wins}) 25.
Qxc6 Qb8 26. fxe6 f6 27. Bc5 $1 {[%cal Gd1d8]} Bxe6 28. Bxe7+ Kf7 ({If} 28…
Kxe7 29. Rfe1 Qc8 30. Rd6 $18 (30. Rxe6+ Qxe6 31. Qb7+ Kf8 32. Qxa8+ $18)) 29.
Bxf6 {An excellent final stroke.} gxf6 30. Rd7+ {and Black resigned.} {If} Bxd7
31. Qxf6+ {is a quick mate.} 1-0
[/pgn]
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976) by Anne Sunnucks :
“International Master (1961) and British Champion in 1958 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1967, 1968 and 1969.
Jonathan Penrose was born in Colchester on 7th October 1933, the son of Professor LS Penrose, the well-known geneticist, who was also a strong player and composer of endgame studies.
The whole Penrose family plays chess and Jonathan learned the game when he was 4. At the age of 12 he joined Hampstead Chess Club and the following year played for Essex for the first time, won his first big tournament, the British Boys’ Championship, and represented England against Ireland in a boy’s match, which was the forerunner of the Glorney Cup competition, which came into being the following year.
By the time he was 17 Penrose was recognised as one of the big hopes of British Chess. Playing in the Hastings Premier Tournament for the first time in `1950 – 1951, he beat the French Champion Nicholas Rossolimo and at Southsea in 1950 he beat two International Grandmasters, Effim Bogoljubov and Savielly Tartakower.
Penrose played for the British Chess Federation in a number of Chess Olympiads since 1952. In 1960, at Leipzig, came one of the best performances of his career, when he beat the reigning World Champion, Mikhail Tal. He became the first British player to beat a reigning World Champion since JH Blackburne beat Emmanuel Lasker in 1899, and the first player to defeat Tal since he won the World Championship earlier that year. Penrose’s score in this Olympiad was only half-a-point short of the score required to qualify for the International Grandmaster title.
IM Dr. Jonathan Penrose OBE
His ninth victory in the British Championships in 1968 equalled the record held by HE Atkins, who has held the title more times than any other player.
Penrose is a lecturer in psychology at Enfield College of Technology and has never been in a position to devote a great deal of time to the game. He is married to a former contender in the British Girls Championship and British Ladies’s Championship, Margaret Wood, daughter of Frank Wood, Hon. Secretary of the Oxfordshire Chess Association.
Again from British Chess : “In updating this report we find striking evidence of Penrose’s prowess as a correspondence player. Playing on board 4 for Britain in the 8th Correspondence Chess Olympiad he was astonishingly severe on the opposition, letting slip just one draw in twelve games! Here is one of the eleven wins that must change the assessment of a sharp Sicilian Variation.”
