Dr. Christopher Reeves, courtesy of British Chess, page 235. Photographer unknown
BCN remembers Dr. A(lfred) Christopher Reeves who passed away on Monday, December 3rd, 2012 in St. Agnes, Cornwall. His probate record (#4073868) is dated December 3rd, 2012 being recorded in the Bristol registry.
Alfred Christopher Reeves was born in Wharfedale, Yorkshire on Sunday, February 19th, 1939. His mother’s name was Tomlin.
Alfred detested his first name to the extent that he asked people to call him Christopher and, when asked, told them that the A was for Arthur. For this reason much of the chess literature uses Arthur whereas public records use Alfred.
In British Chess Magazine, Volume 133 (2013), Number 1 (January), page 2 we have this obituary from James Pratt:
“Alfred Christopher Reeves (Leeds, 19 ii 1939 – St Agnes?, 3 xii 2012). Chris Reeves was a FIDE Master of Composition. He toyed with entering the priesthood but became a child psychotherapist. He started composing (“…my solace and diversion …”) in 1960, largely specialising in the orthodox two move field. Though not a prolific composer, his work was known worldwide.
He was Sub-Editor of The Problemist”
From the The Encyclopaedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977), Harry Golombek OBE, John Rice writes:
“British problemist, output consists of skilfully constructed two-movers in the modern style.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976), Anne Sunnucks wrote: :
“Problem composer. Since 1960 he has composed about 70 modern-style two movers, and is considered to be one of the most talented British composers. His originality and technique enable him to build into tangible form what would be no more than a passing idea for most composers. He has edited the problem section of Correspondence Chess, and he controlled BCF tourneys and International Team matches.”
From British Chess (Pergamon Press, 1983) Botterill, Levy, Rice and Richardson we have this:
“I was born on February 19th, 1939, the second son of a doctor who practised in a busy Yorkshire coal-mining town. As a youngster I acquired a taste for chess problems as soon as I learnt the moves of the game.
I owe my initiation to the admirable column which DM Davey used to run in the weekly review The Tablet and to the enterprise of one of the masters of the boarding school to which I was sent when still quite young. Davey’s column catered for novice chess problemists like myself by conducting graded solving tournaments with modest handicaps.
These tournaments ran conveniently the length of the school term, just long enough to sustain a young person’s enthusiasm, The teacher in question used to put the week’s problem up on the school noticeboard and dozens of small schoolboys participated as a result. The Tablet column was not only a boon for beginners like me. It had a very discriminating band of solvers who were given ample space to express their views on each week’s problems. This had the additional effect of making it a popular forum for budding composers who need the stimulus and encouragement of audience response in what is, after all, a very solitary sort of pastime.
My fascination with chess problems soon diverted my energies away from the game itself. I was eight when I began solving. Another 13 years elapsed before I seriously tried my hand at composing. My immediate inspiration was the example of the then young trio of British composers, Barry Barnes, Michael Lipton and John Rice. Their latest work incorporating, try-play, and often exploiting complex patterns of relationships between mates, was regarded as unacceptably, ultramodern, in some quarters but found ready appreciation with the solvers of Davey’s column.
Other sorts of problems I had enjoyed; these I wanted to emulate. The powerful attraction their work had on me has made me chary ever since of the strictures of self-appointed guardians of chess problem ‘taste’, who suggest that the modern two-mover cannot hold the same interest for the solver as the more traditional type. It certainly did not have a negative effect on me.
Problem I was one of my earliest compositions, in fact the first to gain any sort of award. At the time I was a theological student destined for the priesthood. I recall having felt some scruples about indulging in the frivolous pastime of chess problem composition not that it prevented me from becoming thoroughly addicted!
I have found that a bad conscience makes a good chess problem, and the greatest spur for composition is the feeling that one should really be busy doing something else. The problem shows a duel between the white queen and the black knight on d5, each of whose eight possible moves feature as a unique defence against one of the white queen tries. Solvers have often found the key to this problem’ quite elusive.
The 1960s were my golden period of problem composition. They were my solace and diversion as I passed by way of theological studies through an Oxford degree to the foothills of a different career from the one I had originally envisaged, not the ‘cure of souls’ but the management and treatment of emotionally disturbed children and their families. By the end of the decade I was
already engaged in working as a Child Psychotherapist. Since then I have found that human problems have tended to displace my former involvement with problems of the chess pieces. Whereas
between 1960 and 1970 I composed seventy problems, in the subsequent decade I could manage only a dozen more. The reason for this slowing down in production, however, has not only been the demands of personal, family and professional life.
As a composer I have concentrated almost exclusively on the orthodox two-move field, one which if not yet exhausted nevertheless presents a major challenge to the composer to find something new to say or some new way of saying it. It is no accident (though I admit to a slight feeling of regret) of heterodox problems has expanded enormously in the past few years.
Of my eighty or so problems, fifty have been honoured in tournaments, ten with First prizes, ten with other prizes and the rest with Honourable Mentions and Commendations. My ambition is to
reach a respectable century of compositions, though I being to wonder whether I shall ever make the mark. I would also like to reach the FIDE Master norm for problem composition. I have
had twenty of my problems included in the triennial FIDE Albums so far, a few of them joint compositions. Here again, however, my productivity (or lack of it) may eventually tell against me.
Still, the problemist must always keep the business of honours in perspective. Composing problems is an essentially private business. Your opponent is the power of the pieces, not a fellow sitting opposite Vou. Unlike the chess player, one can keep one’s defeats to oneself when one puts the pieces away after a fruitless evening pondering over a board, so it seems only fair that
one’s successes likewise should be modestly recorded.
By a coincidence two of the three problems which I have selected to round off this brief note about myself and my compositions are ones which got no recognition from the tournament judge
at the time, although I count them amongst my best works.
I have chosen a trio of problems all roughly on the same theme, namely, the four possible moves of the pawn from its starting square. In chess problem parlance this is called the BP4M* theme when applied to the Black pawn, and the Albino theme when applied to the White pawn.
II and III show two ways in which four mates can be provided to meet each of the BP4M moves, only to be changed in the next phase of play. In II, the change is between mates set before the key and those operative after it; in III, the change is more radical, involving the transfer of the WR from one position to another, thereby creating two separate but related (or ‘twin’) problems. Incidentally, a good way to begin to get a taste of what composing involves is to take a problem like III and try to express the theme in full (here the changed BP4M) without resorting to the twinning device.
My last example, IV, shows a duel between white and black pawns, with the four Albino tries being met by the four possible BP4M defences.
(* BP4M is BCNs replacement for a word starting with p now considered by some as offensive.).
Whilst the player may rejoice in a victory soundly accomplished I can think of few pleasures to compare with the satisfaction which comes from accomplishing the sort of task which IV entails, especially when one is fairly sure that it has not been successfully achieved before. For me, at all events, this is what two-mover chess problem composition is all about: its is the ‘art if the all-but-impossible’!”
We remember IM Bob Wade OBE who was born 102 years ago today on Sunday, April 10th 1921
In 1979 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Civil Division Bob Wade was awarded the OBE. The citation read simply : “For services to Chess”
He won the BCF Presidents’ Award in 1986.
In the Foreword to the 2009 ECF Yearbook, President Gerry Walsh wrote :
“As I started this report I had just heard the sad news that IM Bob Wade had died aged 87. I first met Bob at one of the Whitby Congresses and in 1972 he played in the Teeside GM Tournament where I recall he beat the three Hungarian players Portisch, Bilek and Sax (ed : aged 51).”
“I received the sad news that Bob Wade passed away at the age of eighty seven. He played his last tournament in London in August. When I was young I read about his exploits as a chess player, and he was the arbiter in many important chess events. I met him in 1993 when I was the organizer of the first part of the match Karpov – Timman, played in The Netherlands in three different cities: Zwolle, Arnhem, and Amsterdam. He was the only member of the Appeals Committee and Bob was always present watching the games in the playing hall. He gave me invaluable advice about all elements of the match venues. It was very clear that he was an experienced chess player and arbiter, and I learned many things from him. May he rest in peace.”
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
Wade was Southern Counties (SCCU) champion for the 1956-57, 1957-58 and 1964-65 seasons.
R. G. Wade, British Champion
From the Preface of The World Chess Championship : 1951 by Lionel Sharples Penrose we have :
“Mr. Wade is also passionately devoted to the game. Before coming to Europe, he was three times champion of New Zealand. He had played in tournaments in England but his chief successes have been on the Continent. At Venice in 1950, he obtained a high place in a very severe contest in which some of the strongest Russia, Czech, Dutch, French, Italian, North and South American players took part. Much of his time is occupied in chess organising and teaching. He is an acting vice-president of the F.I.D.É and in this official capacity he attended the match in Moscow, which is the subject of this book.”
“On May 20th, 1919, Thomas Graham Wade, aged 27, Sergeant in the NZ Expeditionary Force, repatriated with honour from war-time service in Egypt, Gallipoli and France, married Amy Lilian Neave, aged 21, in South Dunedin. A New Zealander of Scots and English descent, his family was Graham from Montrose. The family name, Wade, came from Marshall George Wade, the soldier and engineer who led the Hanoverian forces against the Scots at the time of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion and was immortalised in the original third verse of the British national anthem:
Lord, grant that Marshal Wade, May by thy mighty aid, Victory bring.
May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush, Rebellious Scots to crush, God save the King.
IM Bob Wade
Robert Graham Wade, known in the Scots manner to his family as Robin, and later to his many friends as Bob, was their first child, born April 10th, 1921, at Dunedin. Over the next few years he was joined by sisters, Lilian, Agnes, Betty, June, his brother Ted and finally by his youngest sister Amy. The family lived for a number of years at Portobello.
At that time, Portobello was a scattered community of about 150 people with three shops and a pub on the Otago Peninsula. Bob attended Portobello Primary School, a small country school, finished “dux” or top of class, and then attended the King Edward Technical High School at Stuart Street in Dunedin.”
IM Bob Wade
In The Oxford Companion to Chess (OUP, 1984 & 1996), Hooper & Whyld:
“Wade Variation, 147, also known as the Modern Variation, in the Queen’s Gambit Declined, Meran Variation, from Bogoljubow-Wade, Oldenburg, 1949;
1239 in the French Defence, introduced by Wade in a match against Schmid in 1950.
Hooper & Whyld go on to write :
“New Zealand-born Robert Graham Wade (1921- ) won the championship of his homeland three times before moving to England as a young man, He won the British Championship twice and trained many English players.”
Aside from the two variations mentioned by Hooper & Whyld there are other Wade Variations :
which Jim Plaskett dubbed the “Sidestep Variation”
and
which is the Pytel-Wade Variation of the Scandinavian Defence.
Anne Sunnucks wrote in The Encyclopaedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976) :
“International Master (1950), International Judge (1958), New Zealand Champion three times and British Champion in 1952 and 1970.
Bob Wade was born in New Zealand on 10th April 1921 and is a professional chess player. He has lived in England for many years and has played regularly for the British Chess Federation team in Chess Olympiads. He has played a prominent part in coaching schemes for juniors and is largely responsible for recent successes of English juniors in international events.
Bob Wade v. Aldecoa of the Philippines from the 1958 Munich Olympiad played on October 9th 1958. The game was won by Bob in 60 moves. From the collection of David Jarrett with many thanks.
He is chess correspondent of Associated Newspapers and Independent Television News and editor of a series of books on Contemporary Chess Openings published by Batsford.
Author of a number of books on the game, his publications include books on the World Championship of 1951, 1957 (ed : this book was, in fact, by Golombek) and 1963, the first in collaboration with W. Winter; The Closed Ruy Lopez (Batsford, 1970) in collaboration with LS Blackstock and PJ Booth: World Chess Championship (Batsford, 1972) in collaboration with Svetozar Gligoric; Games of RJ Fischer (Batsford, 1972) in collaboration with KJ O’Connell and Soviet Chess (Neville Spearman, 1968).
Wade was a member of the FIDE Laws Commission from 1950 to 1952.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977), Harry Golombek OBE :
“International Master who was born at Dunedin, New Zealand, but came to live In England in 1946 and has represented both countries on different occasions. He has nearly always done well in British Championships and won the title in Chester in 1952 and again at Coventry in 1970. He had played for the British Chess Federation at the Olympiads of 1954, 1956, 1958, 1960 and 1962, winning the shortest game of the Varna Olympiad in that year in nine moves against Anton Kinzel of Austria
He played for the New Zealand team at the 1970 Olympiad at Siegen but returned to the BCF team at Skopje in 1972.
His best individual international results were a fifth place at Venice 1950 and again fifth at the Masters section of the Capablanca Memorial at Cienfuegos in Cuba in 1975. Possessor of a sharp clear-cut style of play, he once drew a match with the West German grandmaster Lothar Schmid with neither side drawing a game, though this was before Schmid received the grandmaster title.
He has done much valuable work in England teaching the young, and was responsible for the text of a highly successful television series in 1975.
His main books are : Soviet Chess, London, 1967; Botvinnik-Bronstein Match 1951 (in co-operation with W. Winter), London, Toronto 1951; Match Petrosian-Botvinnik, London, 1963; Sousse 1967, The Chess Player, Nottingham, 1968.”
From British Chess (Pergamon Press, 1983) we have this article from George Botterill :
“In the Birthday Honours list of 1979 Bob Wade was awarded the OBE for his services to chess. Few rewards can have been more thoroughly earned. For some reason, Bob has always been held in greater esteem abroad than in the country for which he has done so much. But the many players who have turned to him for advice or who have simply enjoyed his hospitality, which is always ungrudgingly available to fellow chess players, know the measure of his dedication to the game.
Theodore Tylor vs Bob Wade at Paignton 1953. Bob held TT to a draw to secure first place
Wade was born in Dunedin, a third generation New Zealander of Scots and English ancestry. He started a a career as a civil servant in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Having won the New Zealand Championship in 1944 and 1945 he was sent over to participate in the British Championship of 1946. The result was not exactly a success – a mere 3.5 points out of 11. But Bob was not to be disheartened so easily. Feeling he was capable of better things, he took leave of absence in 1947 and did the circuit, such as it then was, of chess tournament in Europe and North America.
Bob giving a simul in Leeds in the 1950s
When he returned to New Zealand he found that he had been transferred to another department in a civil service reorganisation. The new job was not so congenial. He stuck it out for 6 months – during which time he won the New Zealand Championship for a third time – and then handed in his resignation to take up the precarious life of a chess professional.
IM Bob Wade
Settling in Britain he soon gained the IM title (ed : 1950). But even in those days when still a young man Wade did not concentrate exclusively on his own playing career. In 1949 he went to the FIDE congress and was one of the five people – the others were BH Wood, Ragozin, Zubarev and Rogarde – who collaborated on the writing of the official rules for the game.
Bob Wade OBE, Murray Chandler MNZM and David Anderton OBE at the 1986 Dubai Olympiad. Photograph by Frits Agterdenbos
He also served as a member of the commission that determined who the original holders of international titles would be. When you consider that Wade was also on the 1950 commission that decided the composition of the World Championship Interzonals, it becomes apparent that this man played a significant part in the shaping the structure of modern international chess.
Bob at a CentYMCA event with Neil Carr, Mike Wills, Aaron Rose and Jon Ady
Although rarely at the top in international tournaments, Wade was always a very dangerous player, capable on his day of beating anybody in the world. He won the British Championship twice at Chester in 1952 and at Coventry in 1970.
Bob playing Kick Langeweg at IBM 1961.
In recent years Wade has put his main energies into junior training and organisation and also into his work as the editor of Batsford’s highly productive and extremely successful series of chess books.
Bob with John Nunn and Boris Spassky at the GLC Masters
It is hard to say in what department one should place Wade’s greatest contributions to British Chess. Living through what is retrospect look to have been the Dark Ages of British chess – the 1950s and 1960s – he has demonstrated that even in a social and cultural environment that made playing chess economically ‘impossible’ profession to follow it was still possible to dedicate a life to chess, if one had the determination.
Leonard Barden, Henry Mutkin, Adrian Hollis and Bob Wade observe Nick Ivell vs Ken Regan at the 1983 Varsity match
During those years he was really the only British Player who regularly active in international tournaments. Since then he has been constantly active as an author, editor and adviser, always working to transform Britain into a country more congenial to good chess.
Bob at the demo board at London Central YMCA chess club.
But we suspect that he might regard this role as trainer and coach as the most important thing of all. He is, quite appropriately the British Chess Federation’s Chief National Coach.
Bob doing one of the things he loved best : teaching. He was discussing a position at Havana 1965. Dr JR Capablanca, son of the former world champion, on the right, interpreted.
If one had to choose a single best game from Wade’s whole tournament career, it would probably be this one.
George Botterill
Dr. Fazekas (left) playing Bob Wade at an Ilford Congress, photographer unknown
In the January 2009 issue of British Chess MagazineJohn Saunders wrote a ten page obituary as follows :
British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIX (129, 2009), #1 (January), pp. 34-43
John Saunders interviewed Bob at his Blackheath home and wrote this extensive article for the 1999 British Chess Magazine.
His detailed results in Olympiads, from olimpbase.org, follow.
Amsterdam 1954, England board 4, 6/12 (+4−4=4);
Moscow 1956, England board 3, 6½/14 (+2−3=9);
Munich 1958, England 1st reserve, 7/14 (+5−5=4);
Leipzig 1960, England 2nd reserve, 6/11 (+4−3=4);
Varna 1962, England 2nd reserve, 6/12 (+4−4=4);
Siegen 1970, New Zealand board 2, 9/15 (+7−4=4);
Skopje 1972, England board 3, 7½/14 (+4−3=7).
Wade won several middle-strength Master events in the British Isles: Ilford 1957 and 1968, Paignton 1959, Dublin 1962, and Southend-on-Sea 1965.
Wade was generally no more than a middle-ranking player in strong international tournaments. His other highlights against high-standard international-level competition include:
tied 4–5th at Haifa/Tel Aviv 1958 on 7½/13 (winner Samuel Reshevsky);
3rd at Bognor Regis 1959 on 7/10 (winner Erno Gereben);
5th at Reykjavík 1964 on 7½/13 (winner Mikhail Tal);
tied 4–5th at Málaga 1966 on 7/11; (winners Alberic O’Kelly de Galway and Eleazar Jiménez);
6th at Briseck 1971 on 7/13 (winner Gideon Barcza);
5th at Cienfuegos ‘B’ 1975 on 10/17; (winners Julio Boudy and Amador Rodriguez);
tied 7–12th in the World Senior Championship, Bad Woerishofen 1992, on 7½/11 (winner Efim Geller).
Wade was the only British player to have faced Bobby Fischer in tournament play (outside of Olympiads). They met three times, with Wade drawing one game and losing the other two.
Towards the end of his life Bob lived at 3, Hardy Road, Greenwich, London, SE3 7NS
Bob was an active author and wrote (or co-wrote) around 22 books as follows :
The World Chess Championship, W.Winter & RG Wade, Turnstille Press, 1951Hastings Chess Congress 1955-56, RG Wade & W. Ritson Morry, En Passant Chess PublicationsChess Tactics for Beginners, RG Wade, Bott and Morrison, 1960The World Chess Championship: 1963 Botvinnik vs Petrosian, WadeSoviet Chess, RG Wade, Neville Spearman (UK) & David McKay Company, Inc, New York, 1968Sousse 1967 : International Chess Tournament, RG Wade, The Chess Player, 1968The Velimirovic Attack, Sozin Sicilian, TD Harding and RG Wade, Chessman Publications Ltd., 1969.The Closed Ruy Lopez, Wade, Blackstock and Booth, Batsford, 1970Palma 1970 : Interzonal Chess Tournament, RG Wade and LS Blackstock, The Chess Player, 1970The Games of Robert J. Fischer, Robert Wade and O’Connell, Batsford 1972, 2nd ed. 1972, reprinted 1973, First limp edition 1981, Reprinted 1985, 1981, 1989, Second edition (The Complete Games of Bobby Fischer) 1992World Championship Interzonals, Wade, Blackstock and Kotov, Batsford, 1974The World Chess Championship, Gligoric and Wade, Batsford, 1974The Marshall Attack, Wade & Harding, Batsford, 1974Playing Chess, RG Wade, Batsford/TVTimes, 1974Sicilian Lasker-Pelikan, 1978, Batsford, Wade, Speelman, Povah and Blackstock44th USSR Championship Final Moscow 1977, RG Wade, LS Blackstock and HC Thomas, Master Chess Publications, 197745th USSR Championship Final Leningrad 1977, RG Wade, LS Blackstock and HC Thomas, Master Chess Publications, 1977Bugojno, 1978, RG Wade, LS Blackstock and HC Thomas, Master Chess Publications, 197846th USSR Chess Championships 1978, RD Keene, JDM Nunn, RG Wade, Master Chess Publications, 1978, ISBN 0 906634 00 8Tournament of the Stars:~ Montreal 1979, RG Wade, LS Blackstock, AL Hosking, Master Chess Publications, 1979Interpolis Supertournament:~ Tilburg 1979, LS Blackstock & RG Wade, Master Chess Publications, Chess, Sutton Coldfield, 1979Fighting Chess, Kasparov and Wade, Harper Collins, 1983Trends in the Reti, Volume 1, RG Wade, 1992Batsford Chess Endings, Speelman, Tisdall and Wade, 1993Chess for Children, Ted Nottingham and Bob Wade, Sterling Juvenile, 1996Trends in the Reti, Volume 2, RG Wade, 1996Winning Chess : Tactics and Strategies, Sterling Juvenile, 2001
In 2007 Ray Cannon published the following tribute :
Bob Wade : Tribute to a Chess Master, Ray Cannon, Impala, 2007
However, Paul McKeown remains Bob’s official biographer.
We remember Anthony Dickins who passed away this day (Wednesday, November 25th) in 1987.
Anthony Stewart Mackay Dickins was born at 1 Rivers Street, Bath, Somerset on Sunday, November 1st, 1914. On this day was the Battle of Coronel — The Royal Navy suffered its first defeat of World War I, after a British squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock met and was defeated by superior German forces led by Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee in the eastern Pacific.
1, Rivers Street, Bath, Somerset, BA1 2QA
Anthony’s parents were Frederick and Florence Dickins (née Mackay) Frederick was a Captain in the Royal Artillery and was born on 25th November 1879, commissioned on May 26th 1900. He became a Colonel on 26th May 1930 and retired November 25th 1936. He was alive in 1972 (aged 92) and living in Bexhill passing away aged 101/102. He was awarded the CIE which is “Companion, Order of the Indian Empire in 1914”.
Anthony was baptised on December 29th in Seend, Wiltshire. Anthony had a brother Frederick James Douglas born in 1907 who married Nellie or Peggie Moist (records are unclear).
It would appear that Florence and Anthony (aged 5) travelled to Bombay from Plymouth on board the SS City of York (Ellerman Lines) departing December 26th, 1919 presumably to visit his father in India. The ships master was J. McKellan.
At the time of the 1939 Census Anthony was residing in the Tavistock Hotel in Tavistock Square. His occupation was given as journalist and editor and described as single.
From the Hull Daily Mail (extant and renamed Hull Live) of March 4th, 1939 we have this part review of a magazine called The Joys of Poetry. Anthony was the editor :
Hull Daily Mail, 4th March 1939
He died in Lambeth Wednesday, November 25th) in 1987. We have yet to determine where he was buried or cremated.
“Anthony Dickins wrote A Guide to Fairy Chess (1967) and other books about fairy chess. He edited the column of non-original fairy problems for “The Problemist”. He was specialized in constructional problems and was also an International Judge.”
Anthony Stewart Mackay Dickins
From British Chess (Pergamon Press, 1984), Botterill, Levy, Rice and Richardson :
“Chess first entered my life seriously about 1950 at the well-known Mandrake Social and Chess Club in Meard Street, Soho, run by Harold Lommer and Boris Watson. Purely literary connections took me there in the first place, as it was a rendezvous for the literary fraternity, such as Dylan Thomas, David Gascoyne and others.
After the war Harold converted a small wine-vault into a tiny cramped chess-room, with some dozen tables and boards. Many well-known
personalities in the world of Chess were occasional visitors, such as Grandmasters Ossip Bernstein, Paul Keres, Jacques Mieses and Friedrich Sämisch; British Champions Willy Winter, Bob Wade and Dr. Fazekas; M. J. Franklin, now a British Master, and the Problemists, Dr. E. T. O. Slater and B. J. da C. Andrade. Mieses was then in his late eighties and charged a fee of half-a-crown (12.5 pence) for a game. When his name was mispronounced ‘Mister My-ziz’ he would say ‘I am Meister Mieses, not Mister My-ziz’.
Sämisch once played fourteen of us blindfold, defeating all except one, a very strong Indian player, Atta, who obtained a draw. My regular ‘partners’ were Vicki Weiss, the famous cartoonist, his brother Oscar, Richard Crewdson, Mr Keller (a professional who played sharply for a shifty shilling), Brian Mason, Colin ‘Puffer’ Evans, (whose strategy was to puff cigarette ash and smoke all over the board to bemuse the opponent) and Bob Troy (who always fell fast asleep immediately after making each move and had to be wakened on his next turn to play). There was a juke-box in the next room constantly blaring forth pop and bop. Most of all I played with Alex Distler, and with him always’variants of the game’ like Cylindrical Chess, Rifle Chess, Progressive Chess, or the Losing Game.
In this colourful and inspiring, if rather smoky and noisy, atmosphere I composed my first six chess problems, helpmates and cylindricals, though I did not then know of the existence of Problem books or magazines, nor had I heard of Sam Loyd, Max Lange, or T. R. Dawson when the Mandrake closed in the late fifties and Harold Lommer retired to Spain to write his two monumental works on Endgame Studies.
For the next 10 years or so I played at the West London and Athenaeum Chess Clubs, for Middlesex County and at Hastings congresses, meanwhile regularly solving the problems in the two evening newspapers for practice.
In 1965, in my 51st year, I discovered chess-problem magazines and the British Chess Problem Society, and was soon asked by John Rice to join the Fairy
Chess Correspondence Circle, whose director, W. Cross, perhaps the greatest solver of all time, guided my early footsteps in fairyland. At this point I compiled for my own use a summary of all the usual rules and conventions in Fairy Chess, as these were numerous and complicated. It occurred to me that a few other people might also welcome such a summary, so I put it into book form as A Guide to Fairy Chess, which I published by myself in 1967 under the imprint ‘The O Press’, a pun on the name ‘Kew’ where I was then living.
A Guide to Fairy Chess
To my amazement it had rave reviews (‘the comprehensive work, so long awaited’, ‘more like an encyclopaedia’, ‘the bible of Fairy Chess’) and sold like hot cakes, going into three editions, each one enlarged and revised, the third produced by Dover Publications, New York, in 1971. Two years later I edited Dover’s publication of T. R. Dawson’s Five Classics of Fairy Chess.
Five Classics of Fairy Chess, TR Dawson
In 1970 I flew to the States to spend a few days in the J. G. White collection in Cleveland, Ohio, researching historical material on Fairy Chess. This Ohio collection has the largest chess library in the world, and to my surprise I found that it contains also ‘every book or article ever written on or about ‘Omar Khayyam and Alice in Wonderland . To find oneself suddenly and unexpectedly transported, as if by magic carpet, into a superbly organised library with the most complete collections in the world of the three subjects that happen to be one’s own three principal literary interests is an experience that must approach closely to entering Nirvana, and I am happy to have had it. This visit enabled me to write A Short History of Fairy Chess (1975) and to give the lecture Alice in Fairyland to the Lewis Carroll Society in London, published in their journal Jabberwocky and reprinted by myself in 1976 (2nd edn 1978) .
A Short History of Fairy Chess, ASM Dickins
In 1972 I decided to present my (by then) extensive collection of Fairy Chess books and magazines to my old university library at Cambridge to prevent the possible break-up of the collection as a single unit, and to ensure that at least one fairly complete Fairy Chess collection was retained in Britain.
In 1968 I was invited to open a Fairy Chess section in The Problemist, organ of the BCPS, which I handed over to Dr. C. C. L. Sells in 1970, and from 1974 to 1981 I ran another column in that magazine called ‘Other Types’. This chess journalism has brought me into touch with many problemists, and made many friends for me, in foreign countries.
In 1967, on a visit to Mannheim for the Schwalbe annual meeting, I met Wilhelm Karsch, then editor of Feenschach, and in 1968 in Munich I again met Dr. Karl Fabel, whom I first came to know in London in 1967, and also Peter Kniest, one of the two present editors of Feenschach. In 1969, on a visit to Paris, a meeting was arranged for me at the late Jean Oudot’s flat, with Pierre Monr6al, J. P. Boyer, F. de Lionnais (author of the Dictionnaire des Echecs) and other French problemists, and altogether I have attended twenty three major problemist meetings in various countries, including FIDE meetings in The Hague, Wiesbaden, Canterbury and Helsinki. It has been my constant aim to try to encourage and cultivate the practice and study of Fairy Chess and to keep alive the great legacy that T.R. Dawson left to the world when he died in 1951.
In recent years I have developed close relations with the younger generation of West German problemists, who are very active in Fairy Chess, centred round 29-year-old Bernd Ellinghoven, who helps Peter Kniest to edit Feenschach and who printed my last booklet, Fairy Chess Problems (1979), containing poems as well as problems, combined in a new kind of fairy technique, for I believe that Fairy Chess represents in many ways the ‘poetry’ of Chess.
FAIRY CHESS PrOblems (1979)
For the 50th birthday of T. R. Dawson on the 28th November 1939 a certain Dr Lazarus of Budapest wrote in Fairy Chess Review: ‘T. R. D. these three letters represent a conception in the Poetry of Chess which is amongst the most ingenious of all its turns, one of its most strange and interesting phases… Without T.R.D. human culture would lack a factor in its development’. Those people (and there are some) who would banish Fairy Chess altogether from Caissa’s realm resemble the iron-hearted Mr. Gradgrinds who would abolish romance, mystery, poetry, invention, discovery and imagination from human life.
Fairy Chess Review
Elsewhere I have written: ‘The Game for Murderers, The Problem for Philosophers, Fairy Chess for Sufis’, because the aim of the game-player is to ‘mate’ (kill) the opponent (from Arabic, mat _ dead), while the problemist has no personal opponent to kill, but merely a philosophical problem to resolve. In Fairy Chess, however, the adept is transported to another plane of existence, to an ‘undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns’,to new’dimensions’ of thought (as in 3- and 4-dimensional problems) – in short, to Fairyland, to Nirvana.
The three problems represent my early, middle and later compositions. The helpmate in three moves (Black plays first in a helpmate) is a miniature culminating in an ideal Mate. C. H. O’D. Alexander was much tickled by what he called ‘the deceptive pawn’ on a2, which unexpectedly does not promote.
The Construction Task with 113 White moves, all ‘maintaining’ the legal stalemate position in which Black finds himself, is a standing record that defeated the previous record of 112 such moves obtained independently by six problemists in six countries, one of them an lnternational Master of FIDE.
The Knight’s Tour is one of the oldest genres of Fairy Chess, dating from the earliest days of chess, and in TR Dawson’s Fairy Chess Review he published many of them., including some that showed the ‘square numbers’ (1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64) all on one rank – in the present example I have added the extra strict condition that as many as possible of the numbers 1 to 16 must be in the SW corner and as many as possible of the numbers 1 to 32 must be in the W half of the board.
For two reasons the perfect ideal in this task cannot be attained, firstly because of the given position of the number 25, and secondly because it is not possible to make a Knight’s tour on a 4 x 4 board in the SW corner.
Solutions :
1. Helpmate, Evening News, 20th February 1957 dedicated to Harold Lommer
Helpmate in 3 moves
1. Kd5 Nb1
2. Kc4 e8=Q
3. Kb3 Qb5 mate
2. Construction Task Record, Feenschach 9341 Sep/Oct 1969 dedicated to Karl Fabel
113 unforced stalemate maintenances with Promotion in Play (Pawn promotions count as 4 moves) unforced as W has some moves that do not maintain stalemate, so he is not ‘forced’ to maintain it.
3. Knight’s Tour Chessics 5(180) July, 1978 dedicated to D. Nixon.
Knights tour with
a) All square number on 4th rank
b) maximum of 1-16 in SW quad
c) maximum of 1-32 in W half
Knight’s tour solution from ASM Dickins
From The Encyclopaedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977), Harry Golombek OBE, John Rice writes:
“British problemist, Founder of Q Press (1967) to publish books on fairy problems: A Guide to Fairy Chess (1967); An Album of Fairy Chess (1970); The Serieshelpmate (co-author, 1971). Has presented a large collection of problem books to Cambridge University Library. International Judge (1975).”
We remember Amos Burn who passed away on November 25th, 1925.
Amos Burn was born in Kingston-Upon-Hull on Sunday, December 31st 1848 to Amos and Mary Burn (née Webster). His father is recorded as a merchant. Amos and Mary were residents of Bourne Street at the time of the birth.
On February 15th 1849 Amos was baptized in All Saints Anglican Church, Sculcoates, Kingston-Upon-Hull
Amos married Martha Ann Jäger in Birkenhead on Dec 27th 1879. They had two daughters Elsie Martha, born 24th Oct 1880 and Hilda Marian, born 26th Oct 1881.
For further detail of ABs family please consult the excellent Amos Burn : A Chess Biography by Richard Forster
From British Chess Magazine, Volume XLV (45, 1925), page 491 we have this brief obituary notice (presumably written by RC Griffiths:
“Chessplayers all over the world will regret to hear that the well-known chess editor of The Field died in his flat at Luexembourg Gardens, Hammersmith, on November 25th, after a stroke the previous day, at the age of seventy-seven.
From British Chess Magazine, Volume XLV (45, 1925), page 491 we have this brief obituary notice (presumably written by RC Griffith:
We regret that as our December magazine is already paged we must leave an obituary notice and an appreciation of all he has done for Chess till next month.”
From British Chess Magazine, Volume XLVI (46, 1926), page 9 we have this detailed obituary (written by JH Blake:
“We had only just time last month to announce the decease of this famous player and chess editor. On the afternoon of 24th November he was at the City of London Chess Club in to all appearances normal health; he took a fellow-member home with him, and after completing the annotation of a game for his paper, was chatting with his guest when the fatal seizure overtook him; he never fully recovered consciousness, and died the following afternoon. He was buried at Hammersmith Cemetery on the 27th November.
Amos Burn was born at Hull on the 31st December, 184B. By way of coincidence, no less than three of the band of English chess masters were sons of the Yorkshire port, the other two being Boden (over twenty-two years senior) and Wisker (very little older than Burn).
In his early teens he was apprenticed to a firm of Liverpool cotton brokers. Most of the year l870 was spent in London. At least once, and probably three times in his life, he made prolonged business visits to America; the occasion as to which there is most certainty was about 1893-5, when he was a year or two at Chicago; Liverpool information puts another visit about 1902-3 (which would account for his non-participation in the Monte Carlo tournaments); and hints dropped by himself point to such a visit in 1882-3 ; this would account for his not competing in either event at the London congress of 1833, and for the non-inclusion of his portrait in the large group picture painted by A. Rosenbaum about 1882, and now hanging in the City of London Chess Clubroom. Upon returning to England he always settled down again in business at Liverpool, where he
was occupied, for some time at any rate, in sea insurance. From which it will be seen that at no time of his life was he dependent upon chess-playing as a means of livelihood; although it is difficult to resist the impression that at some periods, particularly 1886, 1B89 and 189B, the claims of business sat very lightly upon him.
His initiation into chess was made at about sixteen years of age, and is to be credited to John Saul, of the Liverpool Chess Club, who took great pains with his pupil, and is believed to have had much influence in the early formation of a sound style. So apt was the pupil, so thorough the teacher, that when in 1867 he joined the Liverpool Chess Club, he was placed at once in the Pawn and move class, and one of his earliest club exploits was to win the club handicap tournament; a rise not much less phenomenal than that of Blackburne at Manchester a few years earlier.
During his stay in London in 1870 he joined the City of London Chess Club, playing for it in a match with the Westminster Chess Club, and joining in the winter handicap, where however, he was knocked out in an early round. He seized every opportunity of obtaining practice with the best players of the day, and no doubt it was during this period that he came under the influence of Steinitz, whose tuition he later in life gratefully acknowledged to have been invaluable to him, and whom he unhesitatingly ranked as the world’s greatest player. During this year (and not 1887 as most notices of his career have stated) the first British Chess Association (Lowenthal’s) held a challenge cup tournament; Burn was a competitor, and tied for first prize with his townsman, Wisker, but was defeated in the tie-game. His next public appearances were at the annual tournaments of the Counties Chess Association, a provincial body formed for the express purpose of holding annual tournaments for about three classes of players, at some provincial town, and lasting one week; its principal tournament was, in the middle of the seventies, for a cup, to be held a year by the winner.
In 1873 Burn tied with Skipworth for first place (no tie-game was played), in 1874 he was first, in 1875 second (8. W. Fisher, late of the Battersea Club first), and first in 1876, this last victory making the cup his own. He did not appear in public play again until 1BB3, when (perhaps out of practice after a business stay in America) he was much less successful, only taking fourth prize at the Counties Association meeting at Birmingham.
The year 1886 marked his (rather late) entry upon the international tournament arena. The resuscitated British Chess Association held a masters’ tournament in London, in which Burn tied with Blackburne for first place, but lost the tie-game. From 1886 to 1912 inclusive he competed in twenty-two international tournaments;
we append a tabular statement giving all necessary particulars.
The tournament record of Amos Burn according to British Chess Magazine, Volume XLVI (46, 1926)
The greatest success was beyond all question that obtained at Cologne in 1898, where he was first to such renowned rivals as Charousek (second), Tchigorin (fourth), Steinitz (fifth) and Schlechter (equal sixth). But no mean place in the order of merit must be assigned to the second prize at Breslau in 18B9, where Dr. Tarrasch achieved the first of his great Series of successes, and such players as Bardeleben, Blackburne, Gunsberg, Mason and Schallopp were amongst the less successful competitors. The book of that tournament, in recognition of so striking a success, following upon the New York tournament with the Amsterdam victory treading closely upon its heels described Burn as the “tournament hero of the year”
In 1898 the Cologne tournament followed hard upon the long struggle at Vienna; these events of these two years go to prove his remarkable power of endurance : he fared best in the most prolonged. efforts.
During this period of international activity Burn did not altogether eschew competitors of a national or sectional character. Early in 1889 he won first prize in an Irish Chess Association tournament at Dublin, Pollock and Mason taking the next two places. In 1897-8-9 and 1901 he competed at Llandudno for the Craigside challenge cup, which he won three times in the four tournaments. He also won a Midland counties tournament at Birmingham in 1899, with Atkins second.
Of individual match play there is not much to record. A match with Bird in 1886 (two more opposed styles of play could hardly be imagined) was begun as one of five up, with the score at four all was extended to ten up, and was finally drawn by agreement with the score at at nine all. In the same year a match of five up with Captain Mackenzie was drawn with as score of four all; the curiosity of this
match is that Mackenzie won the first four games and Burn the last four. A match is known to have been played in 1875 with the Rev. John Owen, the leading player of the Liverpool club until Burn’s rise ; this Burn won by 11 to 6. Mr. Owen, however, told the present writer (about 1895) that he had contested several matches with Burn, who had not always been the winner; no record remains of these encounters; but as neither player had any love for the practice of recording the moves of a game during its progress its absence is not surprising. Similarly, a short match was begun with the Rev. A. B. Skipworth at his Lincolnshire rectory, somewhere in the late eighties, but whether finished is doubtful; probably the record of this is buried in the files of a Horncastle or Louth newspaper in which Mr. Skipworth conducted a chess column at the time.
Burn took part in the matches by cable with America on four occasions. In 1896 and 1898 he lost to Showalter; in 1907 he drew with Marshall; and in 1911 he defeated Marshall (who was then in London) over the board.
His connection with the Liverpool Chess Club lasted from 1867 until his death. He served the offices of librarian in 1877, vice-president in 1880, president in 1881, 1888, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1911. In 1887 he was elected an honorary member retaining that qualification until then end. In 1888 he was presented by the club with a handsome chessboard and set of chessmen, the box bearing an inscribed silver plate, in recognition of the tournament successes he had already achieved, and as a token of the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow members.
As a chess journalist Burn commenced in 1871 when he edited
a column in the Liverpool Weekly Albion, how long this continued we do not know. In 1911 he became chess editor of the Liverpool Courier. His annotation of games for this column attracted wjde-spread notice and was much quoted both at home and abroad. When therefore, on the death in 1913 of Leopold Hoffer, Burn was appointed to The Field, it was to the general satisfaction of British chessplayers everywhere. His treatment of the games published in that paper was of the most sound and reliable character, and no pains were ever spared to arrive at the inner secret of the most intricate position. The high standard set by Steinitz when editing the same column thirty to forty years before, was worthily maintained by his quondam pupil on becoming his successor.
Burn’s style of play was solid and prudent rather than aggressive; he has more than once mentioned with pardonable pride that amongst his peers of master rank he was chiefly famed for “stubborn defence.” A favourite aphorism was, “The player who combinates is lost !” Nevertheless it is to be at least suspected that this was
the result of his early chess education and a strong power of self-control rather than of his predilections. An oft-repeated saying, perhaps the one which will be in London longest remembered, was “toujours attaque” ; his preference for being first player was stronger than that of most players, strong as that often is; and when shown
a game or position he had very little hesitation in taking sides, almost always with the attack; only with the defence when his initial judgment told him that unsoundness was afoot. But “counterattack is the soul of defence,” and in that he could be terrible. A collection of, say, twenty of his best games would probably yield a large pre-
ponderance of Black as his side. Once interested in a game (or position) his concentration upon it was of the most intense kind, and could only with difficulty be diverted. Even in skittle play, a cup of coffee, ordered at the start, would stand at his elbow unnoticed; was the opponent at some point long in moving he would suddenly become aware of its presence, and lift the cup; but let the opponent at the same instant raise his hand to move, back went the cup to the table untasted, and the beverage would be eventually consumed quite cold. His pipe fared little better; badly loaded, it took innumerable matches to light, was laid down after a few puffs, went out, and was
re-lit with the same difficulty. Did a friendly onlooker hint that a difference in the loading of the pipe would save much trouble, he would, if he succeeded in gaining attention, be quietly and painlessly extinguished with “How long have you been a smoker ?” The same intensity of concentration was carried into his work for the Field, and it is known that he often sat through the small hours of the morning to complete an analysis rather than interrupt the current of his ideas. Had he but spared himself in this respect —!
Of short figure, slight frame, and abstemious in habit, he was remarkably ” wiry ” ; at 77 his head of hair was quite untouched by the hand of time, and but for the grizzling of the beard he would have passed for no more than sixty. Perhaps a little difficult of approach by strangers, when his attention and interest were once gained he was the soul of courtesy, and would take unstinted trouble to oblige his interlocutor, or to help a colleague.
At the chessboard his courtesy to his opponent was perfect; he “played the game” in the best sense of the words; and his tribute to Blackburne’s chivalry as an opponent was worth the more because it accorded with his practise. With him passes the last of the line of English great masters!
In 2006 an article by WD Rubinstein was published in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
From The Oxford Companion to Chess (OUP, 1984), Hooper & Whyld :
“One of the world’s top ten players at the end of the 19th century. Born in Hull : he learned chess when 16, came to London at the age of 21, and rapidly established himself as a leading English player, A pupil of Steinitz, he developed a similar style; both he and his master were among the world’s best six defensive players, according to Nimzowitsch. Not wishing to become yet another impecunious professional. Burn decided to put his work (first a cotton broker then a sugar broker) before his chess, and he remained an amateur. He made several long visits to America, and was often out of practice when he played serious chess.
Until his thirty-eighth year he played infrequently and only in national events, always taking first or second prize. From 1886 to 1889 he played more often. In 1886 he drew matches with Bird (+9-9) and Mackenzie (+4=2-4); at London 1887 he achieved his best tournament result up to this time, first prize (+8—1) equal with Gunsberg (a play-off was drawn +1=3—1); and at Breslau 1889 he took second place after Tarrasch ahead of Gunsberg, After an isolated appearance at Hastings 1895 he entered another spell of chess activity, 1897-1901, The best achievement of his career was at Cologne 1898, first prize ( + 9=5-1) ahead of Charousek, Chigorin, Steinitz, Schlechter, and Janowski. At Munich 1900 he came fourth (+9=3—3). His Last seven international tournaments began with Ostend 1905 and ended with Breslau 1912. A comparative success, in view of his age. was his fourth prize shared with Bernstein and Teichmann after Schlechter, Maroczy, and Rubinstein at Ostend 1906; 36 players competed in this five-stage event, 30 games in all for those who completed the course.
Retired from both business and play he made his home in London and edited the chess column of The Field from 1913 until his death. A shy and retiring man, a loyal companion to those who came to know him, he freely gave advice to young and aspiring players.”
The front cover of the November 1975 issue of the British Chess Magazine featured Amos Burn :
Amos Burn – See W.H.Cozen’s ‘Half a Century Back’…from the front cover of the November 1975 issue of British Chess Magazine
From British Chess Magazine, 1975, November, pp. 481-483 :
Half a Century Back
Chess in 1925
by W.H. Cozens
Amos Burn was a very different figure and his career is poorly documented. He is overdue, not for a reappraisal but simply an appraisal, He was born (in Hull) in 1848 – an incredible 127 years ago. All the years that could have been his prime as a chessplayer he devoted to business. (Marine insurance was his speciality.) He was based in Liverpool but travelled considerably, including several crossings of the Atlantic – quite an undertaking in those days. He played some casual chess, soon overshadowing the Rev. John Owen to become Liverpool’s answer to Manchester’s Blackburne. He also played for the City of London Chess Club; but it was not until he was nearly 40, presumably with his financial position secured, that he entered the international chess arena. Between the ages of 38 and 64 he played in 22 international tournaments. At Breslau (1889) he was second to Tarrasch, above Louis Paulsen, Blackburne, Schallop … In Amsterdam the same year he was first, ahead of Emanuel Lasker. His finest achievement was first place at Cologne 1898, in front of Charousek, Chigorin, Steinitz, Schlechter et al., (16 in all) with a win against Steinitz. The lack of a book on Cologne 1898 is – since the publication of Mannheim 1914′: the biggest gap in tournament literature.
At Karlsbad 1911 he defeated not only the winner, as mentioned above, but also Alekhine, whom he steered into a knight versus bad bishop ending. His style was unashamedly modelled on that of Steinitz, and marked by extreme tenacity. To him is attributed the epigram ‘He who combinates is lost’. He could play a combination when in the mood but he much preferred to let the opponent break his own back by attacking too impetuously. Nimzowitsch wrote: ‘The number of really great defensive players is very small’, adding that he knew of only six: Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, Burn, Bernstein, Duras and Louis Paulsen.
In the 1911 Cable Match between G.B. and the U.S.A. Marshall came from San Sebastian straight to London and asked permission for his top board game to be played over the board. When he found that his opponent was to be the 64-year-old Amos Burn he must have smiled, for he had twice defeated him resoundingly – at Paris 1900 (also having some fun at Burn’s expense in his annotations to the game) and again at Ostend 1905. This time he was in for a shock. Within twenty moves the old man had won his queen for two pieces. Marshall played on, probably with a red face, until move 37, rather than have his loss cabled home too early. Against Burn he might have spared himself the trouble.
Burn was a superb annotator. His work, notably in ‘The Field‘ from 1913 on, sets a standard to which one looks back nostalgically in these days of hieroglyphics. The day before he died, at the age of 77,he had been at work on analysis and annotation. Tournaments were now plentiful enough for it to be possible to pick out the band of regular professionals, and to assess their prowess. Tartakower was placed 2, 5, l, 5; Reti 5, 5’ 5,-11; Grunfeld 4,8,8,9; Nimzowitsch was erratic with 1,2,9; so was Rubinstein with 1, 2, 3, 12. Marshall was consistent with 3, 4, 5. Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine appeared once each – with distinction, of course.”
The Burn Variation is a line in the french defence dating from the 1870s, played regularly by Burn at the tournaments of Hastings
1895, Cologne 1898, and Vienna 1898. More recently it has been favoured by Petrosyan.
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976), Anne Sunnucks :
“A leading British player of his day, Amos Burn was born in Hull on 31st December 1848. He learned the game when he was 16 and an apprentice with a firm of Liverpool cotton-brokers, but it was not until 1886 that he achieved his first major tournament success by coming 2nd in the London tournament and 1st at Nottingham. These results gained him an invitation to Frankfurt 1887, which marked the beginning of his career as an international player.
Burn’s greatest successes were 1st at Amsterdam 1889, ahead of Lasker, 2nd at Breslau 1889, behind Tarrasch but ahead of Mieses, Von Bardeleben, Bauer, Gunsberg and Paulsen; and 1st at Cologne 1898, ahead of Charousek, Steiniitz, Tchigorin and Schlecter.
After the St. Petersburg 1909 tournament, Burn’s results began to deteriorate and he finally retired from tournament chess after the Breslau 1912 tournament.
From 1913 until his death, Burn was chess editor of The Field. He died on 25th November 1925.”
Amos Burn (31-xii-1848, 25-xii-1925) circa 1920
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977), Harry Golombek OBE :
“British Grandmaster and second only to Blackburne in late nineteenth-century British chess. He was born in Hull and learned to play chess at sixteen, but devoted little time to the game at first, preferring to establish himself in a commercial career.
He returned to chess in his middle thirties, his first major national success being first prize at Nottingham 1886 and second prize at London 1886. Within three years he had gained an international reputation by winning at Amsterdam 1889, ahead of Lasker, and finishing 2nd to Tarrasch at Breslau 1889. Burn continued to appear in international tournaments until the age of sixty-four, his most notable triumph being first prize at Cologne 1898 in front of Charousek, Steinitz, Chigorin and Schlechter. He was chess editor of The Field from 1913 until his death in 1925.”
and from that game we have the move that made that game memorable :
Black to move : did you find it? (if not see the foot of this article)
William Winter wrote the following in the February issue of CHESS for 1963, (Volume 28, Number 426, pp.128-134):
“For my win over Niemtsovich I am partly indebted to Amos Burn. Before the tournament I happened to mention to him that Niemtsovich was playing a system, beginning with 1.P-QN3, the idea of which was to control the square at his K5 from the flank, and eventually occupy it with a knight. The old master told me that in his younger days he had played many games with the Rev. John Owen who regularly adopted this opening, and that he could make little headway against it, until he hit on the idea of at once occupying the key square with a pawn and defending it with everything he could pile on. This plan I adopted with complete success. After my third move I saw Niemtsovich shake his head, and in fact he was never comfortable.”
According to Edward Winter in Chess Notes Burn lived at 19 Luxemburg Gardens, London W6, England (Amos Burn, The Quiet Chessmaster by R.N. Coles, page 7).
Amos Burn (31-xii-1848, 25-xii-1925) courtesy of “The Field”
We remember Reverend John Owen who passed away on the 24th November 1901 in Twickenham.)
John Owen was born on April 8th, 1827 to John and Sarah Owen in Marchington, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire.
He was baptised at Marchington, St. Peter on April 9th, 1827 by H. Bennett and their residence was recorded as “Brook House”. His father is recorded as being a gentleman.
From The Oxford Companion to Chess (OUP, 1984) by Hooper & Whyld :
“English player, vicar of Hooton, Cheshire, from 1862 to 1900. In 1858, playing under the pseudonym ‘Alter’, he lost (=2-5) a match against Morphy, who conceded pawn and a move. (Hoffer attributed this poor result to Owen’s just being married.) Subsequently Owen played better. He drew a match with Kolisch in 1860 (+4-4) and at the London tournament of 1862 took third prize after Andersen (whom he defeated) and L. Paulsen ahead of Dubois, GA MacDonnell, Steinitz and Blackburne.
From 1857 to 1898 Owen played in more than a dozen tournaments, all of them in Great Britain.
He liked close openings and often played the Queen’s Fianchetto Defence, sometimes named after him, and the Larsen Opening.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977), Harry Golombek OBE :
Probably, the strongest of all the chess-playing reverends of the nineteenth century. Owen came 3rd at Birmingham 1858, below Löwenthal and Falkbeer, but ahead of Saint-Amant, Staunton and Bird; but is should be pointed out that the method of play was still by the old knock-out system.
He was also =3rd with MacDonnell in the first congress of the British Chess Association at London in 1862.
He also had the distinction of losing matches to Morphy, Zukertort and Burn, though he beat Burn in a later match. He drew a match with Kolisch in 1860.
Sunnucks is silent on Owen.
According to The Complete Chess Addict (Faber&Faber, 1987), Mike Fox & Richard James :
“For the record (and because it’s so impressive) here is the most devout team of all time, If there is anything in the efficacy of prayer they’d be tough to stop :
“John Owen (8 April 1827 – 24 November 1901) was an English vicar and strong amateur chess master. He ranked among the world’s top ten chess players for certain periods of the 1860s. He was a major figure in English chess from the mid 1850s to the 1890s.
Owen was born in Marchington, and obtained his early schooling at Repton School, Derbyshire. In 1850 he graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, and received his M.A. from Cambridge three years later. He was ordained by the Church of England in 1851, and served as Vicar of Hooton, Cheshire from 1862 to his retirement in 1900.
In 1858 he won a chess game against the young American master Paul Morphy, the world’s best player, who was then touring Europe.”
This led to a match between the two. Despite being given odds of pawn and the move (meaning he started the game with an extra pawn and always moved first), Owen lost the match 6–1, never winning a game.
His performance in the very strong 1862 London tournament, the first international round-robin event (in which each participant plays every other) was more impressive. He finished third, ahead of future world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, and was the only player to win against the eventual tournament winner, Adolf Anderssen. Louis Paulsen placed second. This result was arguably Owen’s top lifetime chess achievement.
Owen continued to play frequently and often successfully in British tournaments into the 1890s, and performed strongly in several matches against top British players, who were essentially chess professionals. He never competed outside the British Isles. He died in Twickenham.
Owen is the eponym of Owen’s Defence, a chess opening characterised by the moves 1.e4 b6. Owen was the first strong player to play this frequently, including in his victory over Morphy.”
We remember Mary Rudge who passed away one hundred and two years this day on Saturday, 22-xi-1919.
She was born in Leominster, Herefordshire on February 6th, 1842. Her father was Henry Rudge (born 1794 in Gloucestershire) who was a surgeon and General Practitioner. Her mother was Eliza Rudge (née Barrett) who was born in Ledbury, Herefordshire in 1802.
Mary was part of a typically large household and according to the 1851 census she had sisters Sarah (23), Caroline (18), Emily H (12), brothers Henry (14) and Alfred (10). Assisting Henry with medical matters was William S Boyce and acting as a “General Servant” was Thomas Rotheroe (18). Their address is given as “21, Middle Marsh, Leominster, Herefordshire, England” (HR6 8UP). According to HM Land Registry : “Middlemarsh is in the Leominster North & Rural ward of Herefordshire, County of, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire.”
By 1861 the household had relocated to 62, Broad Street, Leominster and the servants were James Price (18) whose occupation is given as a Groom and Sarah Gardener (21) who was the House Servant.
Mary moved, “helpless from rheumatism”, at some point, to Truro and then to the British Home for Incurables, Streatham. She died in Guys Hospital, London, on 22 November 1919.
Editor of British Chess Magazine at the time of her obituary was Isaac McIntyre Brown who afforded Mary a pathetic three lines.
“As we go to press we learn with great sorrow of the death, at Streatham last month, of Miss Mary Rudge, winner of the International Ladies’ tournament in 1897.”
Golombek, Hooper&Whyld and Sunnucks are all silent on Rudge.
From Wikipedia :
“Mary Rudge (6 February 1842 in Leominster – 22 November 1919 in London) was an English chess master.
Rudge was born in Leominster, a small town in Herefordshire, England. She began playing chess in a correspondence tournament in 1872. The first mention of over the board competition is in August 1874 when she played in the second class at the Meeting of the Counties’ Chess Association at Birmingham. After the death of her father, Henry Rudge, she moved to Bristol where she started playing chess seriously.
Rudge was the first woman member of the Bristol Chess Club, which did not allow women to be members of the club until she joined in 1872. She played against Joseph Henry Blackburne, who gave a blindfold simultaneous display against ten opponents. The following year she played in another blindfold simultaneous display given by Johannes Hermann Zukertort. In March 1887 she played and drew on board six for Bristol against Bath at the Imperial Hotel in Bristol. At the beginning of 1888, Rudge played and won on board six for Bristol & Clifton against City Chess & Draughts Club. The following year, she won the Challenge Cup of Bristol & Clifton Chess Club. In 1889, she became the first woman in the world to give simultaneous chess exhibitions. She won the Ladies’ Challenge Cup at Cambridge 1890, and won the second class at the Southern Counties’ tournament at Clifton 1896.[1]”
Miss Stevenson & Mary Rudge
“First Women’s International Chess Congress
She was a winner of the first Women’s International Chess Congress under the management of the Ladies’ Chess Club of London in conjunction with the Women’s Chess Club of New York. Lady Newnes was president of the Tournament Committee, and Sir George Newnes, Baron Albert Salomon von Rothschild, Mr. Harry Nelson Pillsbury and some others offered prizes. The tournament was played at the Hotel Cecil in the Masonic Hall for six days, but the final rounds were decided at the Ideal Café, the headquarters of the Ladies’ Chess Club, from 22 June to 3 July 1897.[2] Miss Rudge was 55 years old and the oldest of the 20 players,[3] and had substantial experience playing chess at the time. She was a well-known English player, ranking in chess strength with the first class of the leading men’s clubs. She won the event with 18 wins and 1 draw, followed by Signorina Louisa Matilda Fagan (Italy), Miss Eliza Mary Thorold (England), Mrs. Harriet Worrall (USA), Madame Marie Bonnefin (Belgium), Mrs. F.S. Barry (Ireland), Lady Edith Margaret Thomas (England), among others.”
Mrs. Bowles (Hon. Sec.); Miss Rudge; and Mrs. Fagan from chesscafe.com
“Over the next years, she took part in various competitions, playing in Bristol and Dublin. In 1898, she played against world champion Emanuel Lasker in a simultaneous display at the Imperial Hotel. Lasker was unable to finish all the games in the time available, and Rudge’s was one of those unfinished. He conceded defeat because he would be lost with best play.”
WIM Patricia Anne Sunnucks at the Lloyds Bank Masters
We remember WIM Anne Sunnucks who passed away this day, November 22nd, 2014, aged 87 years at a retirement village in Meadow Park, Braintree, Essex.
Patricia Anne Sunnucks was born on Monday, 21st February 1927 in the district of Kensington, London. Her father was Stanley Lloyd Sunnucks and her mother was Edith Vera Constance Sendell.
Anne had one brother, James Horace George, who died in March 2005 in Colchester, Essex.
Stanley died on 29th January 1953 in Brentwood, Essex. Edith passed away in March 1975 in Bracknell, Berkshire.
In September 1984 in Bracknell, Berkshire Anne married Richard C Mothersill.
“International Woman master and British Women’s Champion 1957, 1958 and 1964. Her best international result was a 2nd in the 1954 Western European Zonal. This qualified her for the 1955 Women’s Candidates tournament, but as this held in the USSR and she was at the time serving as a Major in the British Army, the authorities would not give her leave to participate.
Miss Sunnucks has represented England a number of times in Olympiads and team matches. She has compiled The Encyclopedia of Chess, London, 1970.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976), Anne Sunnucks :
“International Woman Master (1954) and winner of the British Ladies’ Championship in 1957, 1958 and 1964.
Born on 21st February 1927 Anne learned the moves at the age of 8 but did not take up chess seriously until she was 21, when she joined the same club as International Master, Imre König” whose pupil she became.
Danlon ladies chess tournament, left Anne Sunnucks , right Katarina Blagojević-Jovanovic Date: October 23, 1962
In the 1954 Western European Zonal tournament, she came 2nd and qualified for the 1955 Women’s Candidates tournament but was unable to compete.
She played for Great Britain v. the USSR in 1954 and for the British Chess Federation team in the Women’s Chess Olympiads of 1966 and 1972. She also represented the BCF in the Western European Zonal tournaments of 1963 and 1966.”
Anne Sunnucks vs Chaudé de Silans (Amsterdam, 1962)The Encyclopedia of Chess by Anne Sunnucks
Anne created Camberley Chess Club in 1972. She offered to open her spacious home at 28, Brackendale Close, Camberley for weekly club nights and matches.
Anne Sunnucks (third from left) playing in the 1971 British Ladies Championship in Palatine School, Blackpool. Courtesy of Lancashire Evening Post.
Anne was a director of BMS (?, Mothersill, Sunnucks) Chess Supplies Ltd. which retailed chess books and equipment which the grateful membership purchased!
From Brian Towers : It is also worth noting that she was an occasional contributor to the weekly chess ‘Magazine’ programme which was broadcast on the Third Network (the precursor to Radio 3) between Autumn 1958 and Summer 1964.
According to Megabase2020, her highest Elo rating was 2045 but we suspect it was in reality, quite a bit higher.
In 1972 Anne was awarded with a FIDE Medal of Merit. Anne was made an Honorary Life Member of the BCF and then ECF.
From Wikipedia :
Patricia Anne Sunnucks (21 February 1927 – 22 November 2014[1]) was an author and three-times British Women’s Chess Champion (1957, 1958, 1964). During her chess career she was always known as Anne Sunnucks.
She was educated at Wycombe Abbey School[2], Buckinghamshire. Although she learned how to play chess at the age of 8, she did not play seriously until the age of 21, when she joined the same chess club as Imre König, who became her tutor. By finishing tied for second place in the 1953 British Women’s Championship she became one of three British representatives in the 1954 Western European Zonal.
Sunnucks earned the Woman International Master title by placing second in the 1954 Western European Zonal. Although this result qualified her to play in the next event in the Women’s World Championship sequence, she was a major in the Women’s Royal Army Corps and the authorities would not allow her to travel to the USSR where the 1955 Women’s Candidates tournament was being held. Sunnucks represented England several times in Olympiads and team matches, including Great Britain vs. USSR 1954, the Anglo-Dutch match in 1965, and top board for the British Chess Federation (BCF) team at the 1966 Women’s Chess Olympiad at Oberhausen. She participated in the Women’s World Championship cycle two more times, representing the BCF in the Western European Zonal tournaments of 1963 and 1966. Sunnucks won both the Army and the Combined Services Championships in 1968, and was the only woman to compete in either. Sunnucks compiled The Encyclopaedia of Chess (1970, second edition: 1976).
James Derrick Slater was born on Wednesday, March 13th, 1929. On the same day “Leon Trotsky gave his first interview to the foreign press in his apartment in Turkey, saying he was writing a book tracing the history of his opposition to Joseph Stalin and expressing a desire to go to Germany because he preferred the care of German physicians.”
He was born in Heswall, Cheshire (Wirral, Merseyside was the registration district) to Hubert Slater and Jessica Alexandra Barton.
He arrived (aged 31) in Southampton on board the Pretoria Castle as a first class passenger whilst resident in 16, Stafford Terrace, Kensington and his occupation was given as Company Director.
He died on 18th November 2015 in Cranleigh, Surrey aged 86. He had four children one of which is Mark Slater.
James Slater, Chairman Slater Walker Securities plc Director, British Leyland. (Photo by Photoshot/Getty Images)
Jim wrote his chess autobiography as follows :
(This text was retrieved using the Wayback machine via https://web.archive.org/web/20110909053137/http://www.jimslater.org.uk/views/chess/)
“As a boy Jim Slater enjoyed playing Monopoly and draughts but his main indoor hobby was chess. He stopped playing chess after leaving school as he found it took too much time and concentration while studying for accountancy.
It was not until a colleague asked Jim to teach him to improve his game in the late 1960s that his interest in chess was rekindled. For a short while Jim joined a London chess club (Richard James reveals that this is West London Chess Club as mentioned in their internal magazine) but found he preferred correspondence chess which he could play much more conveniently when he returned home in the evening. Jim did quite well in his correspondence club, going up a few grades, until he reached a level at which it became hard work.
Jim had maintained a link with Leonard Barden, who was a British Champion and a chess correspondent. With his help Jim began subsidising the annual Hastings Tournament with a view to expanding it so that leading players would have a chance to qualify as international masters. Other countries would not invite British players to play in their tournaments until they became international masters so they were in an impossible situation. The small amount of help Jim was able to give to Hastings was arranged in a very low-key way and attracted very little publicity. The World Chess Championship would prove to be a very different proposition.
British accountant, investor and business writer Jim Slater (1929 – 2015) signing documents at a desk, UK, 11th May 1965. (Photo by Reg Burkett/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
For the previous two decades the Russians had dominated world chess and then the West produced two exceptional players – Bobby Fischer of the USA and Bent Larsen of Denmark. In particular, Fischer had fantastic potential but he was handicapped by being extremely temperamental.
In the final rounds of the World Chess Championship the players were playing the best of ten games. In the quarter finals Fischer won six games to nil. In the semi-final Fischer was paired with Larsen and also beat him six games to nil. This had never happened before in world chess, and for the first time it looked as if the Russians were going to get a run for their money.
Personalities, Crime, pic: 3rd December 1976, Financier Jim Slater arriving at London’s Mansion House Police Court to face fraud charges involving more than 4,000,000 (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
In the last qualifier Fischer came up against Petrosian, a brilliant defensive player. Fischer won the first game but lost the second. The next three games were drawn. It was said by some that Fischer had a bad cold and everyone wondered if he could regain his earlier momentum. After this relapse he won the next four games. This made Fischer challenger to Spassky. Spassky too was a brilliant attacking player and had been a chess genius since early childhood, so it promised to be an exceptional match.
While preparations were being made for the World Championship in Iceland, Fischer started to complain about the prize money which he thought should be doubled.
‘I was driving into London early one Monday morning in mid-July feeling disappointed that after all this build-up Fischer might not be taking on Spassky, when it suddenly occurred to me that I could easily afford the extra prize money personally. As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks it would give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure for the match to proceed.’
Jim Slater
From The Complete Chess Addict (Faber&Faber, 1987) , Mike Fox & Richard James:
“Jim Slater, the financier and children’s author, was a strong schoolboy player. He gave up chess for finance. This turned out a very good thing for chess, since he was able to tempt Bobby Fischer (with a £50,000 increase in stake-money) into playing Boris Spassky for the world title in 1972. Here’s what the young Slater was capable of:”
Bobby Fischer Goes to War, Faber&Faber, 2004
From Bobby Fischer Goes to War , David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Faber & Faber, 2004 we have a fuller account as follows :
“Driving to work in London early on Monday morning, 3 July, Jim Slater was upset by a radio report on the challenger’s non-appearance in Reykjavik. Slater was a businessman who had set up his own company, Slater Walker Securities, in 1964, when he was in his mid-thirties. His partner, Peter Walker, had left the business to become a Conservative member of parliament and a government minister under Edward Heath and,later, Margaret Thatcher. At the time of the Fischer-Spassky match, the company reportedly had a controlling interest in 250 companies around the world. Supremely confident, decisive, ruthless in business, Slater had by then amassed a fortune of, in his own words,’£6 million and rising’. A gambler by nature, the one big luxury he allowed himself was to play bridge for thousands of pounds with stronger opponents.
He was also a chess fan and supporter of the game, subsidizing the annual Hastings tournament. In the years following Fischer-Spassky, he would, alongside the former British champion and journalist Leonard Barden (who provided the vision and organization), transform the state of British chess by channelling funds into junior competition. Now he decided that he could easily afford the money to send Fischer to Reykjavik – or expose the American as a coward. He would double the prize, putting an additional £50,000 ($125,000) into the pot. Arriving at his office that Monday morning, he passed on his offer through Barden, who then spoke to Marshall, giving the US attorney some background details about this championship angel. Marshall then talked to Fischer. Slater says he also telephoned his friend David Frost, who in turn rang his friend Henry Kissinger’ Kissinger then contacted Fischer. What motivated Slater?’As well as providing me with a fascinating spectacle for the next few weeks, I could give chess players throughout the world enormous pleasure’
Slater’s offer made headlines in London’s Evening Standard and his house was soon swarming with reporters. When he returned from work, he told his astonished wife,’I had a good idea on the way to the office.’The good idea was couched in challenging terms: ‘If he isn’t afraid of Spassky, then I have removed the element of money’
London Edition of the Evening Standard, July 3rd, 1972. Retrieved from https://chesshistory.com/winter/extra/spasskyfischer.html
It is not altogether clear how the British offer finally persuaded Fischer. Paul Marshall certainly had a hand, initially pushing it as the answer to all Fischer’s financial demands.’But he wouldn’t accept it; he says.’His experiences with people promising things had taught him not to believe them, particularly with money. And he wanted proof. And he said no.’Marshall tried to change his mind. Phoning Barden, the attorney took his place in the gallery of callers that saved the match.’I said if I were them I would rephrase the offer. Slater should say he didn’t think his money was at risk, because Fischer was just making excuses. He should say that deep down Fischer was frightened. I said Bobby might be piqued by that challenge – and he was. I knew Bobby was very very competitive and combative and would not like to be thought of as a chicken.’ Slater denies this version of events. He maintains it was always his idea to express his offer as a taunt. He never spoke to Fischer and never received a word of gratitude from him.’Fischer is known to be rude, graceless, possibly insane,’he says.’I didn’t do it to be thanked. I did it because it would be good for chess.'”
The match between Fischer and Spassky was a most exciting one and fully up to everyone’s expectations. Fischer won the match.
A few months later, in an endeavour to help our young players, Jim Slater offered on behalf of The Slater Foundation to give a prize of £5,000 (about £75,000 in today’s money) to the first British grand master and £2,500 to the next four. Over the next few years Great Britain went from having no grand masters to twenty and became one of the strongest teams of young chess players in the world.”
and here is his entry from chessgames.com which lists one game from 1947 : “James Derrick Slater, better known as Jim Slater, was an English accountant, investor and business writer. Slater became a well-known chess patron in the 1970s, when he stepped in to double the prize fund of the Fischer-Spassky world championship match at a time when Fischer was threatening not to play, thereby enabling the match to go forward. Afterwards he provided significant financial backing for the development of young British players, many of whom later contributed to Britain becoming one of the world’s strongest chess countries in the 1980s.”
From The Oxford Companion to Chess (OUP, 1984) by Hooper and Whyld :
“British chess patron, financier, children’s author, Slater achieved wide fame in the chess world on the occasion of the Spassky-Fischer world championship match of 1972. Fischer showed reluctance to play and apparently decided to do so when Slater added £50,000 to the prize fund. Slater has also made contributions to many other chess causes and in 1973 set-up the Slater Foundation, a charitable trust which, among other activities, pays for the coaching of young players and provides help for their families if needed. Leonard Barden advises the trust on chess matters. In the 1970s, partly owing to this patronage, junior players in Britain became as strong as those in any other country.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977) by Harry Golombek:
“An English financier, a great patron and benefactor of chess, both on a national and world level. Passionately devoted to chess from schooldays. He said that on leaving school he hesitated between the alternatives of become a chess master and of going into business, opting for the latter on the grounds that he was not sure of his chess-playing prowess.
It is perhaps a fortunate thing for chess that he did not become a chess-master, since he offer of a £50,000 increase to the stake at the match at Reykjavik in Iceland in 1972 may well have swayed Fischer into consenting to play. He established a Slater Foundation Fund which helps young English players to go and play abroad.”
The Zulu Principle, Jim SlaterInvestment Made Easy, Jim SlaterReturn to Go, Jim SlaterThe Tricky Troggle, James and Christopher SlaterThe Great Gulper, James and Christopher Slater
Gordon Thomas Crown with BCM Editor Julius Du Mont observing
We remember Gordon Crown who died this day (November 17th) in 1947.
Gordon Thomas Crown was born on Thursday, June 20th, 1929 to James Crown (born 18th November 1899) and Hilda M Crown (born 3rd October 1900, née Sharrott).
James was a refrigerating engineer and Hilda carried out unpaid domestic duties. The birth was registered in the district of West Derby, Lancashire.
According to the electoral register of 1939 they lived at 8 Ingledene Road, Liverpool, Liverpool C.B., Lancashire, England. (This is L18 3HJ in this day and age.)
According to Zoopla : “This 4 bed freehold semi-detached house is located at 8 Ingledene Road, Liverpool L18 3HJ and has an estimated current value of £581,000. Ingledene Road has 19 properties on it with an average current value of £492,220, compared to an average property value of £325,035 for L18. There have been 5 property sales on Ingledene Road, L18 over the last 5 years with an average house price paid of £474,900. There are currently 108 properties for sale in L18 with an average asking price of £372,163 and 59 properties to rent in L18 with an average asking rent of £408 pw.”
Jon D’Souza-Eva (Oxford) wrote to us on November 17th, 2021 to reveal:
“I always thought that Gordon Crown was an only child, but after a little searching I found that he had a younger brother, Rodney, who was born and died in 1938.
There’s also a rather mysterious redacted entry in the Crown household in the 1939 register. I can’t find evidence for any other siblings who might account for it.”
and we asked Leonard Barden about this replying:
“I can’t confirm the Rodney, but Gordon died the night after I visited him on a daily leave pass from RAF Padgate. I didn’t know about it for two weeks because of the lack of news facilities at my camp. But then when I heard I wrote to his mother and she sent back the Kotov photo with a very sad letter from which one phrase has remained in my memory:
“Our other son died nine years ago and Gordon was all we had”….”
Liverpool Echo 15 April 1946
Both Sunnucks and Hooper & Whyld are silent on GTC : surprising!
From CHESS, Volume 12 (1947), Number 138 (March), page 176:
“G. T. Crown…England’s 17.5 Year Old International
“Gordon T. Crown, who takes his place in an England team at the age of 17.5, was born at Liverpool on June 20th, 1929. He learnt the moves at the age of nine, being first made aware of chess by the match between the BBC and the listeners over the radio. Until 1944, he had few opportunities for over-the-board play and was forced to devote himself to studying books and magazines.
In 1944-5 he entered for the Lancashire Junior Championship and won it as his first attempt; he repeated his success last year and also entered for the senior event, in which he reached the semi-final, only to throw away a won game against HG Rhodes.
In April 1946, he played in the British Boys’ Championship at Hastings and came second, losing only in his final game. In August he played in the Nottingham Congress, was placed in one of the Major sections and “was quite satisfied” he reports, at finishing half-a-point outside the prize list, especially as he was the only one to defeat EG Sergeant, who topped the section.
At Hastings, the situation was curiously reversed. Here he won the section, his only loss being to EG Sergeant, who finished just outside the prize list.
He has just finished school and is waiting to enter a University where he intends to study Geography and History. For private reading, he enjoys best Military and Naval History – apart from good detective stories.
Apart from chess, he is interested in most games, both indoor and outdoor, with special preference for tennis ad table-tennis when it is a matter of playing and cricket for reading about.
He is diabetic – but so was one of the players in the Davis Cup team which recently crushed Australia! His games show the evidence of deep and extensive study of the game combined with an ever-ready imagination.
“Gordon Crown is one the sad might-have-beens of the world of chess. In his short life he had already shown himself to be of master strength and a potentially very great player when suddenly, at the age of eighteen, he died during an operation.
He learnt chess when aged nine and soon became one of the best players, first in Liverpool,, his home town, and then in Lancashire, of which county he won the Junior Championship three years in succession.
Crown first came into national prominence when he came second in the British Boys Championship in 1946. (Ed : the winner was John Fuller) In the Hastings Congress of 1946/7 he won first place in a strong Premier Reserves Section.
The last year of his life even saw him reaching out to international success, Playing on board 9 for Britain against The Netherlands he scored 1.5 out of 2 against L.J. Tummers. Then he won third prize in the British Championship at Harrogate. As a result of this success he was promoted to board 4 for Britain against Australia in a radio match when he beat Dr. M. Gellis.
Harry Golombek and Gordon Crown in around 1946-47.
In September 1947 he was hurried to hospital suffering from peritonitis and, being a diabetic, succumbed under the operation.
As a player he excelled in both the opening and endgame phases and possessed a style of play that stamped him as a future grandmaster. As a person he was modest, clever and a very agreeable companion. This was great loss for British and, almost certainly, world chess.”
We have reproduced his obituary from British Chess Magazine, Volume LXVII (1947), Number 12 (December), Page 387-8 and we assume that this was written by TJ Beach:
“The tragic death of Gordon on November 17th after an operation, will be felt keenly-by chess players throughout the country. Although only l8 years of age he had risen to a high place in British chess circles. Learning the elements of the game in 1938, he had won the Lancashire Junior Championship in three successive years, was champion of the Liverpool Chess Club and Merseyside champion with 100 per cent scores last season, headed his section of the Premier Tournament at the last Hastings Christmas Congress, and, filling the vacancy caused by the late withdrawal of R. F. Combe the 1946 champion, took third prize in the British Championship played at Harrogate in August of this year.
In three international team matches he scored l.5 points on Board 9 against Tummers, of Holland; was one of the two British players to score a full point against the visiting U.S.S.R. team, sharing honours with Kotov in two finely played games on Board 4; and followed this with a win over Dr. Gellis, of Victoria, in the recent radio match with Australia, despite the earlier loss of the exchange through an oversight. His full match record for the past twelve months in international, county, and club matches read: won 16, drawn 2, and lost l. (to Kotov).
His play was notable for his exceptional knowledge of opening and end-game strategy, but his prowess was not by any means confined to “book” knowledge. Possessing deep positional insight, real combinational ability, and chess experience beyond his years, his concentration, tenacity, and determination to win had already made him one of the most formidable match and tournament players in the country. Many of us felt that he would become a worthy British champion within the next few years, and possibly reach even greater heights in the international sphere, and it is, perhaps, not too much to say that many chess players were already looking forward to the day when Gordon Crown would lead British chess to a high place in international esteem: Now those dreams have been rudely shattered, and the loss to British chess is great indeed.
Gordon Crown was not merely a youthful chess prodigy. Although suffering for many years from the physical disability which has now caused his premature death, he had a distinguished record at the Holt High School, Liverpool, and had entered Liverpool University only a month ago to read for the degree of B.A. Unable to play football and cricket, in which latter he was deeply interested, he became a tennis and table-tennis player of well above average ability and was an excellent exponent of billiards and snooker. Among other interests were cycling, and military history and strategy, in which he had read and studied widely.
No study of Gordon Crown would be complete without reference to his personality quite apart from his ability. Possessed of a quiet assurance and confidence in matters pertaining to chess, he was modest in victory, generous in his rare defeats, and ever ready to help small clubs by means of a lecture or simultaneous display.
Never too busy to play the humblest novice, he gave untold pleasure and a new interest in life to many men who had suffered during the war by introducing them to the
fascination of chess, and by this means helped materially in the vital task of rehabilitation. With charm and dignity Gordon Crown won a warm place in the hearts and affections of those who were fortunate enough to be counted among his friends, and whilst our deepest sympathy goes out to his parents in their tragic loss, they may well ae proud that their son achieved so much that was really worth while within so few years, for we shall remember Gordon with affection long after his chess exploits are but a dim memory.-T. J. B.”
The following is one of the last games, if not the last; played by Crown in competitive chess. Score and notes from “The Field”
and here is the scan of the original article:
Obituary of Gordon Thomas Crown, part one
and
Obituary of Gordon Thomas Crown, Part Two
We are grateful to Leonard Barden on the identity of T.J.B. :
“Thomas John Beach, wartime RAF navigator with Distinguished Flying Cross, leading light of Liverpool chess, regular British championship player for many years, chairman of BCF junior selectors, father of a leading Midlands expert, a good and dedicated man” TJB was the father of Richard Beach who won the British Boys Under 18 title in 1961.
According to the British Chess Magazine, 1943, March, page 56 GTC lived at 8 Ingledene Road, Calderstones, Liverpool 18, England.
Gordon Thomas Crown, from CHESS, 1948, January, page 86
On 17 November 1947 he was admitted to hospital, complaining of a stomach upset. Diagnosed too late with appendicitis, complicated by his diabetes, he died in the operating theatre.
His friend (and former British champion) Leonard Barden speculates that had he lived, Crown would have become at least a strong Grandmaster, further noting that he was ” … open, friendly and modest as well as a clear and enthusiastic explainer of his chess ideas; I think he would have been like Keres or Gligoric in their countries, a model for our young players.”
Harry Golombek was similarly impressed with Crown’s play, stating that “In his short life, he had already shown himself to be of master strength and was potentially a very great player.”
We are grateful to be able to use comments from long time friend, Leonard Barden posted under the nom de plume of Roberts Partner on chessgames.com :
“As to the circumstances of Crown’s death. The finger of blame must be pointed at the family doctor for failing to make a timely correct diagnosis. On Sunday 16 November 1947 a chess friend visited the Crown home at Ingledene Road, Liverpool, and found Crown in bed. He explained that his doctor had diagnosed a stomach upset and had recommended rest. The friend and Crown played and analysed together for several hours, and Crown did not appear in any physical discomfort. But that night after the friend left his condition deteriorated and he was rushed to hospital where he died in the early morning hours of 17 November. There was also a belief among some Liverpool chess players that the hospital procedures could have been better.”
and
“On another thread some CG posters expressed surprise at the Ritson Morry v Crown game where Morry fell into a well-known opening trap.
The British championship at Harrogate in August 1947 was played in a spa building where the underfloor heating was still switched on. This coincided with one of the warmest summers on record (it was the year in which Compton and Edrich made their memorable cricket achievements for Middlesex). By the second week of the BCF congress older and overweight players (the latter group including Ritson Morry) were wilting. Ritson also had some long adjourned games, and by the time of his game with Crown in the final round was exhausted. The game finished in 15-20 minutes so by the time other players went to spectate after their opening moves there was just a reset board with no sign of the players and no indication of what had transpired. Other final round results went Crown’s way so that he finished third outright and thus got selected on a high board for the USSR match.”
Western Daily Press 22 September 1947
and here is an article by ddtru (?) in chess.com : full article
We are grateful to renowned chess historian, Taylor Kingston for supplying these scans of an article from Chess Life in 1947 about Gordon Crown written by Reuben Fine :
Chess Life article about Gordon Thomas Crown, Part One
and
Chess Life article about Gordon Thomas Crown, Part Two
From Wikipedia:
“Gordon Thomas Crown (20 June 1929 – 17 November 1947) was a promising British chess player who died of appendicitis at the age of eighteen. He is best known for his win against the Russian Grandmaster Alexander Kotov shortly before his death.
Crown was born in Liverpool in 1929. He finished second in the British under 18 championship in 1946 and improved rapidly, winning the Premier Reserve section of the 1946/7 Hastings International Chess Congress. This led to his being placed on the reserve list for the 1947 British Chess Championship. Following the withdrawal of the defending champion Robert Forbes Combe, he was allowed to play in the championship, where he finished third (Harry Golombek won).
Consequently, he was selected to play for the British team in the 1947 Britain-USSR match, where he caused a sensation by defeating the Soviet Grandmaster Alexander Kotov, though he lost the return game. He also defeated Max Gellis in a Britain-Australia radio match.”
Interestingly, via the EC Forum, Geoff Chandler pointed out a note by Edward Winter in which Bill Hartston recounts advice from David Bronstein : “Look at the games of Gordon Crown. He really understood chess”. From NOW! magazine, (6-12 February 1981, page 80.): thanks Geoff !
We remember Fred Yates who passed (or, at least was recorded as passing) on Friday, November 11th, 1932.
Fred (not Frederick) Dewhirst (not Dewhurst) was born in Birstall, Leeds on Wednesday, January 16th 1884, the same year as Harry S Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt.
An obituary appeared in Volume LII (52, 1932), Number 12 (December), pp.525-528 of the British Chess Magazine by PW Sergeant :
“The chess world has had many heavy bereavements during the year which is coming to an end; but to the British section of it there has been no bereavement like the last, which robbed it of F.D.Yates, when still in the prime of his chess career. The circumstances of his end were tragic. On the night of Tuesday, November 8th, he gave a very successful exhibition at Wood Green, only dropping one half-point in 16 games. On the following night he was in the company of a chess friend until fairly late, and then went back to his room in Coram Street, Bloomsbury. He was never seen alive again. It was not until Friday morning that anxiety was felt at Coram Street as to what he might be doing; for he was in the habit of secluding himself for many hours at a stretch when busy with work.
Fred Dewhirst Yates
On Friday, however, when no answer could be got to knocks on the door of his room, which was locked, and a smell of gas was noticed, the door was at last broken open, and he was found dead in bed.
It came out at the inquest before the St. Pancras coroner on November 15 that , though the gas-taps in the room were securely turned off, there had been an escape from what a gas companies official described as an obsolete type of fitting attached to the meter in the room. The meter, it appears, was on the floor, and the fitting must have been accidentally dislodged. A verdict was recorded of Accidental Death; and the coroner directed that the gas-pipes from the room should remain in the custody of the court. The body was conveyed to Leeds for burial on the morning of November 16.
So prematurely passed away one who may with justice be called one of the finest exponents of British chess, and an international master whose strength was recognised all over the world.
Fred Yates as drawn by WH Cozens for BCM
Frederick Dewhurst (sic) was born at Birstall, near Leeds, on January 16, 1884. He did not develop his chess power very young, at the B.C.F. congress at the Crystal Palace in 1907 only playing in the Second Class, though he then won first prize in one of the two sections. At Tunbridge Wells next year he tied for fourth place in a section of the First Class. He was admitted to the British Championship at Scarborough in 1909 (in which year he was Yorkshire Champion), and there tied with Blackburne for fourth and fifth prizes, after HE Atkins, JH Blake, and W. Ward.
In the same event at Oxford in 1910 he again tied with Blackburne, but this time for second and third prizes, Atkins being first, though losing in his individual encounter with Yates. In 1911, at Glasgow, Yates still further improved his position, this time tieing with Atkins for first place; but in the tie-match Atkins won somewhat easily.
Atkins stood down for the first time at Richmond in 1912; but the success of RC Griffith left Yates second, in company with the late HG Cole. At last in 1913, Yates gained his ambition, and at Cheltenham won the British Championship with the fine score of 9 out of a possible 11, 1.5 points above J. Mahood and 2 above Blackburne. In the ruined Congress at Chester in 1914 he tied for first place with Blackburne; and, as Blackburne was unable to play a deciding match, Yates won his second championship.
Fred Dewhirst Yates, Jacoby Archive
Since the War he gained the title again in 1921, 1926, 1928 and 1931, thus making a record of six championships, second only to Atkin’s record of nine (ed : in 1969 at the Rhyl Congress Jonathan Penrose OBE was to surpass Atkins record by one.)
Yate’s six victories were gained in sixteen attempts In addition must be mentioned his success in the Hastings tournament, in the New Year of 1921, for holders of the British Championship only.
Fred Yates
His other successes in this country, including his two wins in the in the Anglo-American cable match, in 1910-11, need not detain us; for limitations of space demand that we shall come to Yates as an international master. His first essay was at Hamburg in 1910, on the invitation of the German Chess Federation. Though he did badly, only getting one win in 16 games, the win was a remarkable effort, at the expense of no less a celebrity than Dr. Tarrasch.
At Pistyan two years later he did a little better. He had to wait until after the War for a third attempt; but it will be best to give what we believe to be a full record of his performances in international event:- (to be added).
These lists, however, furnish no just view of the strength of Yates’s play, which always was most fully exhibited against the leading competitors in tournaments. Among his triumphs must be noted his particularly his wins against Alekhine at Hastings, 1922, and Carlsbad 1923 (a brilliancy prize game); against Euwe, Scarborough, 1928; against Nimzowitsch , Carlsbad, 1929; against Bogoljuboff, London, 1922, and Baden-Baden, 1925; against Tartakover, Hastings and Kecskemet, 1927; against Kmoch and Rubinstein, Budapest, 1926; against Spielmann and Vidmar, San Remo, 1930; and his draws with Alekhine and Capablanca at New York, 1924. The harder the opposition, the better his play. Conversely, against what should have proved easier opponents he was apt. at times, to show less of his skill. In this, of course, he was not peculiar, even among the experts.
Generally speaking, however, he was a remarkably tenacious player, who would not abandon a game while there was the slightest chance of a win or a draw. This was not due to mere obstinacy, as may sometimes have appeared, but to the depth of his vision, which gained for him among the German commentators the title of ein tiefe Denker(ed : a deep thinker) – no small testimony from those from whom it came. With a robuster physique there is no knowing to what a position he might have attained in the chess world. The late Amos Burn always had the highest opinion of is powers, and always pointed out, too, the handicap under which a player labours who has to report the events in which he takes part – equivalent, he would say, to giving the other competitors Pawn and move!
Yates was unfortunate in embracing professionalism in an era when the rewards were becoming less and less, and finally reached a stage when they scarcely provided the means of a bare existence. He was a fine simultaneous player, whose exhibitions always delighted by their combination of speed, precision and flashes of brilliance.
As commentator he was very good indeed, and his contributions, especially to The Manchester Guardian, where noted alike for their accuracy and for a sense of style.
He had a journalistic training, outside chess. He was not, in fact, ‘a mere chessplayer’, in spite of his intense devotion to the game. It was his extreme reticence which gave such an impression to all but those whom he admitted to intimacy. They at least knew his widespread interest in other things; and W. Winter’s recent tribute to him in the Guardian in no way exaggerates his charm as a companion among those who knew him best. To them his loss is one which cannot be replaced.”
An Appeal
No doubt all chessplayers in England will have read with sorrow of the death of F.D.Yates at the early age of 46, and more especially will the circumstances of it be a shock to many.
An inquest was held, as has already been reported, and was attended by his two sisters, who have practically no means, as was the case of Yates himself. Certain chessplayers who attended the funeral agreed to make themselves responsible for the funeral expenses, but as the body was removed to Birstall in Yorkshire for burial in the family grave, the expenses were considerably heavier than was anticipates and, with the money owing to the landlady, comes to a total of £51 2s and 0d.
The gravestone of FD Yates, courtesy of Matthew Sadler
We feel quite sure that when our readers know, they will like to show their last recognition of the value which F.D.Yates was to English chess by giving a donation towards the sum.
The London Chess League, whose finances are not in a very satisfactory state, as in the case of most chess concerns, has agreed to donate £3 towards this. Their president has given £1 1s 0d., and one or two other members have promised donations. We shall be happy to receive any contributions towards this fund, and will give acknowledgment in future issues.”
From The Oxford Companion to Chess (OUP, 1984) by Hooper and Whyld :
“English player. British Champion 1913,1914,1921,1926,1928, and 1931, Around 1909 he gave up his profession in accountancy to become a chess professional. Of the many international tournaments in which he competed from Hamburg 1910 to Hastings 1931—2 he made his best results in the B Final, Kecskemet 1927, first (+4=2-1) equal with Tartakower, and at San Remo 1930, the strongest tournament of the year, when he came fifth after Alekhine,, Nimzowitsch, Rubinstein, and Bogoljubow ahead of Spielmann,
Vidmar, and Tartakower.
A tenacious player, he could be a dangerous opponent. In tournament play he defeated most of the greatest masters of his time on one occasion or another, and among these victories were two defeats of Alekhine (Hastings 1922, Carlsbad 1923), and three defeats of Bogoljubow (London 1922, Baden-Baden 1925, Scarborough 1927) and Rubinstein (London 1925, Moscow 1925, Budapest 1926), A careful and conscientious writer, he conducted a chess column in the Yorkshire Post, was chess correspondent of the Manchester Guardian , and wrote three books (see foot of article) in collaboration with William Winter (1898-1955).
Games Played In the World’s Championship Match between Jose Paul Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, FD Yates and W, Winter, 1928, Printing Craft LimitedGames Played in the World’s Championship Match between Alexander Alekhine (Holder of the Title) and E D Bogoljubow (Challenger), Printing Craft Limited, 1930, FD Yates and W. Winter
A leak from a faulty gas pipe connection killed Yates while he was asleep. His book One-hundred- and-one of My Best Games of Chess was published in 1934.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976)by Anne Sunnucks :
“International Master and British Champion in 1913, 1914, 1921, 1926, 1928 and 1931.
Born in Birstall, near Leeds in Yorkshire, on 16th January 1884, Yates was 25 before he played in the British Championship for the first time. In 1909, having won the Yorkshire Championship, his entry was accepted for the British Championship at Scarborough, and he tied with Blackburne for 4th prize. The following year he again tied with Blackburne, this time for 2nd prize, and in 1911 he tied with Atkins for 1st prize but lost the play-off for the title. In 1913, he succeed in winning the British Championship for the first time.. During his career he competed in the British Championship 16 times and won the title on six occasions.
In International tournaments his record did not do him justice as far as his final placings were concerned. However, in studying his performance in detail, his wins were often against the strongest players and his losses against those at the bottom of the tables. This was particularly apparent in the results of the 1926 Budapest tournament.
Cross Table for Budapest 1926
During the course of his career, Yates beat practically every contemporary Grandmaster, with the exception of Lasker and Capablanca. His victory over Alekhine at Carlsbad 1923 came at the end of a combination 18 moves deep and won the brilliancy prize, while his victory over Vidmar at San Remo in 1930 was described by Alekhine as the finest game played since the war.
Other outstanding wins were against Bogoljubow at London 1922, against Rubinstein at Budapest 1926, against Tartakover at Hastings 1927, against Euwe at Scarborough 1928 and against Nimzowitsch at Scarborough 1929. The stronger the opposition the better Yates played.
His losses against weaker players may well have been due to ill-health and lack of necessary stamina to play consistently throughout a long tournament. He was continually troubled by a hacking cough and could not afford to carry out the medical advice that he should go to the Riviera for a cure.
He was a professional chess player at a time when it was difficult to make a livelihood out of chess and he was often handicapped by having to report an event in which he was playing. A number of his contemporaries believed that, had he lived in different circumstances his talent would have placed him among the contenders for the World Championship.
For some years Yates ran the chess column for The Manchester Guardian. He was co-author with Winter of Modern Master Play and of books on the Capablanca vs Alekhine and Alekhine v. Bogoljubov World Championship matches.
Modern Master Play, FD Yates and W. Winter, 1930
Yates had a great number of interests apart from chess and had a very versatile mind which enabled him to talk on a wide range of subjects. He was extremely modest and rarely kept the scores of his games and never submitted them to the press.
He died in tragic circumstances, On 11th November 1932, he was found dead in his bedroom from gas poisoning. At the inquest it was established that there was a faulty connection in the gas meter in his room and a verdict of accidental death was returned.”
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Batsford, 1977) by Harry Golombek:
“A British master. Yates trained as an accountant but in 1909 abandoned this career in favour of chess and journalism. In 1911 he tied for first prize with Atkins in the British Championship losing the play-off match. Two years later he won the event – the first of six such victories (1913, 1914, 1921, 1926, 1928 and 1931).
In international tournaments Yate’s results were generally mediocre, but he was capable on occasion of defeating the strongest opposition and his victims included Alekhine, Reti, Bogoljubow, Tartakower, Rubinstein, Euwe, Nimzowitsch and Vidmar. He was a regular competitor at the Hastings Christmas Congresses, winning in 1920/1 and finishing in 3rd place on four occasions: 1923/4, 1924/5, 1926/7 and 1929/30.
Yates was for many years the chess correspondent of The Manchester Guardian and, in addition, wrote Modern Master Play, London, Philadelphia 1929 (with W. Winter as co-author) and books of the 1927 Capablanca-Alekhine, London 1928, and the 1929 Alekhine-Bogoljubow World Championship matches, London, 1930.
He died from being accidentally asphyxiated in his rooms by a faulty gas connection.”
In the March issue of CHESS for 1963, (Volume 28, Number 427, pp.147-155) William Winter wrote this:
The genius of F. D. Yates
I use the words ‘one of the most talented chess players’ advisedly. I have known personally all the world champions of my time, as well as most of the principal challengers, and I have no hesitation in saying that, at his best, he displayed a chess genius second to none. His victory over Vidmar at San Remo was described by Alekhine in 1931 as the finest game played since the war, and his win against Alekhine himself at Carlsbad is in the same category. The final combination here is eighteen moves deep. There are other games nearly as good and I am quite sure that had Yates been born a Soviet player, encouraged to develop his natural genius along proper lines, he would have been a close challenger for the world title ! Even I never knew the number of great games Yates had played until I came to write his Memorial Book. He was one of those modest souls who never kept the scores of his games and never submitted them to the press, so the only way I could get hold of many true masterpieces was to delve them out of continental magazines and tournament books.
One of the noticeable things about his play was that it took the best opposition to get the best out of him. While the tournament scores of most players are built up on points below them in the list, with Yates the reverse was often the case. I remember in particular one tournament at Budapest in 1926 when his score was made up almost entirely of wins against those above him. Rubinstein, Reti, and Tartakover were among his victims on that occasion and, at one time or another, he secured the scalp of every contemporary grand master. excepting Lasker and Capablanca. He. always played particularly well against Alekhine who once told me he was always relieved when his game with Yates was over. I was not surprised. Alekhine actually lost twice and in several others had hairbreadth escapes.
One of the principal reasons for Yates’ inconsistency was the fact that he was continually troubled by a hacking cough aggravated during the winter by the long cold journeys he had to take in the course of the exhibition tours which formed his means of livelihood. He was medically advised that a winter spent on the Riviera would probably effect a cure, but of course Yates was only an English chess genius and he could not afford it. “Couldn’t afford it.” Of how many hopes and human aspirations have these words sounded the death knell. There is scarcely one of us who, at some period of his or her life has. not found a cherished ambition frustrated by them. That is why I always laugh when I see the way of life in capitalist countries described as free. Until economic obstacles to human aspirations are removed, the words, couldn’t afford it’ deleted from the language, and man permitted to develop his natural attainments without let or hindrance, it is farcical to talk about freedom. Compared with this it is surely of little importance that we have the right to choose which press Lord we allow to poison our minds, or to put a cross opposite the name of Tweedledum or Tweedledee on a ballot paper.
Chill penury
Yates certainly is a striking example of one who was precluded from real greatness by economic sanctions. None the less he left a fine reputation behind him. He won the British Championship on six occasions and on the international field won a number of high. prizes. Lasker rightly described him as Blackburne’s legitimate successor. Of Yates the man I have already given my opinion and there is no need to say any more of his high principles or his hatred of cruelty or meanness in any form, but I cannot leave the subject without drawing attention to the extraordinary versatility of his mind. He seemed to have read something of every subject and assimilated what he had read so that he could talk entertainingly on them all.
Had crossword puzzles been fashionable in his days he would have been a first class solver. From 1926 to his death in 1932 he and I lived on the terms of the closest intimacy and I learned much from him, particularly in the line of chess literature and journalism. I have already spoken of our work for the Manchester Guardian. We also wrote three books together, the Alekhine-Capablanca and the Alekhine-Bogolyubov match books, and a more ambitious work, Modern Master Play, in which we presented profiles of the leading players of the day with annotated examples of their best games. What impressed me most about this work was the meticulous care with which he used the English language. As a writer I had always been satisfied as long as I could find words to express my ideas, but Yates wanted far more than that and I was sometimes slightly irritated by the time he took to formulate a single sentence. I never knew him spend a whole morning putting in a comma and an afternoon taking it out again, but I can quite imagine him doing it. Such literary style as I do possess owes a great deal to him.
Shock of his death
During the six years we were associated he was more like an older brother than a friend and it took me a very long time to recover from the shock when, in the Gambit Café, I heard the terrible news that he had been found dead in his bedroom from the effects of gas poisoning. I had seen him two nights before when we made plans for a new book on the lines of Modern Master Play, dealing with the younger masters of the day.
An exhaustive enquiry was held by one of the most experienced coroners in London and it was conclusively proved that death was due to a faulty gas fitting. Wynne-Williams, Yates’s pupil whom he had been teaching on the very night of his death, gave evidence of his cheerful demeanour, and the Coroner went out of his way to state categorically that this was a case of a tragic accidental death. In spite of all this some of the vile calumniators I have mentioned before, who are always seeking for slime to throw at their betters, sank so low as to suggest that Yates committed suicide. I have even heard the report quite recently. No fouler lie could possibly be invented to smirch the memory of a courageous and noble man.
“Yates almost won the British Championship in 1911, when he tied for first place with Henry Atkins, but lost the play-off. He went on to secure the title in 1913, 1914, 1921, 1926, 1928 and 1931
Despite considerable domestic success, his record in international tournaments did not do him justice. Often the winner against his strongest opponents, he would then lose to those at the bottom of the table. This was particularly apparent at the Budapest tourney of 1926.
His lack of consistency was attributed to poor health and loss of stamina. A constant hacking cough went unchecked, as his funds did not stretch to a holiday in warmer climes; the advice given by his doctor. He was also subjected to journalistic pressures, frequently reporting on the tournaments in which he was playing. Yet, dedicating himself to the playing side of chess would have earned him insufficient sums to make a living. A number of his contemporaries believed that his talent could have placed him among the world championship contenders, had his circumstances been different. Nevertheless, in his time, he defeated most of his illustrious adversaries, the most notable exceptions being Emanuel Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca. His victory against Alexander Alekhine at Karlsbad in 1923 won the brilliancy prize, while his win against Milan Vidmar at San Remo in 1930 was described by Alekhine as the finest game played since the war.”
As a journalist he was the chess columnist of The Manchester Guardian and with William Winter, the co-author of Modern Master Play (1929). He wrote accounts of two world championship encounters; those between Capablanca and Alekhine, and Alekhine and Bogoljubow.
In team competition, he played at the first, third and fourth Olympiads, representing the ‘British Empire’ team. On each occasion, he made a plus score and at London 1927, earned a team bronze medal/
His life ended prematurely, when a leaking gas pipe caused him to asphyxiate during his sleep.
According to the inscription on Yates’ gravestone,[7] his birth name was actually Fred Dewhirst Yates. However, throughout his chess career he was known by the name at the head of this article or simply as F.D. Yates, both of which featured in his posthumously published, part-biographical, ‘My Best Games’ Collection.
Letter to BCM from WH Watts of Printing Craft Limited announcing the publication of One-Hundred-and-one of my Best Games of Chess, by F. D. Yates, London 1934.One-Hundred-and-one of my Best Games of Chess, by F. D. Yates, London 1934.One Hundred and One of My Best Games of Chess, FD Yates
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