Early U.S. Ratings : A Summary and an Exercise

After three months of exploring early U.S. ratings, it's time to move on to other topics. Here is a summary of the posts so far:-

• 2017-07-24: The First USCF Rating List
• 2017-07-31: The First USCF Rating System
• 2017-08-07: USCF Rating Lists in the 1950s • '16 rating lists were published in the 1950s'
• 2017-08-14: Master Ratings and Master Titles
• 2017-08-21: Masters Emeritus in the 1950s
• 2017-08-28: Early USCF Rating Issues • 'Issues provoked by the introduction of ratings'
• 2017-09-11: Ratings Correlated to Performance • 1951 U.S. Championship
• 2017-09-18: A Quarrel About Ratings • How to determine invitations to the U.S. Championship?
• 2017-09-25: The Harkness Rating System
• 2017-10-02: The Harkness System Explained
• 2017-10-09: Harkness Ratings for the Swiss System
• 2017-10-16: Harkness Pairings for the Swiss System

I'll probably continue the rating topic sometime in the future. In particular, the transition from the Harkness system to the Elo system might be worth exploring.

***

Last week I did a preliminary post on GM William Lombardy. Since the start of the GM's career coincided with the early U.S. rating lists, what can we learn about him from the lists? The third post above, 'Rating Lists in the 1950s', is a useful starting point and we discover that Lombardy's first published rating was in the December 1953 issue of Chess Life.

CL 1953-12-20: EXPERTS (2100 to 2299 points); Lombardy, W.J. (Bronx, NY) ... 2250* (where '*' meant 'Provisional rating, representing performance in only one tournament.')

At the end of the list of published ratings, we find:-

RATED TOURNAMENTS • To compute ratings for the Fall 1953 official ranking list, the performance of 2435 players in 172 tournaments and matches were measured and recorded.

The list included around 20 foreign tournaments, of which the first was the 1953 Zurich Candidates Tournament. The first U.S. event in the list happened to be the tournament where Lombardy played.

U.S. Open, Milwaukee, Wis., Aug. 10-21, 1953, 181 players (marked with '*', which here meant '100% USCF Rated Tournament.'

The result of the tournament, one of the most important annual events on the U.S. chess calendar, had been reported in full.

CL 1953-09-20: U.S. Open, Milwaukee; Final Standings of [all 181] Players
1. Donald Byrne (Brooklyn, NY) +9-1=3 / 10.5-3.5
[...]
24. Wm. James Lombardy (Bronx, NY) ... +7-3=3 / 8.5-4.5

The tie for places 13 to 26 was broken by something called a 'Percentage'. CL 1953-10-20 included a full crosstable for the 50 top players. Skipping ahead a few months, we find more mentions of Lombardy.

CL 1953-12-05: 'Chess Life in New York' by Eliot Hearst [...] 'Manhattan C.C weekly rapids now attract about 40 players each Friday night. The contestants are divided up into three classes, A, B, and C, and there are prizes in each three sections; such an arrangement gives one a chance to work his way gradually up the ladder toward 'A' (as Willy Lombardy did, for example), while not missing out on a chance to be a prize winner.'

CL 1953-12-20 [the same issue as the rating list]: 'Chess Life in New York' by Eliot Hearst [...] 'Willy Lombardy of LaSalle High School is unbeaten in the N.Y. Interscholastic Championship and should easily take the title wich last year's champ, Edmar Mednis of Stuyvesant H.S. was unable to defend this year. Lombardy has also scored two straight wins to take an early lead in the annual Marshall CC Junior Championship.'

Lombardy's progress over the next few years can be measured by his USCF rating.

CL 1954-06-05: EXPERTS; Lombardy, W.J. (Bronx, NY) ... 2168

CL 1955-05-05: MASTERS; Lombardy, W.J. (Bronx, NY) ... 2302

CL 1956-05-20: MASTERS; Lombardy, W.J. (Bronx, NY) ... 2349

CL 1957-05-20: SENIOR MASTERS; Lombardy, W.J. (Bronx, NY) ... 2464

That 1957 issue of CL listed him at no.7 of the '15 Top-Ranking Active U.S. Players (1955-56)'. Lombardy mentioned his first rating in his book 'Understanding Chess: My System, My Games, My Life' (see another recent post, Understanding Lombardy, for more about the book). Re the 1953 U.S. Open (p.31):-

I arrived at Milwaukee with my first USCF Rating of 2250! My performance more than justified that preliminary rating and my prize almost covered my living expenses.

Although this doesn't match the facts given in Chess Life, where the 2250 rating was earned during the 1953 U.S. Open, it's a minor detail. It's worth noting that Lombardy's first published USCF rating was the same as my peak FIDE rating, which I achieved after nearly 20 years of playing chess. That's the difference between talent and no-talent.

[NB: While writing this, I noticed that CL 1953-10-05 is missing from the digital file containing all issues of CL from 1953.]

Winter's 'Unsolved Chess Mysteries'

In my previous post, Naming the Opening Variations, I linked to 'Edward Winter presents: Unsolved Chess Mysteries (11) [1 August 2007]' on Chessbase.com. How many editions of 'Unsolved Chess Mysteries' were eventually posted? With the help of Google, I discovered 28.

'Edward Winter presents: Unsolved Chess Mysteries'

• (1) 2/14/2007 - Since Chess Notes began, over 25 years ago, hundreds of mysteries and puzzles have been …
  
• (2) 3/12/2007 - We bring you a further selection of intriguing chess mysteries from Chess Notes, includin
  
• (3) Mar 27, 2007 - Miquel Artigas (Sabadell, Spain) kindly presented in Chess Notes (C.N.s 4008 and 4015)
  
• (4) Apr 10, 2007 - Here chess historian Edward Winter sifts and summarizes the key evidence. There is also
  
• (5) Apr 30, 2007 - We bring you a further selection of mysteries from Edward Winter's Chess Notes, includ
  
• (6) 5/21/2007 - A further miscellany of mysteries from Chess Notes includes an alleged tournament game ..
  
• (7) Jun 2, 2007 - The chess historian Edward Winter presents another selection of mysteries from Chess N
  
• (8) Jun 18, 2007 - In this further selection from Chess Notes historian Edward Winter examines some unauth
  
• (9) Jul 3, 2007 - Was Tartakower a parachutist? These and other mysteries from Chess Notes are discussed b
  
• (10) Jul 18, 2007 - ... Game repeat a position composed 1000 years previously? Edward Winter, the Editor
  
• (11) Aug 1, 2007 - These and other mysteries from Chess Notes are discussed by the historian Edward Wint
  
• (12) Aug 14, 2007 - The chess historian Edward Winter, who wrote a book about the Cuban genius in the 19
  
• (13) 8/27/2007 - In a 1937 game did Alekhine play two moves in succession? Can the full score of a ...
  
• (14) 9/8/2007 - The latest selection from Chess Notes consists of ten positions, including fragments fro
  
• (15) Sep 23, 2007 - By Edward Winter. Line-up. Click to enlarge. C.N. 3956 reported on efforts to identi
  
• (16) 9/30/2007 - Did Lasker invent a tank? Why did Mieses complain to FIDE about Bogoljubow?
  
• (17) Oct 16, 2007 - By Edward Winter. Chess scandals are common enough and tend to concern alleged cheat
  
• (18) 11/1/2007 - An apparent missed mate in one at the 1936 Munich Olympiad; an enigma regarding two ...
  
• (19) 11/20/2007 - A further selection from Chess Notes focuses on games and positions. Why is it claimed
  
• (20) 12/11/2007 - After Pillsbury died, did a chessplayer examine his brain? Was Edward Young a ...
  
• (21) Dec 26, 2007 - By Edward Winter. Lasker's prescience. Page 19 of V.N. Panov's monograph on Capablan
  
• (22) 1/13/2008 - This further selection from Chess Notes includes a neglected game which Lasker ...
  
• (23) 1/20/2008 - We present a special Fischer edition of items from Chess Notes, with discussion of game
  
• (24) Feb 3, 2008 - By Edward Winter. 'The Wallace murder case might have been devised by Agatha Chris
  
• (25) 3/2/2008 - How did the Benko Gambit originate? What is known about Znosko-Borovsky's non-chess ...
  
• (26) 3/18/2008 - This latest selection from Chess Notes provides a stark warning against gullible quotat
  
• (27) 4/11/2008 - What are the origins of the term 'Pride and Sorrow of Chess' to describe Morphy?
  
• (28) 4/24/2008 - The cast in this further selection from Chess Notes includes not only Morphy, Steinitz
  

The descriptions are those given by Google, occasionally truncated by my database software. A better description for each article would be a copy of the introduction from Chessbase.com or a summary of the mysteries presented in that article, but I'll leave that for another time.

Mystery Photo

Even though I'm not a chess collector, I get a fair amount of email on the subject. I assume this is because of my ongoing series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price, last seen in First Chess Postcards in the World. I'm always happy to get this sort of mail, because I invariably learn something about chess history.

Recently I received a message related to a post from June 2012, titled 'A' Is for Alekhine's Autograph. The sender of the message was the seller of the item pictured in that post, and he sent me a couple of scans which I've reproduced below.

The top scan is a photo showing (left to right) players that I believe are Kashdan, Flohr, Alekhine, Pirc, and Stoltz. The bottom scan is the reverse side of the photo -- apparently a postcard -- showing signatures of the same five players (top to bottom with Pirc and Stoltz on the bottom line). The bottom scan also shows a pencilled notation 'Nice 31' over the names of the five players (in the same order as the top photo). The uppermost pencilled note says 'consultation tournament' in Dutch, followed by a reference that I can't decipher.

My correspondent, himself a knowledgeable collector, noted, 'Nice 1931 seems doubtful because the info about the consultancy games there do not match the autographs.' Alekhine, Flohr, and Stoltz played there, but I could find no mention of the other two. If this is true, where was the photo taken?

After a little digging I discovered that all five players were on different teams at the Prague 1931 Olympiad. Was this the source of the photo and autographs? Perhaps an astute visitor to this blog can provide additional information.

More Menchik

London schaken voor meisjes 1926 © Flickr user janwillemsen under Creative Commons.

My Dutch is just good enough to understand the caption, which says,

In de Imperial-Schaakclub te Londen werd dezer dagen een internationale schaakwedstrijd gehouden voor meisjes onder 21 jaar : op onze foto ziet men Engelsche en Russische kampioenen in den strijd.

For a more reliable translation I relied on Google Translate, which returned,

In the Imperial Chess Club in London these days was an international chess competition held for girls under 21 years: our photo shows English and Russian champions in battle.

The Flickr page doesn't give any information about the source other than the date (1926). Vera Menchik is standing in the center looking at the game on the right. According to my page, World Chess Championship for Women, she first became Women's World Champion in 1927. For another photo of Menchik, see my post titled Folkestone 1933.

Spassky on Hanging Pawns

In my previous post, 'This Pawn Is Garbage', I mentioned Spassky's annotations in the tournament book of the Second Piatigorsky Cup, Santa Monica 1966, almost the only written notes I have ever seen by Spassky. A great example of his objective thinking is in a note to the first game in the book, against Petrosian, their 'first meeting after the [1966] championship match', a match which Spassky lost. Referring to the position in the diagram, Spassky wrote,

The so-called 'hanging Pawns' position was created. The shortcoming of hanging Pawns is that they present a convenient target for attack. As the exchange of men proceeds, their potential strength lessens and during the endgame they turn out, as a rule, to be weak.

That constitutes the general thinking on hanging Pawns, which experienced players learn early in their chess careers.

1966 Santa Monica
Spassky, Boris

Petrosian, Tigran
After 16...b6-c5(xP)

Spassky takes it further, noting the positive side of the Pawns, which many experienced players might not know.

The power of hanging Pawns is based precisely in their mobility, in their ability to create acute situations instantly. It should be kept in mind that the semi-open files b- and e- are a component of these hanging Pawns, which frequently serve as an excellent springboard for the development of aggressive play on the part of Black.

But generalities aren't sufficient. Along with the hanging Pawns, there are other pieces on the board that require particular attention.

In the situation at hand, there is an essential shortcoming in Black's position. The Bishop is unsatisfactorily placed on b7 and Black is unable to take advantage of the b-file. Thus, the basic failing in Black's formation lies in its passiveness. Of course, White is here in a position to begin a systematic siege of Black's center.

Spassky's emphasis on activity also came through on the Garbage post. To play though the complete game, see...

Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian vs Boris Spassky; Santa Monica (01) 1966
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128688

...on Chessgames.com.

Champions Without Lineage to Steinitz

In 'The Day Kasparov Quit', a book of interviews by Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Kasparov, just after losing the 2000 match to Kramnik, is quoted as saying (p.202),

[Kramnik] is the 14th World Champion. This is not Khalifman, Mattison, Bogoljubow, or whoever wins India. This is the man who joins Capablanca and the others.

What is the thread that ties these names -- Khalifman, Mattison, and Bogoljubow -- together?

Mattison: Mattison, Herman (1894-1932), Latvian player and study composer, known in Latvia as Matisons. In 1924 he won his country's first championship tournament and, later that year, ahead of Colle and Euwe, the first world amateur championship, arranged in connection with the Olympic Games at Paris. In the second and last amateur championship, organized by FIDE at The Hague in 1928, he took third prize after Euwe and Przepiorka, ahead of Becker. (Hooper & Whyld, 'Oxford Companion', p.252)

Bogoljubow: After Alekhine's victory over Capablanca [1927], FIDE, for which the conducting of the World Championship was an eternally sore point, decided to establish its own championship in a match of ten games and to declare him the official contender to the throne. The participants in the 'candidates match', held in the spring of 1928 in Holland, were Bogoljubow, the winner of the super-tournament at Moscow 1925 and Euwe, supported by his 'committee'. This was a battle of equals: after a win in the sixth game the Dutchman was a point ahead, but in the end he lost by the minimal score: 4.5-5.5 (+2-3=5). (Kasparov, 'Predecessors II' [chapter on Euwe], p.20) • See also FIDE Championship (1928) (Chesshistory.com).

Khalifman: 1999 FIDE Las Vegas (Khalifman 1st)

Anand (winner at India): 2000 FIDE India/Iran (Anand 1st)

See also my recent post on Knockout Champions. What about Topalov, winner at 2005 San Luis; does he count as a real World Champion?

Chess in Africa - African Zonals

Although it's not obvious from my Zonal Overview, the African continent is also represented in the table at the center of that post.

Africa first received formal recognition in the FIDE hierarchy when zone 11, the 'Afro-Mediterranean zone', was established in the mid-1970s. A few years later it was split into zone 11, the 'Mediterranean zone', and zone 12, the 'African zone'. In the early 1980s, the African zone was split into zone 12, the 'North and West African zone', and zone 13, the 'East and Central African zone'. When FIDE moved to the continental structure in the early 1990s, Africa was assigned three separate zones within the African continent.

The various African zonals and continental championships (designated as 4.0) are shown in the following table.

I haven't been able to locate details of certain events -- most notably the zonals which should have taken place before the 1990 and 1993 interzonals (cycles 15 and 16 in the table) -- and I suspect the African players were nominated by the zone presidents. I'll clarify this as soon as I can.

Note: For the previous post in the 'Chess in Africa' series, see Chess in Africa - Titled Players.

4th Soviet Championship (1925)

Motivated by the photo in my post on Nikolai Krylenko, I searched various sources for more Soviet chess images from the 1920s. The Fizkultura i Sport Black Books were one resource at hand, and I found the following photo in the black book on Romanovsky. It shows the participants in the 1925 Soviet championship.

Source: Peter Romanovsky (Fizkultura i Sport; 1984), p.72

Front row (left to right): Vilner, Levenfish, (Rokhlin), Gothilf, Rabinovich, Bogoljubow, Ilyin Zhenevsky, Dus Chotimirsky, Romanovsky, Sergeev, Nenarokov, Verlinsky, Rabinovich. Back row: Freiman, Sozin, (Ereteev), Grigoriev, Zubarev, Selezniev, Kaspersky, Kutuzov, (Weinstein / Vainshtein). Missing: Kubbel. • The names in parentheses were not participants in the 1925 championship -- the 4th, held in Leningrad -- and I'm not sure if my transliteration is correct.

Chigorin Wrapup

I had planned to wrap up this series on Chigorin with a summary of the 1890 Chigorin - Gunsberg match, using the same format I developed for 1893 Tarrasch - Chigorin (Anatomy). I ran into a snag when I realized that, although I have copies of the game scores, I have no record of the sequence in which they were played (and no way of knowing if my game scores are complete or accurate). There appears to be nothing on the web except for the final result of the match. The summary will have to wait until I have access to contemporary sources.

Here's a summary of my posts on Chigorin, including comments on special techniques used within the post.

• 2008-09-28 Chigorin -> Romanovsky -> Kotov
  
• 2008-11-02 Mikhail Ivanovich Chigorin (1850-1908) • Tournament & match record from the Oxford Companion.
  
• 2008-11-09 Chigorin and Schiffers
  
• 2008-11-16 Emanuel Schiffers (Emmanuel Shiffers)
  
• 2008-11-23 Chigorin and His Contemporaries
  
• 2008-11-30 The Enigma of Chigorin • Opening variations in tree form.
  
• 2008-12-07 Knight Owl
  
• 2008-12-14 Bias in the Soviet School
  
• 2008-12-21 Chigorin Stumbles at Hastings 1895 • Cumulative score of main tournament contenders.
  
• 2008-12-28 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2
  
• 2009-01-11 1893 Tarrasch - Chigorin (Openings)
  
• 2009-01-18 1893 Tarrasch - Chigorin (Anatomy) • Schema for documenting a match.
  
• 2009-01-25 1893 Tarrasch - Chigorin (Long Struggles)

Next stop in my look at the Soviet School: Alekhine.

Gruenfeld - Alekhine, Karlsbad 1923

One of the curiosities on the list of Alekhine's annotated brilliancies is that Alekhine won two brilliancy prizes in each of three different events: 1922 Pistyan, 1923 Karlsbad, and 1926 Semmering. There are undoubtedly good reasons for this. One game might have been awarded a prize for the most brilliant game in the event, while the other might have won a prize for best game featuring an attack on the castled King. I'll check this the next time I visit a chess library.

The following position is from Karlsbad (Carlsbad) 1923. Just like the other brilliant game from the same event (Alekhine - Rubinstein), Kasparov selected this game for 'My Great Predecessors' and Kotov chose it for his biography of Alekhine.

This game against Gruenfeld was played in the round before the game with Rubinstein. Both games saw the same opening, a Queen's Gambit Declined, with Alekhine varying on his ninth move as White against Rubinstein (9.a4 instead of 9.a3); 'I wished to avoid fighting against the defence which I considered then, and still consider now, the best.'

The idea behind pushing the a-Pawn is seen in Black's last move in the diagram. It has allowed White's light squared Bishop to move from f1 to c4 (after ...d5xc4) to a2 to b1. The Queen and Bishop form a battery aiming at h7, a weak spot in Black's position. If it were now White's move and if the Knight were missing from f6, White could force mate in two.

Karlsbad 1923
Alekhine, Alexander

Gruenfeld, Ernst
(After 16.Ba2-b1)
[FEN "r1b1r1k1/3nbpp1/pq2pn1p/1p6/3N3B/P1N1P3/1PQ2PPP/1B1RK2R b K - 0 16"]

Alekhine first pointed out that White's last move, 'appears to prevent 16...Bb7 owing to the possibility of 17.Ndxb5 axb5 18.Rxd7 with a winning attack for White.' 16...Bb7! Anyway! This note and the following notes are all by Alekhine:

Black plays this move all the same, for 17.Ndxb5 would be refuted by 17...Qc6 18.Nd4 (forced) 18...Qxg2 with a strong counter-attack. In this way Black has successfully completed his development. There consequently remains nothing else for White than castling, after the failure of his premature attack.

17.O-O Rac8 18.Qd2

Hindering the double threat 18...Be4 or 18...Ne4.

18...Ne5!

This Knight will occupy the square c4, thereby fixing the weakness of the Queenside, induced by 9.a3.

19.Bxf6

In order to exchange Black's dangerous QB; White's next maneuver is finely conceived, but insufficient to equalize.

19...Bxf6 20.Qc2 g6

Not at all to prevent a harmless check at h7 but rather to secure a retreat subsequently for the KB, whose action on the long diagonal will be very powerful.

21.Qe2 Nc4 22.Be4!

Feeling himself in a strategic inferiority, Gruenfeld attempts to save himself by tactical skirmishing. He now hopes for the variation 22...Nxa3 23.Qf3! Bxe4 24.Nxe4 Bxd4 25.exd4 etc., which would ensure him the gain of the exchange.

22...Bg7! 23.Bxb7

But by this simple move, which is part of his plan, Black retains his advantage.

23...Qxb7 24.Rc1

The threat 24...Nxa3 compels White to retrace his 14th move.

24...e5!

The advance of the e-Pawn will give Black's Knight a new outpost on d3, still more irksome for the opponent than its present position.

25.Nb3 e4

Renewing the threat 26...Nxa3.

26.Nd4 Red8!

To make the following Knight maneuver still more effective, for now when it reaches d3 it will intercept the defence of the White Knight by the Rook.

27.Rfd1 Ne5 28.Na2

After this move, which removes the Knight from the field of action, White is definitely lost.

Alekhine wasn't shy about giving '!' to his moves. The five '!'-moves in the preceding sequence are as annotated by the fourth World Champion. He finished the game with a nice combination where he awarded himself two more '!'-moves as well as a '!!'-move! To play through the complete game see...

Ernst Gruenfeld vs Alexander Alekhine, Karlsbad 1923
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012180

...on Chessgames.com.