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Peter Winston was an American chess player and former U.S. Junior Champion.He is most famous for his mysterious disappearance in 1977 after poor tournament play. He was 0-9, an unlikely record for player of his strength. It is presumed he committed suicide.

  

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Evgeny Vladimirov (b. 20 January 1957) is a chess Grandmaster from Kazakhstan. Vladimirov took on the computer program Hydra in August, 2004 and lost three games and drew one. His FIDE rating in July 2005 was 2616.

  

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Milan Vidmar (June 22, 1885 – October 9, 1962) was a Slovene electrical engineer, chess player, chess theorist, philosopher and writer, born in Ljubljana, Austria-Hungary (now Slovenia). He was a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current.

He began to study a mechanical engineering in 1902 and he graduated in 1907 at the University of Vienna. He got his doctor’s degree in 1911 from the Technical faculty in Vienna. The study of an electrical engineering at Technical faculty began not until 1904, so Vidmar had to take special examinations of the field basics. He was a professor at the University of Ljubljana, a member of the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences (SAZU), and the founder of the Faculty of Electrical engineering. Between 1928 and 1929 he was the 10th Chancellor of the University of Ljubljana. In 1948 he established the Institute of Eletrotechnics that now bears his name.

Vidmar was also a top-class chess International Grandmaster, ranking fourth among the world elite, including Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, and Euwe, as the only amateur player among professionals.

His successes include victories at some of the top chess tournaments of his time (Carlsbad 1907, Prague 1908, San Sebastian 1911, Budapest 1912, Vienna 1918, London 1922, Hastings 1925, Semmering 1926, New York 1927, London 1927, Bled 1939, Basel 1952). The Slovene Chess Federation organizes an international chess grandmaster tournament named the Milan Vidmar memorial.

Vidmar wrote several books on chess, including Pol stoletja ob sahovnici (Half a century at the chessboard) (Ljubljana 1951), Sah (Chess), Razgovori o sahu z zacetnikom (Conversations on chess with a beginner), and, in German, Goldene Schachzeiten (The Golden Times of Chess) and others Transformatorji (Transformers), Problemi prenosa elektricne energije (Problems of electric energy transmission), Pogovori o elektrotehniki (Talkings about electrotechnics), Med Evropo in Ameriko (Between Europe and America), Moj pogled na svet (My view of the World), Oslovski most (Pons asinorum) (Merkur, Ljubljana 1936).

The “ZBD” model transformer was invented by three Hungarian engineers: Otto Blacute;thy, Miksa Deri and Karoly Zipernowsky in a year of Vidmar’s birth in 1885 (and in the same year Stanley invents his transformer).

  

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Loek Van Wely (b. October 7, 1972) is a chess Grandmaster from the Netherlands. His FIDE rating in July 2005 was 2655.

In 2002, in Maastricht, Netherlands, Van Wely took on the computer program Rebel in a four game match. The computer won two games and Van Wely won two games. Here is game four of the match (in algebraic chess notation):

1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.a3 Nf6 6.Rb1 a5 7.e3 d6 8.Nge2 Bf5 9.d3 Ne5 10. e4 Bg4 11.h3 Bf3 12.O-O Bxg2 13.Kxg2 O-O 14. g4 e6 15. Ng3 Ne8 16. f4 Nc6 17.f5 Qh4 18. Be3 Be5 19.Nce2 exf5 20.exf5 Ng7 21.Ne4 Qd8 22.f6 Ne6 23.N2c3 Re8 24.Qd2 Kh8 25. b3 Rb8 26.Bg1 Rg8 27.a4 g5 28.Be3 Nb4 29.Nd5 Nxd5 30. cxd5 Nf4+ 31. Bxf4 Bxf4 32. Rxf4 gxf4 33. Qxf4 b6 34. Qxd6 Qxd6 35.Nxd6 Rgf8 36.Ne4 Rbe8 37.Kf3 Re5 38.Nc3 Rfe8 39.Kf4 Re3 40.Rd1 Rxh3 41.Ne4 Rh2 42.d4 cxd4 43.d6 Rd8 44.Rxd4 Rc2 45.Rc4 Rxc4 46.bxc4 Kg8 47.Ke5 Kf8 48.c5 bxc5 49.Nxc5 Ke8 50.Kd5 Rb8 51.d7+ Kd8 52.Kc6 Rb2 53.Nb7+ Rxb7 54. Kxb7 Kxd7 55.Kb6 1-0

  

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Wolfgang Unzicker (b. 26 June 1925) was the strongest German chess grandmaster from 1945 to about 1970. He decided against making chess his profession, choosing law instead. At times the world’s strongest amateur chess player, world champion Anatoly Karpov called Unzicker the “world champion of amateurs”. Unzicker was born in Pirmasens, a small town near Kaiserslautern in the province of Rhineland-Palatinate.

His father taught him how to play chess at age 10. His brother, four years older, was also a chess player but was killed in World War II. Unzicker began to play tournaments abroad in 1948 as Germany was struggling to rebuild after the war, and achieved the grandmaster title in 1954. He won the German championship six times from 1948 to 1963 and tied for first in 1965. From 1950 to 1978 Unzicker played in twelve Chess Olympiads, and was first board on ten of them. He has played nearly 400 times representing Germany’s national team. For many years he was legal advisor for the the German Chess Association. In 2005, Unzicker celebrated his 80th birthday with his wife Freia, his three sons and their wives and three grandchildren. A retired judge, he still plays chess as first board on the club team “Tarrasch Munich”.

His tournament victories include the first place tie (+6 =9) with Boris Spassky at Sochi 1965, first at Maribor 1967 ahead of Samuel Reshevsky, first at Krems, and first at Amsterdam 1980 tied with Hans Ree. In 1950, Unzicker shared the prize for best top-board score (+9 =4 -1) with Miguel Najdorf for his performance on first board for the West German team at the Dubrovnik Chess Olympiad. At the Tel Aviv 1965 Chess Olympiad Unzicker scored 13.5 points playing first board for the West German team that won the bronze medal on the strength of a 3:1 team victory over the Soviet Union. Unzicker also shared fourth place (+2 =14 -1) with Lajos Portisch in the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup in Santa Monica, California. Only Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Bent Larsen finished ahead of Unzicker.

Unzicker placed ahead of world champion Tigran Petrosian, Samuel Reshevsky, Miguel Najdorf, Borislav Ivkov, and Hein Donner. At Hastings 1969-1970, Unzicker finished second (+4 =5) after Lajos Portisch and before Svetozar Gligoric and world champion Vasily Smyslov. Unzicker finished second (+3 =7 -2) to Viktor Korchnoi at South Africa 1979.

Unzicker has a classical chess style modelled after the German player and theorist Siegbert Tarrasch. In 1956 he lost a match to Paul Keres in which both players chose to begin with the Ruy Lopez opening in all eight games.

  

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Sir Theodore Henry Tylor (13 May 1900 – 23 October 1968) was an outstanding lawyer and international level chess player – all the more impressive since he was near-blind. In 1965 he was knighted for his service to organisations for the blind. He was Fellow and Tutor in Jurisprudence at Balliol College, Oxford for almost forty years.

Chess

Tylor competed in twelve British Championships, finishing 3rd to Sultan Khan in 1933. He played on board 5 in the England team at the Hamburg 1930 Chess Olympiad. He won the British Correspondence Chess Championship in 1932, 1933 and 1934 and the Hastings 1929/30 Premier Reserves alongside Koltanowski ahead of Flohr. As an undergraduate he captained the Oxford University chess team.

  

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Vitaly Tseshkovsky (born September 25, 1944) is a Russian chess Grandmaster.

His best tournament victories include first at Leipzig 1975, Yerevan 1980, Banja Luka 1981 and Minsk 1982. After second place finishes in Soviet Championships of 1978 and 1980, he won the event in 1986. He has beaten several world champions: Vasily Smyslov at the Moscow Spartakiad 1974, Mikhail Tal at Sochi 1970, and a young Garry Kasparov at the 1978 Soviet Championship. Tseshkovsky himself almost qualified for the World Championship candidates matches when he finished fourth in the 1976 Manila Interzonal, one place lower than was needed to progress to the next stage.

His 6/9 result in St Petersburg, 2004 qualified him to play in the Russian Championship final later in the year, alongside Russia’s seven top players and five other qualifiers

Throughout his career, Tseshkovsky has played 1.e4 when playing White. With Black he has played the Ruy Lopez, Sicilian Defence, Pirc Defence and Modern Defence against 1.e4, and against 1.d4 he has most often played the Grünfeld Defence and Benko Gambit.

In the April 2005 FIDE list, Tseshkovsky had an Elo rating of 2589.

  

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Karel Traxler (1866 – 1936) was a Czech chess player and composer of chess problems.

He beat Oldrich Duras in Veseli in 1902 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 Bxd2+ 8.Nbxd2 Nxe4 9.d5 Nxd2 10.Qxd2 Nb8 11.d6 O-O 12.Rc1 Nc6 13.dxc7 Qxc7 14.O-O Qa5 15.Qd6 Qb4 16.Bxf7 Rxf7 17.Rxc6 Qxb2 18.Re1 Qf6 19.Qd5 1-0

As a chess composer he pursued the style of Bohemian school.

  

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Carlos Torre Repetto (1904-1978) was a chess grandmaster from Mexico.

A chess opening, the Torre Attack, is named after him – it is characterised by the moves (in algebraic notation) 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bg5.

Torre also introduced the Mexican Defence to chess theory in a match against Fritz Sämisch in 1925 in Baden-Baden, Germany. It runs 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6. Torre later dropped this line, but it was never refuted. It is also known as the “Black Knight’s Tango” (International Master Georgi Orlov wrote a book on the opening under this title). Since it may transpose into quite many known openings, it is not a compact opening and so perhaps not suitable for beginners, but its uncommonness means it has surprise value.

“The Windmill”

In the Moscow 1925 international tournament, Torre defeated former World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker with a dazzling queen sacrifice. The combination is immortalized, and is known as “The Windmill”.

Torre – Lasker, Moscow 1925

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5 c5 4.e3 cxd4 5.exd4 Be7 6.Nbd2 d6 7.c3 Nbd7 8.Bd3 b6 9.Nc4 Bb7 10.Qe2 Qc7 11.O-O O-O 12.Rfe1 Rfe8 13.Rad1 Nf8 14.Bc1 Nd5 15.Ng5 b5 16.Na3 b4 17.cxb4 Nxb4 18.Qh5 Bxg5 19.Bxg5 Nxd3 20.Rxd3 Qa5 21.b4! Qf5 22.Rg3 h6 23.Nc4 Qd5 24.Ne3 Qb5

See diagram. Torre wins with a queen sacrifice, as his rook and bishop form a grindstone that crushes Black with a series of checks and discovered checks.

25.Bf6!! Qxh5 26.Rxg7+ Kh8 27.Rxf7+ Kg8 28.Rg7+ Kh8 29.Rxb7+ Kg8 30.Rg7+ Kh8 31.Rg5+ Kh7 32.Rxh5 Kg6 33.Rh3 Kxf6 34.Rxh6+ Kg5 35.Rh3 Reb8 36.Rg3+ Kf6 37.Rf3+ Kg6 38.a3 a5 39.bxa5 Rxa5 40.Nc4 Rd5 41.Rf4 Nd7 42.Rxe6+ Kg5 43.g3 Black resigns.

  

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Eugenio Torre (born November 4, 1951) is a chess Grandmaster.

He is considered the strongest chessplayer the Philippines has ever produced.

Torre became the first Asian player to earn the much coveted title of International Grandmaster. In a tournament in Manila in the 1976, Torre beat then reigning world chess champion Anatoly Karpov in a game that has become part of Filipino chess history (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bg5 e6 7.Qd2 a6 8.O-O-O Bd7 9.f4 b5 10.Qe1 Nxd4 11.Rxd4 Qb6 12.Rd2 Be7 13.Bd3 b4 14.Nd1 Bb5 15.Nf2 h6 16.Bh4 g5 17.fxg5 hxg5 18.Bg3 Nh5 19.Ng4 Nxg3 20.hxg3 Rxh1 21.Qxh1 Rc8 22.Kb1 Bxd3 23.cxd3 Qd4 24.Qd1 a5 25.Nh2 g4 26.Nxg4 Bg5 27.Rc2 Rxc2 28.Kxc2 a4 29.a3 b3 30.Kb1 d5 31.exd5 Qxd5 32.Nf2 Qxg2 33.Ne4 Be3 34.Nc3 Qc6 35.d4 Qc4 36.d5 e5 37.Qh1 Qd3+ 38.Ka1 Bd4 39.Qh8+ Kd7 40.Qa8 Qf1+ 41.Nb1 Qc4 42.Qb7+ Kd6 43.Qb8+ Kxd5 44.Qd8+ Ke6 45.Qe8+ Kf5 46.Qd7+ Kg6 47.Qg4+ Kf6 48.Nc3 Qf1+ 0-1

Torre qualified for the Candidates Matches for the 1984 World Championship. In that preliminary stage, the contenders play matches against each other to determine who will challenge the world champion. Torre was eliminated when he lost his match against Zoltan Ribli by a score of 6-4.

It is well-known that Torre is a friend of Bobby Fischer. He worked on Fischer’s team in his 1992 rematch with Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia. Much later, Torre conducted interviews on Filipino radio with Bobby Fischer. Those interviews gained notoriety for Fischer, and despair for his fans. Torre continues to play actively in local and international tournaments.

Eugenio Torre should not be confused with Mexican Grandmaster Carlos Torre.

  

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Veselin Topalov (Bulgarian: born Ruse, Bulgaria, March 15, 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster. In the July 2005 FIDE rating list, he was number two in the world (tied with Anand) with an Elo rating of 2788.

He was taught the rules of chess when he was eight years old by his father. In 1989 he won the World Under-14 Championship in Aguadilja, Puerto Rico, and in 1990 won the silver medal at the World Under-16 Championship in Singapore. He became a Grandmaster in 1992.

Topalov has been leader of the Bulgarian national team since 1994. At the Chess Olympiad in 1994 in Moscow he beat Garry Kasparov (see below), and led the Bulgarians to a fourth-place finish. He has won a number of tournaments, and at the FIDE World Championship in New Delhi in 2000 reached the quarter-finals.

Topalov won (+4 =5 -1) the M-Tel Masters 2005 tournament, held 11 May to 22 May in Sofia, Bulgaria. The victory was achieved by a last round win over Vladimir Kramnik in an unusual game featuring multiple blunders by both sides. Vishwanathan Anand finished second, back by one point, in a field of six including Ruslan Ponomariov, Michael Adams, and Judit Polgar. The average rating of the participants was 2744, making this super-GM, double round robbin tournament the strongest in 2005.

Topalov has a negative record against Kasparov, but has beaten him on a few occasions, including the last game Kasparov played before he announced his retirement at Linares 2005, and this encounter, played at the 1994 Chess Olympiad when Topalov was just 19 years old (moves given in algebraic chess notation):

Topalov-Kasparov, Moscow Olympiad 1994

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.g4 h6 8.f4 Nc6 9.Be2 e5 10.Nf5 g6 11.Ng3 exf4 12.Bxf4 Be6 13.Rf1 Rc8 14.h3 Qb6 15.Qd2 Bg7 16.Bxd6 Nxg4 17.Bxg4 Qxb2 18.e5 Nxe5 19.Rb1 Qxc3 20.Qxc3 Rxc3 21.Bxe6 fxe6 22.Rxb7 Nc4 23.Bb4 Re3+ 24.Ne2 Be5 25.Rff7 Rxh3 26.Nd4 Re3+ 27.Kf1 Re4 28.Rfe7+ Kd8 29.Nc6+ 1-0

Topalov also has the curious distinction of furnishing what are considered to be the finest games of Karpov’s and Kasparov’s careers by having lost to them in spectacular fashion, first to Karpov at Linares in 1994, and later to Kasparov at Corus in Wijk aan Zee in 1999.

Notable tournament victories

Madrid 1994, 1996, 1997
Dos Hermanas 1996
Amsterdam 1996
Vienna 1996
Novgorod 1996
Antwerp 1997
Monaco 2001
Dortmund 2001
Linares 2005 (joint first with Kasparov)
Sofia 2005 (a point ahead of Anand)

  

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Jan Timman (born December 14, 1951) is a famous Dutch chessplayer who had his greatest successes in the 1970s and 1980s. He has won the national championship of the Netherlands nine times. He was a candidate for the World Championship several times.

He played for the FIDE World Championship in 1993, losing to Anatoly Karpov. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and known as “The Best of the West”. Timman continues to play actively, and on the July 2002 FIDE rating list, he was ranked 67th in the world. With the October 2002 list, however, he fell out of the top 100.

He tied Krishnan Sasikiran for first place in the 2005 Sigeman Tournament in Copenhagen/Malmö Denmark. He is one the chief editors of the magazine New In Chess.

  

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Richard Teichmann (1868 – 1925) was a leading German chess player.

He had an even record against Alexander Alekhine. He even beat Alekhine with black pieces in Berlin in 1921 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. Nc3 f6 6. d4 exd4 7. Qxd4 Qxd4 8. Nxd4 Bd6 9. Nde2 Ne7 10. Bf4 Be6 11. Bxd6 cxd6 12. O-O-O O-O-O 13. Rhe1 Bf7 14. Nd4 Rhe8 15. f3 Kc7 16. a4 b5 17. axb5 axb5 18. b4 Nc8 19. Nf5 g6 20. Ne3 Nb6 21. Kb2 d5 22. Rd4 f5 23. Ra1 Nc8 24. g4 dxe4 25. Rxd8 Kxd8 26. fxe4 f4 27. Rd1+ Kc7 28. Rf1 g5 29. Nf5 Nd6 30. Ra1 Nc4+ 31. Kc1 Kb6 32. Nd4 h5 33. gxh5 Bxh5 34. Nb3 f3 35. Nd2 Ne3 36. Ra3 f2 37. Na4+ bxa4 38. Rxe3 Rd8 0-1

  

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Ksawery Tartakower (generally known as Saviely or Savielly in English, less often Xavier Tartacover or Xavier Tartakover; 1887-1956) was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster.

He was born February 22, 1887 in Rostov-on-Don, to a Polish Jewish family. At the age of twelve his family left Russia for Austria-Hungary and finally settled in Vienna, where Tartakower grew up. He graduated from the law faculties of the universities in Geneva and Vienna. During his studies he became interested in chess and started attending chess meetings in various cafes for chess players in Vienna. He met personally many notable masters of the time, among them Carl Schlechter, Geza Maroczy, Milan Vidmar and Richard Reti. His first achievement was the first place in a tournament in Nuremberg in 1906. Three years later he achieved the second place in the tournament in Vienna – losing only to Reti.

During World War I he was drafted to the Austro-Hungarian army and served as a staff officer on various posts. After the war he emigrated to France and settled in Paris. Although Tartakower did not even speak the Polish language, after Poland regained its independence in 1918 he accepted Polish citizenship and became one of the most prominent honorary ambassadors of Poland abroad.

In France he decided to become a profesional chess player. He also started cooperation with various chess-related magazines. He also wrote several books and brochures related to chess playing. The most famous of his books, the Hyper-modernist chess play (Die hypermoderne Schachpartie) was published in 1924 and has been issued in almost a hundred re-editions ever since. Tartakower took also part in many of the most important chess tournaments of the epoch. In 1927 and 1928 he won two tournaments in Hastings and shared the first place with Aron Nimzowitsch at the London contest. At the latter occasion he managed to beat as notable chess players as Frank Marshall, Milan Vidmar and Yefim Bogolubov. In 1930 he won the Liege tournament beating Mir Sultan Khan by two points. Further down the list were, among others, Akiba Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch and Marshall.

Tartakower opening

In the thirties Tartakower represented Poland in six chess olympiads, gathering three individual medals (gold in 1931 and bronze in 1933 and 1935), as well as 5 team medals (gold, two silver and two bronze). In 1935 he was one of the main organisers of the Chess Olympiad in Warsaw. He also won the Polish Chess Championship twice (1935 in Warsaw and in 1937 in Jurata).

In 1939 the outbreak of World War II caught him in Buenos Aires, where he was playing the 8th Chess Olympiad, representing Poland in a team with, among others, Mieczyslaw Najdorf. After a short stay in Argentina he decided to return to Europe. He arrived in France shortly before its collapse in 1940. Under a false name Cartier he joined the forces of general Charles de Gaulle. After World War II and the communist take-over of power in Poland, Tartakower became a French citizen. He represented France at the 1950 Chess Olympiad. FIDE instituted the title of International Grandmaster in 1950; Tartakower was in the first group of players to receive that title. He died on February 4, 1956, in Paris.

Tartakower is regarded as one of the most notable chess personalities of his times. A talented chess player, he is also known for his countless aphorisms, which are sometimes called Tartacoverisms. One of the variations of the Dutch Defence is named after him. The Tartakower Defence in the Queen’s Gambit Declined (also known as the Tartakower-Makogonov-Bondarevsky System) also bears his name. He is alleged to be the inventor of the ‘Orangutan Opening’ 1.b4…, so named after Tartakower fell in love with a great ape during his visit to the zoo whilst playing in the great 1924 tournament in New York.

Quotations
“It’s always better to sacrifice your opponent’s men.”
“An isolated Pawn spreads gloom all over the chessboard.”
“The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made.”
“The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.”

Writings of Savielly Tartakower
500 Master Games of Chess by Savielly Tartakower and J. du Mont (Dover Publications, June 1, 1975, ISBN 0486232085)
Breviaire des echecs, one of the best known initiation text for chess in the French language
My Best Games Of Chess 1905-1954 by S.G. Tartakower (Dover Publications, 1985, ISBN 0486248070), the definitive recollection of Tartakower’s career, written in his unique style.

  

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Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was one of the strongest chess players of the late 19th century. He took Wilhelm Steinitz’s ideas (control of the center, bishop pair, space advantage) to a higher level of refinement. He stated what is known as the Tarrasch rule that rooks should be placed behind passed pawns – either yours or your opponent’s. He wrote several books, including Die moderne Schachpartie and Three hundred chess games. Tarrasch may have been the best player in the world in during the early 1890s, but after Emmanuel Lasker became world chess champion, Tarrasch could not match him.

He was a great target of the hypermodern school, led by Richard Réti, Aron Nimzowitsch and Savielly Tartakower, who considered his ideas dogmatic.

A number of chess openings are named after Tarrasch, with the most notable being:
The Tarrasch Defense, Tarrasch’s favorite line against the Queen’s Gambit.
The Tarrasch Variation of the French Defense.

  

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Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal (November 9, 1936 – June 28, 1992), born in Riga, Latvia, was the eighth World Chess Champion. Known as “The Magician from Riga”, Tal can be considered as the archetype of the attacking player, developing an extremely powerful and imaginative play.

His approach over the board was very pragmatic – in that respect, he is one of the heirs of the ex-World Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificed material in the search for initiative in chess which was defined by the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. His first and most influential trainer was Alexander Koblentz.

Tal’s playing style was scorned by ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov as nothing more than “tricks,” yet he convincingly beat every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression (Viktor Korchnoi and Paul Keres are two of the few with a significant plus record against him). Tal’s intuitive sacrifices created vast complications, and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis found flaws in some of his conceptions.

Tal loved the game in itself and considered that “Chess, first of all, is Art.” He was capable of playing numerous blitz games against unknown or relatively weak players purely for the joy of playing.

Tal’s dominance over Bobby Fischer in his early years helped his rise to the top. In 1960, at the age of 24, Tal defeated the relatively staid and strategic Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Championship match, making him the youngest ever world champion (a record later broken by Garry Kasparov, who earned the title at 22). Botvinnik won the return match against Tal in 1961 after a lengthy study of Tal’s style. Tal’s chronic kidney problems may also have contributed to his defeat. His short reign atop the chess world made him one of the two so-called “winter kings” (the other was Vasily Smyslov) that broke up Botvinnik’s long domination (1948-1963).

Tal was a five-time winner of the International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia, with victories in 1971, 1973, 1977, 1981, and 1983. One of Tal’s greatest achievements during his later career was an equal first place with Anatoly Karpov in the 1979 Montreal “Tournament of Stars”-there he delivered a superb performance against many of the strongest grandmasters of the day.

Of the current top-level players, the Latvian-born Spaniard Alexei Shirov has probably been most influenced or inspired by Tal’s sacrificial style. In fact he studied with Tal as a youth. Many other Latvian grandmasters and masters, for instance Alexander Shabalov and Alvis Vitolins, have played in a similar vein, causing some to speak of a “Latvian School of Chess.”

  

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Mark Evgenievich Taimanov (born February 7, 1926) is a leading Russian chess player and concert pianist.

He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1952 and played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for 8th. From 1946-56, he was in the world’s top 10. He played in 23 USSR Chess Championships, a record equalled by Efim Geller, and tied for 1st twice. In 1952 he lost the playoff match to Mikhail Botvinnik, while in 1956, he beat Yuri Averbakh and Boris Spassky for the title. However, he is probably best known for his 6-0 loss to Bobby Fischer in the 1971 Candidates match.

After his loss to Fischer, the Soviet government was embarrassed, and, as Taimanov later put it in a 2002 interview, found it “unthinkable” that he could have lost the match so badly to an American without a “political explanation”. [1] They took away Taimanov’s salary, and was no longer allowed to travel overseas. They later “forgave” him, and lifted the sanctions against him. Fischer’s defeat of Bent Larsen 6-0 later in 1971 may have helped change their minds.

He has opening variations named after him in the Sicilian Defense and Nimzo-Indian Defense.

  

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Peter Svidler ( born June 17, 1976 in Leningrad) is a Russian chess grandmaster. In the July 2005 FIDE rating list, he has an ELO rating of 2738, making him number seven in the world. Peter Svidler learned to play chess when he was six years old. He became Grandmaster in 1994. He is four-time Russian champion (1994, 1995, 1997, 2003). In 2001, he reached the semi-finals of the FIDE World Championship.

He won an important Fischer random chess tournament.

Andrei Lukin is his coach.

  

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Emil Sutovsky (born 19 September 1977) is an Israeli chess Grandmaster.

Successes

He achieved notable successes by winning the World Junior Chess Championship in Medellín in 1996, finishing first at the double-round-robin VAM Hoogeveen Tournament in 1997 (ahead of Judit Polgar, Loek van Wely and Vassily Smyslov) and winning Hastings 2000 (ahead of Alexey Dreev and Jonathan Speelman). He finished tied for first in two major open tournaments in 2005: in Gibraltar he scored 7.5/10 (the same score as Lev Aronian, Zahar Efimenko, Kiril Georgiev and Alexei Shirov), and at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow he scored 6.5/9 (the same as Vasily Ivanchuk, Alexander Motylev, Andrei Kharlov and Vladimir Akopian). His superior tie-break in the latter gave him clear first place and with it an invitation to the prestigious Dortmund tournament later in the year.

Playing style

His uncompromising style means his tournament results can be somewhat inconsistent: shortly before his successes in Gibraltar and Moscow, he had performed disappointingly in 2004 at round-robin events at Pamplona (3/7), Pune (3.5/9) and Ashdod (1.5/5). This same uncompromising style has also resulted in some spectacular games: his sacrificial victory over Ilya Smirin in the 2002 Israeli Championship was voted the best game of issue 86 of Chess Informant, and his victory over Danny Gormally at Gibraltar 2005 earned him the prize for best game.

Sutovsky played in two FIDE Knock-out World Championships: in 2000 he was eliminated in the first round by Igor Nataf; in 2001 he was eliminated in round three by eventual runner-up Vasily Ivanchuk. He did not participate in the controversial 2004 championship because of concerns about how its hosts, Libya, would treat Israeli players.

Sutovsky virtually always plays 1.e4 with White, occasionally testing unfashionable, old-fashioned openings such as the Two Knights Defence, Giuoco Piano and Four Knights Game. With black, he usually plays the Grünfeld Defence or King’s Indian Defence against 1.d4 and almost exclusively the Sicilian Defence against 1.e4.

On the April 2005 FIDE list, Sutovsky had an Elo rating of 2665, making him Israel’s number 2 (behind Boris Gelfand) and number 38 in the world.

  

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Mir Sultan Khan (1905 – 1966) was generally considered to have been the strongest chess master of his time from Asia. He was also the first Asian chess master since As-Suli to have been recognized in Europe. Born in a part of India, now part of Pakistan, he was brought to England by his master in 1929. There he won the British Chess Championship in 1929, 1932 and 1933 and played for England in the Chess Olympiads of 1931 and 1933.

In less than four years, he rose to the top of the chess world, playing with the world’s great masters, such as Alexander Alekhine, Jose Raúl Capablanca, Max Euwe, Aaron Nimzowitsch, and Akiba Rubinstein.

He was one of a few players who had a plus record against Capablanca. He also had a plus record against Frank Marshall and Savielly Tartakower. His most notable victory was the game he won against former world champion Capablanca at the Hastings tournament of 1930 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 b6 3.c4 Bb7 4.Nc3 e6 5.a3 d5 6.cxd5 exd5 7.Bg5 Be7 8.e3 O-O 9.Bd3 Ne4 10.Bf4 Nd7 11.Qc2 f5 12.Nb5 Bd6 13.Nxd6 cxd6 14.h4 Rc8 15.Qb3 Qe7 16.Nd2 Ndf6 17.Nxe4 fxe4 18.Be2 Rc6 19.g4 Rfc8 20.g5 Ne8 21.Bg4 Rc1+ 22.Kd2 R8c2+ 23.Qxc2 Rxc2+ 24.Kxc2 Qc7+ 25.Kd2 Qc4 26.Be2 Qb3 27.Rab1 Kf7 28.Rhc1 Ke7 29.Rc3 Qa4 30.b4 Qd7 31.Rbc1 a6 32.Rg1 Qa4 33.Rgc1 Qd7 34.h5 Kd8 35.R1c2 Qh3 36.Kc1 Qh4 37.Kb2 Qh3 38.Rc1 Qh4 39.R3c2 Qh3 40.a4 Qh4 41.Ka3 Qh3 42.Bg3 Qf5 43.Bh4 g6 44.h6 Qd7 45.b5 a5 46.Bg3 Qf5 47.Bf4 Qh3 48.Kb2 Qg2 49.Kb1 Qh3 50.Ka1 Qg2 51.Kb2 Qh3 52.Rg1 Bc8 53.Rc6 Qh4 54.Rgc1 Bg4 55.Bf1 Qh5 56.Re1 Qh1 57.Rec1 Qh5 58.Kc3 Qh4 59.Bg3 Qxg5 60.Kd2 Qh5 61.Rxb6 Ke7 62.Rb7+ Ke6 63.b6 Nf6 64.Bb5 Qh3 65.Rb8 1-0

His best years were the last two years, when he was probably ranked in the top ten in the world. In 1933, just when he was beginning to improve his performance, he was taken back to India by his master, and was never heard of by the chess world again.

His meteoric rise was parallel to Morphy’s, who conquered the chess world in about three years. About eighty years later, Sultan Khan almost conquered the chess world in about four years. His was another bittersweet story in chess.

  

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Wilhelm Steinitz (May 17, 1836, Prague, Czech Republic (then Austrian Empire) – August 12, 1900,New York City, United States) was an Austrian chess player, and the first official World Champion of chess. Known for his original contributions to chess strategy such as his ideas on positional play, his theories were held in high regard by disparate chess players such as Aron Nimzowitsch, Siegbert Tarrasch, and Emanuel Lasker.

Steinitz was world champion from 1886 to 1894, retaining the title in four matches against Zukertort, Chigorin (two times) and Gunsberg. He lost two matches against Lasker, his successor as world champion. Steinitz adopted a scientific approach to his study of the game. He would formulate his theories in scientific terms, and “laws”.

Steinitz became a US citizen on November 23, 1888, having resided for five years in New York, and changed his first name from Wilhelm to William.

After losing the world title, Steinitz developed severe mental health problems and spent his last years in a number of institutions in New York, making a series of increasingly bizarre claims (including his having won – at pawn odds! a game of chess with God conducted via an invisible telephone line). His chess activities had not yielded any great financial rewards, and he died a pauper in his adopted home city in 1900. Wilhelm/William Steinitz is buried in Brooklyn.

Lasker, who took the championship from Steinitz, once said, “I who defeated Steinitz shall do justice to his theories, and I shall avenge the wrongs he suffered.” Steinitz’ fate, and Lasker’s keenness to avoid a similar situation of financial ruin, have been cited among the reasons Lasker fought so hard to keep the world championship title.

  

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Herman Steiner (April 15, 1905 – November 25, 1955) was a U.S. chess player, organizer, and columnist. He won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1948 and became Internation Master in 1950. Even more important than his playing career were his efforts promoting chess in the U.S., particularly on the West Coast. An exemplar of the Romantic School of chess, Steiner was a successor to the American chess tradition of Morphy, Pillsbury, and Marshall. Born in Duajaska Freda, Czechoslovakia (then part of Hungary), Steiner came to New York City at a young age.

For a time, he was active as a boxer. At age 16 he was a member of the Hungarian Chess Club and the Stuyvesant Chess Club. With the experience he gained in the active New York City chess scene, Steiner rapidly developed his chess skill and in 1929 he tied for first place (with J. Bernstein) in the New York State championship tournament at Buffalo. The same year he was first in the Premier Reserves at Hastings, England.

Steiner left New York for the West, settling in Los Angeles in 1932. He became chess editor of the Los Angeles Times that year, writing a chess column until his death. He formed the Steiner Chess Club, later called the Hollywood Chess Group, headquartered in a clubhouse next to the Steiner residence. The Hollywood Chess Group was visited by many movie stars including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer, and José Ferrer. Steiner and the Hollywood Chess Group organized the Pan-American International Tournament in 1945 and the Second Pan-American Chess Congress in 1954.

In 1948 Steiner won the United States championship at South Fallsburg, N.Y., ahead of Isaac Kashdan.

Steiner was a member of chess olympiad teams sent abroad by the United States Chess Federation to The Hague 1928, Hamburg 1930, and Prague 1931. As reigning U.S. champion, he captained the victorious American team at the 1950 Olympiad in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (now in Croatia).

In the historic 1945 New York-Moscow radio match between teams from the USA and the USSR, Steiner was the only U.S. player to achieve a plus score. Although the American team including Fine, Reshevsky, Denker, and Kashdan, was badly beaten, Steiner scored 1.5-0.5 against Salo Flohr.

Steiner was very active as a player in West Coast tournaments, winning the only two California Open tournaments he entered in 1954 and 1955, and winning the California State Championship in 1953 and 1954. He was defending his State Championship in Los Angeles in 1955, when after finishing his fifth round game (a 62-move draw against William Addison) he felt unwell and his afternoon game was postponed. About 2 hours later around 9:30 pm, Steiner died practically instantaneously of a massive coronary occlusion while being attended by a physician. By agreement of the players, the 1955 California State Championship tournament was cancelled.

  

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Leonid Stein (1934 – 1973), Soviet chess player from Ukraine.

Leonid Stein achieved the Master title for chess at the relatively late age of 24. At that age he competed for first time in the USSR Chess Championship and most amazingly tied for 3rd in that event, gaining the Grandmaster title and the right to play in the Interzonal tournament.

Stein’s creative style was greatly influenced by Chigorin and Alekhine. He was a highly intuitive, natural player. He is considered to be a brilliant attacking genius, but played very sound chess, not in the style of Tal, more willing to unforeseeable complications.

He won the USSR Chess Championship three times out of four attempts between 1963 and 1966, as well as two other very difficult tournaments, Moscow 1967 and Moscow 1971. In 1969 he won the first annual International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia.

Stein had already qualified for the 1973 interzonal tournament to be held in Petropolis, and was a serious contender to win the whole candidates cycle, when he was found dead from a heart attack at the Rossiya Hotel in Moscow. He was only 39, at the top of his career.

  

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Antoaneta Stefanova ( April 19, 1979) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster, and the reigning Women’s World Champion. She became the twelfth titleholder in 2004 in a 64-player knockout tournament held in Elista, Kalmykia under the auspices of FIDE. Stefanova’s FIDE rating of 2495 on the April 2005 list placed her seventh in the world among active female players. Stefanova’s chess-bound passion was enflamed when she was just 4 years old and she received first classes on the black-and-white chessboard by her own father, Andon Stefanov, himself a designing artist. With her elder sister, Liana, Antoaneta had made her best mating tandem.

At the tender age of 7, Eti (as Stefanova is called by her closest friends and relatives) became a Sofia champion.
In 1989, Eti swept the world chess crown for kids in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and later the same year triumphed in the under-14 Czech championship.
Since 1994, Eti has successively competed in grandmaster championships, taking even seventh among male nationals in 1993.
In 1997 Stefanova’s FIDE rating broke into the top ten of women worldwide. Also she earned the title of Grandmaster in June 2003, a title held by only eight other women.
She has played for Bulgaria in five Chess Olympiads so far, starting in Manila, the Philippines, when just 13.
In 2000, her coach promoted her in the Bulgarian men’s team for the Istanbul Olympiad.

“Sexy, self-confident, sociable … can we be talking about a professional chess player? Yes, we can,” says Pergammon Chess where her photo was on the cover.

  

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Howard Staunton (April 1810 – June 22, 1874) was an English chess master and unofficial World Chess Champion. He was also a newspaper columnist, author, and Shakespearean scholar. His name is remembered most today for the style of chess figures he endorsed, the Staunton pattern of chess pieces. Little is known about the life of Staunton before his appearance on the chess scene.

He said he was born in Westmorland and his father’s name was William. He was poor and had no official education when he was young. He said he was an actor as a young man, that he once played the role of Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice and he had acted with the famous English actor Edmund Kean.

It is documented that in 1836, Staunton was in London, and he made a subscription to William Walker’s book Games at Chess, actually played in London, by the late Alexander McDonnell Esq. Staunton was apparently twenty-six years old when he began to take a interest in the game. He said that at that time, he was a “rook player.”

From age twenty-six on, he began a serious pursuit of the game. In 1838 he played many games with Captain William Evans, inventor of the Evans Gambit. He also played a match against the German chess writer Aaron Alexandre, losing.

In 1840 he began writing, doing a chess column for the New Court Gazette from May to the end of the year. He had improved sufficiently by 1840 to play and win a match with the German master Popert, which he won by a single game. He also began writing for British Miscellany which in 1841 led to his founding the chess magazine known as the Chess Player’s Chronicle. Staunton edited the magazine until 1854, when he was succeeded by Robert Barnett Brien.

In 1842 he played hundreds of games with John Cochrane. Cochrane was a strong player, and Staunton had a good warm-up for what was to be his greatest chess achievement the following year. In 1843, Staunton played a short match with France’s champion, Pierre St. Amant, who was visiting London. Staunton lost the match, 3.5-2.5, but later arrangements where made for a second match, to be held in Paris. Staunton went to Paris, where from November 14 to December 20, 1843, he played a match at the Cafe de la Regence against St. Amant, beating him decisively, 13-8. After St. Amant’s defeat, no other Frenchmen arose to continue the tradition of French chess supremacy started with Philidor, and London became the chess capital of the world. Staunton was unofficially recognised as the best player of the world from 1843 to 1851.

Staunton was now recognized as the world’s strongest chess player. He went to Paris the next year to again play St. Amant, but by suffering from severe pneumonia, which had damaged his health permanently, the match was cancelled at last. They never played again.

In 1845 Staunton began a chess column for the Illustrated London News, which he continued the rest of his life. According to The Oxford Companion to Chess, Staunton’s column was the most influential chess column in the world. On ninth of April, Staunton as the representative of London, won a telegraph game(a variation of blindfold game with people in other location) with a group of five to six people, which took about eight hours to finish the game.

Staunton played matches with lesser players at pawn and move odds now, but played even with the masters Horwitz and Harrwitz in 1846, beating each in matches.

In 1847 Staunton wrote his most famous work, The Chess-Player’s Handbook, which didn’t go out of print until 1993. Another book, The Chess-Player’s Companion followed in 1849.

In 1849, a chess set designed by Nathaniel Cook was registered, and manufacturing rights obtained by John Jaques. Staunton advertised the new set in his chess column in the Illustrated London News. Each set was sold with a pamphlet written by Staunton, and Staunton received a royalty on each set sold. The design was very attractive, became popular, and Staunton men have become the standard set for both professional and amateur chess players ever since.

In May 1851, London was to be the host of the Great Exhibition, and London’s thriving chess community, the world’s most active, felt obligated to do something similar for chess. Staunton then took it upon himself to organise the world’s first chess tournament, to be held in London along with the World Industrial Great Exhibition. The idea was to invite the world’s leading masters to compete, and showcase chess the way the Great Exhibition was showcasing the world’s technology and culture. He persuaded some of the chess amateurs in London and raised fund up to 500 pounds which was a large sum of money at that time to help to host the event.

Although the chess club of London refused to send anybody to enter the competition,London 1851 was still a success, though Staunton perhaps was disappointed, after one month battle among sixteen world class chess player, he was knocked out of the battle for first place by the eventual winner, Adolf Anderssen, then beaten for the runner-up prize by his former pupil Elijah Williams. It is clear that Staunton’s best playing days were now over, but his reputation as the world’s leading chess authority was bolstered among amateurs by his books and his self-promotion in his chess columns. Still, Staunton had some fight left in him, as later that year he took revenge on Williams by beating him, six wins to four with one draw, as well as crushing Karl Jaenisch in a match, seven wins to two, with one draw.

In 1852 Staunton wrote a book about London 1851 titled, The Chess Tournament. The title page to that book read, “By H. Staunton, Esq., author of The Handbook of Chess, Chess-players Companion, &c.&c.&c” to which in 1853 a fifteen or sixteen-year-old lad named Paul Morphy scribbled in his copy, “and some devilish bad games”. If you say during the period 1843-1851, Staunton was famous by his achivement as the best chess player in the world, then after 1851 to his last days in 1874,he was famous in his contribution for making England as the capital of the chess world.In 1874 Morphy was more polite, and gave his estimate that Staunton’s best gift was not in playing chess, but as a theoretician and analyst.

In fact, Staunton’s style seems to be quite innovative during his times,he likes conservative openings,(1. c4) named as English opening because he was frequently used it during the period at 1940-50, and of course, the famous Staunton denfense (1.d4 hf6 2.c4 c5),as you can see how much Staunton has contributed in the chess opening.

In 1853 Staunton made a trip to Brussels to meet with Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa. They discussed the standardization of the rules of chess, and played a short match, which ended in the baron’s favor, five wins to four with three draws.

By 1856 Staunton was beginning to withdraw from chess and turn to writing about Shakespeare as his main occupation. He secured a contract with a publisher to create an annotated edition of the great bard’s works. Unfortunately, Staunton’s ego would not allow him to let go of his desire to be in the top ranks of chess mastery, but privately he must have sensed that the standard of play of the top masters was rapidly improving, and his was not. Staunton entered the fray again by playing in a tournament held in Birmingham in 1858, under the auspices of the new British Chess Association. Staunton didn’t get far, being knocked out by Johann Löwenthal in two straight games.

Birmingham 1858 was to be Staunton’s last public chess competition. Staunton refused to play Paul Morphy in public during the latter’s visit to England in 1858, saying he was too busy working on his Shakespeare annotations. True to his word, he now concentrated on writing on Shakespeare and chess. By 1860 his edition of Shakespeare had been published. Staunton considered it a great work, but modern day critics do not agree, and Staunton is an obscure name in modern Shakespearean scholarship. Staunton also published in 1860 a book titled Chess Praxis, which to take advantage of the public’s desire for Morphy material had over 168 pages of the American’s games annotated by Staunton.

Staunton published many articles on Shakespeare in 1864 and 1865. His final book was Great Schools of England published in 1865. He was working on yet another chess book, when his life came to an end. He died at his desk in his library. His final book was published posthumously in 1876 under the editorship of R.B. Wormald, and titled Chess: Theory and Practice.

A memorial plaque now hangs at his old residence of 117 Lansdowne Road, London W11. In 1997 a memorial stone bearing an engraving of a chess knight was raised to mark his grave at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. Prior to this his grave had been unmarked.

  

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Nava Starr is one of the top female chess players in Canada. Starr was born in Riga, Latvia, on April 4, 1949 and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is married to Sasha Starr and has one married daughter, Regina and a grandson, Mathew.

Starr’s chess style is sharp, offensive and always looking for combinations. She favours sharp and unusual openings, such as the Gran Prix attack (Sicilian), b3 in French, f5 variation in Ruy Lopez and many others. Received the IWM title by winning her 1st Canadian Ladies’ Championship in 1978 in Victoria, British Columbia. The best players she has defeated are: Pia Cramling (Sweden), Milunka Lasarevich (Former Yugoslavia), Barbara Hund (Switzerland) and Roman Pelts (Canada). Starr wrote an article in En Passant magazine dealing with the reasons “Why men are superior to women in chess”.

Major tournament and match results

IWM – Current Canadian Ladies’ Champion
8-times Canadian Ladies’ Champion
Represented Canada at 10 Chess Olympiads
1976 – Haifa, Israel. Won the GOLD MEDAL on 2nd board
1978 – Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1st board
1980 – Valetta, Malta. 1st board
1982 – Luzern, Switzerland. BRONZE MEDAL on 1st board
1984 – Thessaloniki, Greece. 1st board
1988 – Thessaloniki, Greece. 1st board
1992 – Manila, Philippines. 1st bord
1994 – Moscow, Russia. 1st board
1996 – Yerevan, Armenia. 1st board
2002 – Bled, Slovenia. 1st board
6-times participant in the individual Women’s World Championships
1978 – Alicante, Spain
1982 – Bad Kissingen, Germany
1985 – Havana, Cuba
1990 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
1993 – Jakarta, Indonesia
2001 – Moscow, Russia.

  

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Charles Henry Stanley (1819 Р1901) was the first chess champion of the United States. He became the champion in 1845 after defeating Eug̬ne Rousseau of New Orleans in a match for the championship. Stanley was an Englishman who came to the USA in 1843, and his English ideas had a great influence on American chess.

One of his ideas was to have a regular newspaper column devoted to chess, which he started in 1845 in The Spririt of the Times. He also started the American Chess Magazine in 1846, but others copied the idea (which originated in England), and competition forced the magazine out of business.

In 1855 he organized the first World Problem Tournament.

In 1846 he published the first US book on a chess match, 31 Games of Chess.

Stanley is a little known figure who has been eclipsed by the achievements of the world famous Paul Morphy. He played Morphy in 1857, losing the title of US Chess Champion to his much better opponent.

He was married and later had a daughter Pauline, who was named after Morphy.

  

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Name: Ana Gasteyer

DOB: 04, May 1967

Birth Place: Washington, District of Columbia, USA

Height: 5′ 7″

Also Credited: Not Available

Profession: Not Available

Spouse: Not Available

Ana Gasteyer is known for her unmatched work on Saturday Night Live. During her six year stint, she produced some of the most famous SNL characters including middle school music teacher Bobbie Moughan Culp, NPR radio host Margaret Jo, Lilith Fair poetess Cinder Calhoun, as well as spot on impressions of Martha Stewart, Celine Dion and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Following her run in Eve Ensler’s highly praised, and her triumphant Broadway debut as Columbia in The Rocky Horror Show, she has continued her work on the New York stage, recently starring in Manhattan Theatre Club’s hit production of Kimberly Akimbo by celebrated playwright David Lindsay Abaire. Other theatrical credits include the national tour of The Real Live Brady Bunch. In the year of 2002, she co-starred in the one night only star studded Funny Girl Actors Fund benefit concert, Ricki Lake, Jane Krakowski and others as one of the many celebrities tag teaming the role of Fanny Brice. Prior to joining SNL, Gasteyer honed her comedy skills at The Groundlings, the famed Los Angeles improv sketch comedy group.
Other television credits comprise Frasier, Just Shoot Me, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Party of Five, and Live with Regis.

  

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Gideon Stahlberg (1908 – 1967) was a Swedish chess grandmaster. He came to fame when he won matches against star players Spielmann and Nimzowitsch in the early 1930s. Stahlberg won the Swedish chess championship of 1927 and became Scandinavian champion in 1929.

In 1950 and 1953 he participated in the World Championship Candidates Tournaments and umpired in the World Championships between 1957 and 1963. In 1967 he travelled to Leningrad to take part in an international tournament but died before playing his first game.

  

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Rudolf Spielmann (5 May 1883 – 20 August 1942) was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school. Rudolf Spielmann, “The master of attack”, was also know as the “last romantic”. His daredevil play was full of sacrifices, brillancies and beautiful ideas.

Despite a strong opposition at that time with players like Alekhine, Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker, Tarrasch, Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, and Tartakower, Spielmann managed to score well in numerous tournaments, winning 33 of the roughly 120 in which he played, for example:
1st (Bad Pistyan, 1912)
1st (Stockholm, 1919)
1st (Bad Pistyan, 1922)
1st (Semmering, 1926)

He is also remembered today as the author of the classic book The Art of Sacrifice in Chess.

As a Jew, Spielmann had to flee from the Nazis, escaping to Sweden. He died in Stockholm in great poverty.

Spielmann was one of a handful of players to win more than one game against Capablanca, and was one of an even smaller number to have an even score (+2 =8 -2) against him. Both of Spielmann’s wins came shortly after Alekhine dethroned Capablanca as World Champion in 1927: at Bad Kissingen 1928 and Karlsbad 1929. Among leading players, only Keres (+1 =5 -0) had as good or better a score against Capablanca. Here is one of Spielmann’s wins:

Capablanca-Spielmann, Bad Kissingen 1928 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.e3 b5 6.a4 b4 7.Na2 e6 8.Bxc4 Be7 9.O-O O-O 10.b3 c5 11.Bb2 Bb7 12.Nc1 Nc6 13.dxc5 Na5 14.Ne5 Nxc4 15.Nxc4 Bxc5 16.Nd3 Qd5 17.Nf4 Qg5 18.Bxf6 Qxf6 19.Rc1 Rfd8 20.Qh5 Rac8 21.Rfd1 g6 22.Rxd8+ Qxd8 23.Qe5 Be7 24.h3 Rc5 25.Qa1 Bf6 26.Rd1 Rd5 27.Rxd5 exd5 28.Ne5 Qd6 29.Nfd3 Ba6 30.Qe1 Bxe5 31.Nxe5 Qxe5 32.Qxb4 Bd3 33.Qc5 Qb8 34.b4 Qb7 35.b5 h5 36.Qc3 Bc4 37.e4 Qe7 38.exd5 Bxd5 39.a5 Qe4 0-1

  

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Jonathan Speelman (born October 2, 1956) is an English chess player.

Winner of the British Chess Championship in 1978, 1985 and 1986, Speelman is a regular member of the English Chess Olympiad team. His third place in the 1987 Subotica Interzonal tournament qualified him for the World Chess Championship candidates matches (which determine who will challenge the reigning champion). After beating Yasser Seirawan in his first match 4-1, and overcoming Nigel Short in the next 3.5-1.5, he lost to Jan Timman at the semi-final stage 4.5-3.5. In the following championship cycle he lost to Short, the eventual challenger for Garry Kasparov’s crown, 5.5-4.5.

Speelman is noted for his imaginative style, often choosing unobvious ways to carry on his games. He has written a number of books on chess, including several on the endgame, among them Analysing the Endgame (Batsford, 1981), Endgame Preparation (Batsford, 1981) and Batsford Chess Endings (Batsford, 1993, co-author with Jon Tisdall and Robert Wade). Among his other books is the critically acclaimed Jon Speelman’s Best Games (Batsford, 1997).

Once in the top five in the world, in the April 2005 FIDE list Speelman had an Elo rating of 2545, making him England’s seventh highest rated active player.

He is also known as “Spess”, short for “specimen”, one of the many misspellings of his name in the press over the years.

  

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Boris Vasilievich Spassky (also Spasski) (born January 30, 1937) is a French (formerly Russian or Soviet) chess player and former world champion. He was born in Leningrad and learned to play chess at the age of five.

At age 18 he won the World Junior Chess Championship held at Antwerp, Belgium, and became a grandmaster.

Spassky was considered an all-rounder on the chess board, and his “universal style” was a distinct advantage in beating many top Grandmasters. For instance, in his Candidates Final match (the match which determines who will challenge the reigning world champion for the title) against Mikhail Tal the legendary tactician (Tbilisi, 1965) Spassky managed to steer play into quiet positions, avoiding Tal’s tactical strength. This led to his first World Champion match against Tigran Petrosian in 1966. Spassky lost the match by one point. In the next two years, his playing success again gained the right to challenge Petrosian. Spassky’s flexibility of style was the key to his eventual victory over Petrosian by two points in the 1969 World Championship-by adopting Petrosian’s negative style.

Spassky’s reign as a world champion only lasted for three years, as he lost to Bobby Fischer of the United States in 1972 in the “Match of the Century”. The contest took place in Reykjavík, Iceland, at the height of the Cold War and consequently was seen as symbolic of the political confrontation between the two superpowers. Fischer won and Spassky returned home to the U.S.S.R. in disgrace. Spassky continued to play, winning several championships including the 1973 Soviet championship.

In the 1974 Candidates matches, Spassky lost to the up and coming Anatoly Karpov in Leningrad, +1 -4. Karpov publicly acknowledged that Spassky was superior, but after a series of superb games, Karpov garnered enough points to take the match.

Spassky’s later years showed a reluctance to totally devote himself to chess. He relied on his natural talent for the game, and sometimes would rather play a game of tennis than work hard at the board. The 1972 World Championship and the 1974 Candidates match against Karpov were the pinnacle of his success. Victor Korchnoi also overtook him. Since 1976, Spassky has been happily settled in France with his third wife; he became a French citizen in 1978.

In 1992, Fischer, after a 20 year hiatus from chess, re-emerged to arrange a “Revenge Match of the 20th century” against Spassky in Montenegro and Belgrade-a re-enactment of the 1972 World Championship. At the time, Spassky was rated 106th in the FIDE rankings, and Fischer didn’t appear on the list at all (owing to his 20 year inactivity). This match was essentially Spassky’s last major challenge, and unfortunately health problems prevented him from putting up a credible performance except in a few games — the result was +5 -10 =15.

During his career, Spassky has fared much better against Garry Kasparov. Although Spassky is 26 years older than Kasparov, he has an even record with him. He even beat Kasparov twice with black pieces. Here is one of his wins in Niksic in 1983 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 Nc6 6.Be3 a6 7.Nge2 Rb8 8.Qd2 O-O 9.h4 b5 10.h5 bxc4 11.g4 Bxg4 12.fxg4 Nxg4 13.O-O-O Nxe3 14.Qxe3 e6 15.hxg6 hxg6 16.Rd2 Re8 17.Ng1 d5 18.Nf3 a5 19.e5 Ne7 20.Bh3 c5 21.dxc5 Qc7 22.Qf4 Nc6 23.Re1 d4 24.Rxd4 Nxd4 25.Nxd4 Qxc5 26.Nf3 Red8 27.Ng5 Qe7 28.Qh4 Rd3 29.Qh7+ Kf8 30.Nxe6+ fxe6 31.Rf1+ Ke8 32.Qg8+ Bf8 33.Qxg6+ Kd8 0-1

  

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Vasily Vasiliyevich Smyslov (born March 24, 1921) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was World Champion from 1957 to 1958. He is known for his positional style and, in particular, for his precise handling of the endgame. He has made enormous contributions to chess opening theory in many openings, including the English Opening, Grünfeld Defence, Ruy Lopez, and Sicilian Defense. Smyslov was a fine baritone singer, only deciding on a career in chess after a failed audition for the Bolshoi Theatre in 1950. Later, he sometimes gave recitals during chess tournaments, often accompanied by fellow Grandmaster and pianist Mark Taimanov.

Smyslov played in the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament to determine who should succeed the late Alexander Alekhine as champion, finishing second behind Mikhail Botvinnik. After winning the candidates tournament in Zurich 1953, he played a match with Botvinnik for the title the following year. It ended in a draw, meaning that Botvinnik retained his title. They played again in 1957 (Smyslov had again won the candidates tournament, in Amsterdam 1956), and this time Smyslov won by the score 12.5 – 9.5. The following year, Botvinnik exercised his right to a rematch, and he won the title back with a final scoreline of 12.5 – 10.5.

Smyslov didn’t qualify for another World Championship final, but continued to play in World Championship qualifying events. In 1983 he went through to the Candidates Final (the match to determine who plays the champion, in that case Anatoly Karpov), losing 8.5 – 4.5 to future world champion Garry Kasparov. He had beaten Zoltan Ribli 6.5 – 4.5 in the semifinal, but drew his quarter-final match against Robert Hübner 7 – 7, with the advancing player only determined by the spin of a roulette wheel.

Although Smyslov has a negative record against Bobby Fischer, he beat Fischer with black pieces in Yugoslavia in 1959 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bc4 Be7 7. O-O a6 8. Bb3 b5 9. f4 O-O 10. f5 b4 11. Nce2 e5 12. Nf3 Bb7 13. Ng3 Nxe4 14. Nxe4 Bxe4 15. Qe1 Bxf3 16. Rxf3 Nc6 17. Qe4 Nd4 18. Rh3 Bf6 19. Bd5 Rc8 20. c3 bxc3 21. bxc3 Nb5 22. Bd2 Rc5 23. Kh1 Qd7 24. Bb3 d5 25. Qf3 Nd6 26. Rf1 Ne4 27. Qh5 h6 28. Bxh6 gxh6 29. Bc2 Bg5 30. f6 Rb8 31. Bxe4 dxe4 32. Rg3 Qf5 33. Kg1 Qg6 34. Qe2 Rc6 35. h4 Rxf6 36. Rxf6 Qxf6 37. Qh5 Qf4 38. Kh2 Kg7 39. hxg5 hxg5 40. Qxg5+ Qxg5 41. Rxg5+ Kf6 42. Rh5 Rb1 43. Kg3 Rf1 44. Rh4 Kf5 45. Rh5+ Ke6 46. Rh6+ f6 47. Rh4 e3 48. Re4 f5 0-1

In 1991 Smyslov won the inaugural Senior World Chess Championship. He has played no competitive games since the 2001 Klompendans Veterans versus Ladies tournament in Amsterdam. His Elo rating following this event was 2494. Nowadays, his eyesight is very bad.

  

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Almira Skripchenko (born 17 February 1976) is a French chess player who has achieved the FIDE International Women’s Grandmaster title. She won the second European Open Women’s Chess Championship in 2001. In 2004 she won the North Urals Cup, the second international super-tournament for female chess players.

Held in Krasnoturinsk, the 9-round single round robin tournament featured ten of the strongest female players in the world. Skripchenko finished a half point ahead of Maia Chiburdanidze, the former Women’s World Champion, and also defeated her in their individual encounter.

She served as treasurer for the Association of Chess Professionals.

  

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Nigel Short (born June 1, 1965 in Leigh, Lancashire) is an English chess player. In 1993 he played Garry Kasparov for the Professional Chess Association World Chess Championship, losing 12.5 – 7.5. He had won matches against former world champion Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman on his way to meeting Kasparov. A chess prodigy, Short qualified for the British Men’s Chess Championship three days before his twelfth birthday. Participating in four World Junior Championships (1980–1983), he finished second to Kasparov in 1980.

He earned the grandmaster title in 1984. Short won the British Chess Championship in 1984, 1987, and 1998 and the English Championship in 1991. One of Short’s best tournament results came at the Amsterdam VSB tournament in 1991 when he tied for first place with Valery Salov ahead of both Kasparov and Karpov. In April 2003 he won the Hunguest Hotels Super Chess Tournament held in Budapest ahead of Boris Gelfand, Judit Polgar and Péter Lékó among others (Polgar and Lékó were in the world’s top ten at the time). In 2004 he won the Commonwealth Chess Championship and the Gibraltar Chess Congress as well as a tournament in Taiyuan, China.

Short reached his peak ELO rating of 2712 in April 2004. In the April 2005 FIDE rating list, Short was ranked number 28 in the world with an Elo rating of 2673, making him England’s number two behind Michael Adams.

As well as his playing activities, Short wrote the chess column in the British newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph for a decade. With the Telegraph under new management in 2005, Nigel’s chess column was replaced by a poker feature. His last column appeared on July 10 2005.

In recognition of his chess accomplishments, in 1999 he was appointed MBE. He is married to drama-therapist Rhea Argyro Karageorgiou and has two children: Kyveli Aliki (born July 7, 1991) and Nicholas Darwin (born December 18, 1998).

  

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Alexei Shirov (born July 4, 1972 in Riga, Latvia), is one of the top chess grandmasters in the world today. In the April 2005 FIDE rating list, he currently number fifteen in the world with an ELO rating of 2705 (as of July 2005). He became the World Champion (under 16) in 1988, the World Vice-Champion (under 20) in 1990, and achieved the title of International Grandmaster in 1992. Shirov is the winner of numerous international tournaments: Biel 1991, Madrid 1997 (shared first place with Veselin Topalov), Ter Apel 1997, Monte Carlo 1998, Merida 2000, two time winner of the Paul Keres Memorial International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia, with victories in 2004 and 2005 just to name a few. In 1998 he defeated Vladimir Kramnik in a ten-game match that was intended to select a challenger for World Champion Garry Kasparov. Unfortunately, the plans for the Kasparov match were squelched when sufficient financial backing could not be found.

In 1994 Alexey married an Argentine Verónica Alvarez, moved to Tarragona, and became a citizen of Spain. Although he still plays for Spain, he currently resides in Lithuania, married to Lithuanian GM Victoria Cmilyte.

Shirov is noted for his attacking style and for seeking complications, a tendency which has led to comparisons with fellow Latvian and once-world champion, Mikhail Tal.

Shirov has written two books of his best games.

  

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Leonid Shamkovich (June 1, 1923 – April 22, 2005) was a chess Grandmaster. He was born in Rostov-on-Don in Russia. He became a Grandmaster in 1965 and won several tournaments, with his best victory coming at Sochi 1967, where he was equal first with Nikolai Krogius, Vladimir Simagin, Boris Spassky and Alexander Zaitsev. Other notable results included equal third at Moscow 1962 (behind Yuri Averbakh and Evgeny Vasiukov) and third at Mariánské LáznÄ› 1965 (behind Paul Keres and Vlastimil Hort).

Shamkovich left the Soviet Union in 1975, moving first to Israel, then Canada, and finally the United States, where he settled. He continued to play through the 1990s, and wrote several chess books.

  

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Jennifer Shahade (born December 31, 1980) is an American chess player and two time U.S. women’s chess champion. Her FIDE rating is currently the 5th highest for all women in her country. In 1998, she became the first (and so far only) female to win the U.S. Junior Open. Then, a few years later, in 2002, she won the U.S. Women’s Chess Championship in Seattle, Washington. The following year, although she did not repeat as U.S. Women’s Champion, she did well enough to earn her second of three required International Master norms.

Then, in 2004, she returned to the top spot among U.S. women chessplayers by winning the U.S. Women’s Championship that year in a 7 player invitational round robin. Shahade lives in Brooklyn and has earned a degree in Comparative Literature at New York University. She also regularly annotates games for Mig Greengard’s website, ChessNinja.com.

  

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Alexander Shabalov (born September 12, 1967) is an American chess grandmaster, the multiple winner of the U.S. Chess Championships. He is of Latvian origin, and like his fellow Latvians Alexei Shirov and Mikhail Tal he is known for courting complications even at the cost of objective soundness. As of December 9, 2004 Shabalov had the United States Chess Federation rating of 2685, ranking him 7th best among American chess players.

  

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Yasser Seirawan (born March 24, 1960) is a chess grandmaster and 4-time US-champion. He was winner of the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979.

He was born in Damascus, Syria. When he was seven his family emigrated to Seattle (USA).

He is married to Yvette Nagel, daughter of former Leefbaar Nederland political party president and politician Jan Nagel.

For many years he was the chief editor of the Inside Chess magazine, which however later became an Internet-only magazine and later just a Column at the Chesscafe website.

In the year 2001 (?), Seirawan released a plan to reunite the chess world, which at that time had two world champions: Ruslan Ponomariov had gained the title under the auspices of FIDE, while Vladimir Kramnik had beaten Garry Kasparov to take the Einstein title. It called for one match between Ponomariov and Kasparov (the world number one), and another between Kramnik and the winner of the 2002 Einstein tournament in Dortmund (who turned out to be Péter Lékó). The winners of these matches would then play each other to become undisputed World Champion. This plan was signed by all parties on May 6, 2002, in the so called “Prague Agreement”. As of November 2004, only the Kramnik-Leko match has taken place (the match was drawn, with Kramnik retaining his title); the Kasparov-Ponomariov match was cancelled in 2003, and the future of the reunification plan remains uncertain.

Following a series of events Seirawan participated in China during September 2003, there were reports that he would be retiring as a professional player. Although he subsequently played two games in the Dutch team championship in May 2004, these are, as of November 2004, the only professional games he has played since then.

In the April 2005 FIDE list, Seirawan had an Elo rating of 2631, making him number 73 in the world, and America’s number three (behind Hikaru Nakamura and Alexander Onischuk).

In the USCF, of July 23,2005, his rating is 2682, but has no quick rating,

  

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Carl Schlechter (March 2, 1874 – December 27, 1918) was a leading Austrian chess master at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Vienna. From 1893 onwards he played in over 50 international tournaments, including four wins: Munich in 1900 (shared), Ostend in 1906, Vienna in 1908 (shared) and Hamburg in 1910.

In 1910 he played a match against Emanuel Lasker for the World Chess Championship (in Vienna and Berlin). He needed only a draw in the tenth and last game to win the match, but missed first a win, then a clear draw before losing the game. The match ended tied at 5-5 (+1 -1 =8), and Lasker retained his title.

He also played matches with Siegbert Tarrasch in 1911 (drawn) and Akiba Rubinstein in 1918 (lost).

He died in Budapest of pneumonia and starvation.

Schlechter was a typical example of a gentleman chess player of old, offering courteous draws to opponents who felt unwell. If his opponent arrived late for a game, Schlechter would inconspicuously subtract an equal amount of time from his own clock. He also mentored many of his rivals, including Oldrich Duras.

  

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Emanuel Stepanovich Schiffers (1850 – 1904) was a Russian chess player.

In 1878 he played two matches against Mikhail Chigorin, losing the first 7-3, but winning the second 7.5-6.5, thus establishing himself as the second strongest player in Russia after Chigorin himself. At Rostov on Don in 1896 he played a match against former World Chess Champion Wilhelm Steinitz, losing 6.5-4.5. His best tournament result was at Hastings 1895 where he finished sixth with 12/21. He was also a notable chess teacher, and wrote the chess textbook Samouchitel shakhmatnoi igry (published 1906).

  

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Krishnan Sasikiran (born January 7, 1981) is an Indian chess player. Among Indians, he is second only to Vishwanathan Anand in FIDE rating.
Sasi as he is sometimes called, comes from Chennai in Tamil Nadu in south-eastern India. He became an International Chess Grandmaster at the 2000 Commonwealth Championship. In 2001, he won the prestigious Hastings International Chess tournament. In 2003, he won the 4th Asian Individual Championship as well as the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen. Sasikiran tied Jan Timman for first place in the 2005 Sigeman Tournament in Copenhagen/Malmoe Denmark.

In the October 2004 FIDE rating list, Sasikiran was ranked number 35 in the world with an Elo rating of 2668

  

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Dr Jonathan Sarfati (born 1964) is an Australian young-earth creationist and author with a background in physical chemistry who works for the Christian apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis (AiG).

Biography

Born in Ararat, Victoria, Sarfati moved to New Zealand as a child and subsequently graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry, based on his thesis, A Spectroscopic Study of some Chalcogenide Ring and Cage Molecules. He also published papers in the secular science literature, including co-authoring a paper in the journal Nature on high-temperature superconductors when he was 21.

Writings

Ethnically Jewish, Sarfati converted to Christianity in 1984. In his writings, he describes himself as a Messianic Jew and Hebrew Christian, which he uses interchangeably (there are distinctions as well as overlap between the two movements). In 1996 he returned to Brisbane, Australia to work for the Creation Science Foundation (now Answers in Genesis) as a research scientist and as co-editor of their magazine, Creation and TJ: the in-depth journal of Creation.

Sarfati has written numerous publications, including three books. Refuting Evolution, his first book, was published in 1999, a rebuttal to the National Academy of Sciences’ teachers’ guidebook Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science. It has since sold more than 450,000 copies. This was followed by a sequel, Refuting Evolution 2, a response to a major PBS/Nova 7-part series and a Scientific American article. His latest book, Refuting Compromise is a rebuttal of the day-age creationist teachings of Dr Hugh Ross, who attempts to harmonize the Genesis account of creation with the majority scientific belief that the earth is billions of years old, a position which Sarfati rejects. Sarfati has also authored a number of booklets, besides contributing chapters and articles to numerous books and magazines, as well as many of the articles on the Answers in Genesis. He is a popular speaker at churches and conferences on the issue of creation versus evolution.

Chess

In addition to his religious work, Sarfati maintains a keen interest in chess. A former New Zealand chess champion, he represented New Zealand in three Chess Olympiads, and drew with former World Champion Boris Spassky in a tournament in Wellington in 1988. He enjoys playing chess “blindfold” (i.e., without being allowed to see his opponents’ moves, so the moves are transmitted orally via some recognized chess notation), and has been known to play twelve such games simultaneously (see photos and games). His FIDE ELO rating is 2310.

Sarfati was one of the top 1000 reviewers at Amazon.com. His reviews cover religious, scientific, and chess-related books.

Education

B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemistry (with condensed matter and nuclear physics papers substituted)
Ph.D. in Spectroscopy (Physical Chemistry)

Honors/Awards/Associations

1988, FIDE Master title, The International Chess Federation

  

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Valery Salov (born May 26, 1964) is a Russian chess grandmaster.

He has a plus record against Boris Spassky. He beat Spassky in Frankrig in 1994 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2 Be7 5.O-O O-O 6.d4 Nbd7 7.Qc2 c6 8.b3 b6 9.Rd1 Bb7 10.Nc3 Rc8 11.e4 Nxe4 12.Nxe4 dxe4 13.Qxe4 b5 14.Bf4 bxc4 15.bxc4 Qa5 16.Qc2 Ba8 17.c5 Nf6 18.Ne5 Nd5 19.Nc4 Qd8 20.Bd6 Bxd6 21.Nxd6 Rb8 22.Rab1 Qc7 23.Rxb8 Rxb8 24.Rb1 Rd8 25.Rb3 Nf6 26.Qb2 Ne8 27.Nc4 h6 28.Bf3 Kf8 29.Kg2 Nf6 30.a4 Ne8 31.a5 Qc8 32.h4 Nc7 33.Nd6 Qd7 34.Rb8 Na6 35.Rxd8+ Qxd8 36.Qd2 Kg8 37.Qf4 Qe7 38.Bh5 g6 39.Qxh6 Qf6 40.Bf3 Qxd4 41.Qg5 Nxc5 42.Qe7 Nd3 43.Qxf7+ Kh8 44.Qf8+ Kh7 45.Ne4 1-0

  

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Pierre Charles Fournier de St. Amant (1800 – 1872) was a leading French chess master. After the death of Bourdonnais in 1840, St. Amant had the reputation of being France’s best chess player, but he was not nearly as strong as his predecessor Bourdonnais.

He played two matches against the Englishman Howard Staunton in 1843. The first, in London, he won 3.5-2.5, but the second, in Paris, he lost 13-8. This second match is sometimes considered to be an unofficial World Chess Championship match.

St. Amant was in Paris in 1858 when Paul Morphy made his first visit. The Frenchman freely admitted that he was not in Morphy’s class as a chess player, and was present at a banquet honoring the young American. They did play a few games privately. Only the score of one game is known, a win by Morphy.

In 1861 St. Amant moved to Algeria to spend his retirement years. He died there in 1872 after an accident.

  

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Olga Rubtsova (August 20, 1909 – December 13, 1994) was a Soviet chess player and fourth Women’s World Chess Champion. She won the USSR Women’s Championship several times, and was second in the 1950 Women’s World Championship, a point behind Ludmila Rudenko. She won the title in 1956, finishing ahead of Rudenko and Elizaveta Bykova in a match tournament, before losing it to Bikova in a match in 1958.

Rubtsova also played correspondence chess, and became first Women’s Correspondence Chess Champion in 1972 (she also finished second in the next championship, only losing the title to Lora Jakovleva on tie-break, and fifth in the one after that). As of 2005, she remains the only player, male or female, to become World Champion in both over-the-board and correspondence chess.

  

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Sergei Rublevsky (b. 15 October 1974) is a Russian chess grandmaster who beat Garry Kasparov in Izmir in 2004 (moves given in Algebraic chess notation):

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 e6 4. O-O Nge7 5. c3 a6 6. Ba4 c4 7. Qe2 b5 8. Bc2 Ng6 9. b3 Qc7 10. bxc4 Nf4 11. Qe3 bxc4 12. Ba3 Be7 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14. Na3 O-O 15. Rab1 f5 16. Qb6 Qxb6 17. Rxb6 fxe4 18. Bxe4 d5 19. Bc2 Neg6 20. Bxg6 Nxg6 21. Nc2 e5 22. Ne3 Bf5 23. Nxf5 Rxf5 24. Rfb1 Raf8 25. Rxa6 e4 26. Nd4 Rxf2 27. Ne6 R2f6 28. Nxf8 Rxa6 29. Nxg6 hxg6 30. Kf2 Rxa2 31. Ke3 Kf7 32. Rb7+ Kf6 33. Rb6+ Kf7 34. Rd6 Ra5 35. h4 g5 36. hxg5 Ke7 37. Rc6 Ra1 38. Kd4 Rd1 39. Kxd5 e3 40. Re6+ Kd7 41. Rxe3 Rxd2+ 42. Kxc4 Rxg2 43. Re5 Kd6 44. Ra5 Rg4+ 45. Kb3 Rg1 46. Kb4 Rb1+ 47. Kc4 Ke6 48. Ra6+ Kf5 49. g6 Rg1 50. Kb5 Ke5 51. c4 Rb1+ 52. Kc6 Rg1 53. Kd7 Rd1+ 54. Ke7 Rb1 55. Ra5+ Kd4 56. Kf8 Rb7 57. Rf5 1-0

  

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Akiba Rubinstein (born 12 December 1882, died 15 March 1961 in Antwerp) was a brilliant Polish chess master and a famous grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was Jewish, and his family planned for him to become a rabbi, yet he did not finish his studies and chose to devote himself to chess entirely. The decision came in 1903 after he won fifth place at a tournament in Kiev.

Rubinstein flourished especially from 1907 to 1912. Beginning from his win at Carlsbad in 1907, through a shared win at St. Petersburg in the same year, he culminated it in a record string of wins in 1912. He won five consecutive major tournaments that year: San Sebastian, Bad Pistyan, Wroclaw (the German championship), Warsaw and Vilnius.

At the time when it was common for the reigning world champion to handpick his challengers, Rubinstein was never given a chance to play Emmanuel Lasker for the world championship because he was unable to raise enough money to meet Lasker’s financial demands. His plans were damaged by a poor showing at St Petersburg (1914), and ultimately ruined by the outbreak of World War I and the emergence of an alternative challenger in José Raúl Capablanca.

After the war Rubinstein was still an elite grandmaster, but his results lacked their previous formidable consistency. Nevertheless, he won at Vienna in 1922, ahead of future world champion Alexander Alekhine, and was the leader of the Polish team that won the Chess Olympiad at Hamburg in 1930 with a superb record of 13 wins and 4 draws. A year later he won an Olympic silver.

After 1932 he withdrew from tournament play, mostly because his schizophrenic tendencies (he was suffering from anthropophobia) ultimately became prevalent. Although he lived for almost 30 years afterwards, he left behind no literary heritage like the other great grandmasters, which may be attributed to his mental problems.

He was one of the earliest chess players to take the endgame into account when choosing and playing the opening. He originated the Rubinstein System against the Tarrasch Defense variation of the Queen’s Gambit Declined: 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c5 3.c4 e6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.g3 Nf6 7.Bg2 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Qb6 (Rubinstein – Tarrasch, 1912). He is also credited with inventing the Meran Variation, which stems from the Queen’s Gambit Declined but reaches a position of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, with Black one move ahead.

Further reading

Donaldson, John and Nikolay Minev (1994). Akiba Rubinstein: Uncrowned King. International Chess Enterprises. ISBN 1-879479-19-2.
Chernev, Irving (1995). Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games. Dover. ISBN 0486286746.

  

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Jonathan Rowson (born 18 April 1977) is Scotland’s 3rd chess Grandmaster, after Paul Motwani and Colin McNab, and has played board 1 at recent Chess Olympiads. He made his Scotland debut for the national Primary School team in the match against England in 1988. Although not the best player in his age-group at the time, his progress was rapid and he began competing on the world stage in 1991, winning a silver medal in the European Under 18 Championship in 1995 (behind Robert Kempinski of Poland).

After taking a year out to study chess in the wake of this success, he went to Keble College, Oxford University to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He came second in the European Under 20 Championship in 1997 and achieved his third and final Grandmaster norm (and with it the title) in the 1999 Scottish Chess Championship. He went on to win the event again in 2001 and 2004, completing a rare double when he went on to become the 2004 British Champion.

Rowson has written numerous magazine articles and two books on the game – Understanding the Grunfeld and The Seven Deadly Chess Sins.