The Day the Stars Came Out
Like a poorly rehearsed play, nothing seemed to go right. What started out as a brilliant idea was fizzling out before everyone's eyes. Perhaps it was ...
Martin Villemson's Gambit
Many openings go by various names. The opening(s) we'll be looking at below not only go by many names, but the situations, like gambits themselves, can get messy, muddy and uncertain very quickly. The title of this article is Martin...
Walker
George Walker George Walker's life (1803-1879) spanned one of the most remarkable periods of chess. As a chess player, he met and played such personalities as John Cochrane, William Lewis, Alexander McDonnell, Labourdonnais, Pierre Charles S...
Professor of Chess
Jacob Henry Sarratt (1772-1819) Jacob Henry Sarratt, born in 1772, worked primarily as schoolmaster but was much better known for his avocations which, of course, included chess. After Philidor's death, Verdoni (along with Leger, Carl...
Memphis Belle
Miss Rosa Jefferson The champion women chess player of the world Rosa B. Jefferson Although she was a significant historical figure in American chess, Rosa Bradford Jefferson has remained largely unknown. Miss Jefferson edited a che...
The Duke
Many people who have no knowledge of or even interest in Chess know the name Bobby Fischer because he is so iconic. There are such icons in all endeavors - those who transcend their fields and become pub...
Links to the Past
This is the week of Halloween, a time when we dust the cobwebs, ressurect the dead and free the whispy ghosts of the departed.I thought this would be an appropriate time to open my own vault into the not-so-distant past with links to what has c...
Combinative Chess
"Chess" circa 1913by Annti Favén "A combination is a tactical maneuver in which you sacrifice material to obtain an advantage, or at least to improve your position. So, strategy then, is...
The Golden Age
In September 1945 the proud and confident USA team suffered a humiliating, crushing defeat at the hands of the Soviet team in a 10 board, 20 game match played through a novel use of radio transmission, each set of matched contestants played...
Talks a Good Game
The following piece was written by Paul Hugo Little, a rather diverse writer and a chess expert himself. Many people have probably encountered someone like the chess expert described in the story below. (The diagrams and Algrbrai...
Notation
"At the root of all advances in the science of chess-play lies the necessity of discovering an intelligible system of notation, by means of which the squares of the board may be easily defined and the moves of the pieces recorded." —...
"Queer Moves in Chess"
I stumbled upon the following article while reading through the March 1903 edition of "Checkmate: Monthly Chess Review." It looked familiar and I was able to determine I had seen it before in "Pollock Memories,"&...
The Ages of Chess
Caveat: The terms I use in the below essay are strictly my own invention and are not, by any means, generally accepted nomenclature. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * \ Chess Comes of Age / Around the end of the 15th ce...
The Man with 1000 Names
Q: What do Leigh Franklin James, Paul Hugo, Paula Little, Paula Minton, Sylvia Sharon, Kenneth Harding, Marie De Jourlet, Lana Preston, Paul H. Little, Jack Warren. D.R. Mason, Hugo Paul, Jack Warren, Dr. Lamb Library, Dr. Guenter Klow, Dorothy ...
Goose-Stepping Down Under
This is the story of Kārlis Ozols that should be called, "When Chess Players Go Bad." The story is one of amazement, puzzlement and disgust. Kārlis Ozols had been a chess player in ...
Shadow Pictures of the Vienna Players
The Vienna Chess Tournament of 1898, one of many tournaments sponsored by Albert von Rothschild, ran from May 31 to July 25 and was played at the Vienna Chess Club. It attracted many strong and now-famous masters. Tarrasch and Pillsbury e...
The Killer Instinct
There are many definitions for the concept, "killer instinct." One of the better ones I found, from Dictionary.com, tell us it's "an aggressive and ruthless determination to win or attain a goal." Maybe it was an eventual place of di...
Buckle
If Buckle had entered the Tournament list [in 1851], and been pitted against Staunton, I think he would have proved victor, as the fine edge of Staunton's play was then taken off, a fact amply demonstrated in his matches with Anderssen and Willia...
Mementos of Morphy
Paul Morphy circa 1858 I had come across this blurb in an 1886 edition of the "British Chess Magazine" under the sub-title, "Foreign News" : The estate of the late Paul Morphy...
An Hour With Morphy
This article was published in the "British Chess Magazine" three months after Paul Morphy's death. It was obviously written as a memorial to Morphy and meant to showcase his genius as well as an attempt to explain his winning techniques. Th...
Almost a Champion
To the chess-players of England the 18th century was just a fading memory. Philidor had died and Verdoni, a man with a forgotten first name, took up his reins as professional at Parsloe's in London until he himself died in 1804. At this poi...
Mr. Bone
Mr. Bone(Aug. 31, 1810 - Dec. 14, 1874) William Bone, along with the Rev. Horatio Bolton, is considered to have been one of the two best early English chess problemists. John Augustus Miles, a problemist (who knew them both and studied th...
The Most Remarkable Match
"This match is, in respect of its vicissitude, perhaps the most remarkable in the annals of chess." - from I. O. Howard Taylor's obituary of John Jacob Löwenthal in "American Chess Journal" of Sept. 1876 At precisely n...
The Little Chess Village, Part II
n 1616 Augustus of Brunswick‑Lüneburg, writing as Gustavus Selenus in his work, "Das Schach- oder König-Spiel," tells of his visit to Ströbeck where he encountered three types of chess being played. One was the Mediæval Chess, which had been...