11082. Calvi
(C.N.s 1827 & 1836)
As reported in C.N.s 1827 and 1836, our collection
includes five hardbound volumes of Ignazio Calvi’s Cours
d’échecs, which was published in Le
Palamède in the mid-1840s. The text, entirely
handwritten (though not in Calvi’s hand, Adriano Chicco
noted in C.N. 1836), amounts to 788 pages.
This is one of a large variety of items listed in our
latest feature article, Chess Books and
Magazines For Sale.
11083. Fischer
and the FBI
The FBI Vault contains a 1966-67
file on Fischer’s passport requests for travel to Cuba.
11084.
American chess masters
Olimpiu G. Urcan (Singapore) draws attention to a
cartoon feature on pages 26-27 of the November-December
2018 Playboy: ‘American Chess Masters’ written
by Brin-Jonathan Butler and illustrated by Nathan
Gelgud.
The left-hand section on Morphy refers to ‘a spooky
child prodigy’ who later ‘traveled across Europe and
toured royal courts ...’ Then comes this ‘Fun’:
The treatment of Steinitz
does not even attain the ‘according to legend’ and
‘reports abound that’ level:
11085. Fischer
film
Michael Clapham (Ipswich, England) has been watching
the film by Friðrik Guðmundsson Me & Bobby
Fischer, which is available on DVD:
‘It has over an hour of Fischer talking, in 2005,
about such matters as his aborted match with Karpov,
his time in prison, his views on Jews, and
pre-arranged games.’
11086.
P.N. Izmailov
This photograph of Piotr Nikolaevich Izmailov (1906-37)
comes from page 10 of the 1/1929 issue of Shakhmatny
Listok and has been supplied by Eduardo Bauzá
Mercére (New York, NY, USA).
A detailed biographical article by Sergei Grodzensky,
published on pages 24-26 of 64, December 1990,
related Izmailov’s arrest in 1936, execution in 1937 and
rehabilitation in 1957:
The 64 article has been forwarded by Vitaliy
Yurchenko (Uhta, Russian Federation), who adds that
there is further information about Izmailov on pages
28-44 of a book on Siberian chess: Сибирь шахматная
by R. Kur, V. Neishtadt and K. Sukharev (Novosibirsk,
1995).
11087.
William Winter and Lilliput
Eric Fisher (Hull, England) reports that he has three
articles by William Winter in Lilliput
(November 1949, June 1950 and November 1950) and asks
whether there are any others. He has provided pages from
the June 1950
and November
1950 issues.
11088. Chess
shirts
D.J. Morgan, the ‘expert Chess Shirt researcher’
mentioned in the caption, wrote on page 268:
‘F.M. Edge (a most untrustworthy writer where
Staunton was concerned) states in his Morphy book that
Staunton was so rabid about chess that he wore shirts
with representations of the chess pieces on the
breasts and tails.’
Edge’s exact words, on pages 151-152 of the New York
edition of his book and page 133 of the London edition:
‘Staunton’s literary avocations now permit him but an
hour or two weekly for chess, although formerly he
lived in the London Divan, as Harrwitz in the Régence,
and was so rabid about Caïssa that he actually wore
shirts with kings, rooks, pawns, etc. printed over the
bosoms and tails.’
‘It is just possible that he did’, added G.H.Diggle in
D.J. Morgan’s column, pointing out these passages:
Chess Player’s
Chronicle, 1847, page 68
Chess Player’s
Chronicle, 1847, page 140
From page 254 of XIV. Schach-Olympiade Leipzig 1960,
published by Sportverlag Berlin:
11089.
Chess metaphors
Under the title ‘Journalistic Chess’ page 157 of the
February 1922 Chess Amateur commented:
‘Judging by the continual references to chess,
especially to chess strategy, in the daily papers, the
average journalist is much fonder of using chess
metaphors and images than he is acquainted with their
real meaning.
In our contemporary, the Daily Mail, on 19
November, two contributors availed themselves of chess
analogies with more success than is normal, though at
least one “howler” was necessary evidently.
Mr H.G. Wells, in his remarkable papers on the
Washington Conference, writes:
Mr A.E. Manning Foster in his usual Saturday article
on bridge, in a book review, under the heading
“Strategy at Auction Bridge”, writes:
The reader will be amused in spotting the obvious
blunder in these quotations, excepting which, however,
the allusions are unusually accurate.’
We have incorporated the relevant passages from the Daily
Mail (on, respectively, pages 8 and 6 of the 19
November 1921 edition). The paragraph beginning ‘Auction
bridge’ was omitted by the Chess Amateur.
11090. Adolf
Anderssen
Pages 39 and 183 of the new book Neumann,
Hirschfeld and Suhle by Hans Renette and Fabrizio
Zavatarelli (C.N. 11090) have two rare portraits of
Anderssen, from, respectively, an 1872 issue of the Illustrirte
Zeitung and the Lothar Schmid Collection. The
former picture is shown here courtesy of the co-authors:
11091. A
Canadian chess film
C.N. 464 (see Chess
Jottings) welcomed the film Jouer sa vie
by Gilles Carle and Camille Coudari. It can be viewed on-line
under its English title, The Great Chess Movie.
11092.
Buenos Aires Olympiad, 1939
From Eduardo Bauzá Mercére (New York, NY, USA):
Source: Crítica, 2 September 1939, page 11.
11093.
Chess shirts (C.N. 11088)
Gerard Killoran (Ilkley, England) sends a cutting from
page 15 of the Illustrated London News, 20
February 1847:
11094. Lasker v
Tarrasch, 1908
Page 3 of The World Chess Championship: 1951
Botvinnik v Bronstein by William Winter and R.G.
Wade (London, 1951):
Given that Lasker defeated Tarrasch +8 –3 =5, this
account seems generous to Tarrasch. As regards the
quality of play, James Mortimer expressed a different
view on page 8 of the Daily Mail, 15 September
1908:
11095.
Lasker v Capablanca, 1921
Why is it so hard to find photographs of the 1921 world
championship match in Havana? There was no Cuban chess
magazine at the time, and we have yet to locate pictures
in the host country’s mainstream press.
11096.
Fischer caricature (C.N.s 8721, 8724 & 8778)
This caricature is often attributed to Fischer himself,
but in C.N. 8724 a correspondent reported that the
website of Marina Petric showed it as one of many by her
late father, Berislav Petric. The link given in C.N.
8724 is no longer valid, and her new
webpage does not currently include the Fischer
drawing.
11097.
Computer pairings
This cutting from page 1 of Chess Life, 5
September 1958 has been forwarded by Eduardo Bauzá
Mercére (New York, NY, USA):
Which was the first open tournament where all the
pairings were made by a computer?
11098. The
Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian Defence
Position after 1 e4 c5 2
Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5
Some initial historical jottings are offered on the
Rossolimo Variation of the Sicilian Defence, played in
the 2018 world championship match between Magnus Carlsen
and Fabiano Caruana.
What cannot be given for now is a comprehensive
explanation as to when Rossolimo’s name was attached to
– or, indeed, detached from – the opening. Databases
have relevant Rossolimo games from the late 1940s
onwards, and the reference to ‘around 1940’ in The
Oxford Companion to Chess by D. Hooper and K.
Whyld (1984 and 1992 editions) has yet to be
substantiated:
1984 edition, page 286
1992 edition, page 345
Annotating Rossolimo v Romanenko, Salzburg, 1948 on
pages 647-648 of the October 1975 Chess Life &
Review, Pal Benko wrote after 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3
Bb5:
‘Rossolimo usually avoided normal Sicilian patterns,
and the text was one of his favorites. Nimzowitsch
played this against Gilg in 1927, but it was Rossolimo
who, through his frequent use of it, made this system
an effective and fully respectable weapon. For a time,
it was known as “the Rossolimo Variation” and is today
commonly seen with colors reversed in the English
Opening’ [as in the game Barry v Rossolimo, World
Open, New York, 1975 which Benko annotated on page
648].
Page 181 of the Dictionnaire des échecs by F.
Le Lionnais and E. Maget (Paris, 1967 and 1974) called 1
e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 ‘L’attaque hispano-sicilienne’,
and had the following on page 340:
C.N. 1230 drew attention to the obvious inaccuracy of
this text on page 1 of The Anti-Sicilian: 3 Bb5(+)
by Y. Razuvayez and A. Matsukevitch (London, 1984):
Although the Companion also mentioned Winawer v
Steinitz, Paris, 1867, that game began 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 e6
3 Nc3 Nc6 4 Bb5, as shown on pages 182-183 of the
tournament book.
When were the moves 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 first
played? The earliest game that we have found is on pages
327-328 of the Chess Player’s Chronicle, 1845
(volume six), a win by Elijah Williams against John
Withers, played (according to page 325) ‘very recently
at Bristol’:
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nd4 4 Nxd4 cxd4 5 O-O e5 6 d3
Qb6 7 Bc4 d6 8 f4 Be6 9 Bxe6 fxe6 10 fxe5 O-O-O 11 Rf7
dxe5 12 Bg5 Nf6 13 Nd2 h6 14 Nc4 Qb5 15 Bxf6 gxf6 16 Qg4
f5 17 exf5 h5 18 Qg6 Rh6 19 Rxf8 Rxg6 20 Nd6+ Kd7 21
Rxd8+ Kxd8 22 Nxb5 and wins.
Source: XIV.
Schach-Olympiade Leipzig 1960, page 192.
11099. The
graves of Capablanca and Alekhine
Cătălin Duminecioiu (Bucharest) reports that he has
photographed the graves
of Capablanca (November 2014) and Alekhine (summer
2016):
11100.
Fischer caricature (C.N.s 8721, 8724, 8778 &
11096)
Marina Petric (Austin, TX, USA) informs us that her
father, Berislav Petric, drew a set of chess caricatures
in Belgrade and asked the players concerned, including
Fischer, to sign them. She has provided the two pictures
below:
Berislav Petric
At our request, Marina Petric has added that her father
was born in Sarajevo on 3 May 1929. After graduating in
architecture, he emigrated to Brazil in 1964, and died
in Rio de Janeiro on 8 May 1998.
11101.
Miss Cotton
From Rod Edwards (Victoria, BC, Canada):
‘In C.N. 6627 you gave the results of the Ladies’
tournament at San Remo, 1911, with “Miss Selma
Cotton (London)” coming second. There was a Helene
Cotton (or Charlotte Helene Cotton-Meirchin) who was
active for many years in England and was at Meran,
1924 (C.N. 4838). Page 147 of the April 1911 BCM
gave the name of the woman at San Remo, 1911 only as
“Miss Cotton (London)”. I am wondering where the
name “Selma” is to be found, and whether it may have
been Helene Cotton who played at San Remo, 1911
after all.’
The name ‘Selma Cotton’ appeared in connection with San
Remo, 1911 in the Deutsches Wochenschach (5
March 1911, page 86 and 26 March 1911, page 119) and, as
shown below, on page 109 of La Stratégie, March
1911:
11102. The
parentage of John Cochrane
John Townsend (Wokingham, England) writes:
‘The Inner
Temple Admissions Database indicates that John
Cochrane was admitted to the Inner Temple on 13 May
1819, the third son of the Honourable John Cochrane,
of Edinburgh, that he was called to the Bar on 29
June 1824, and that he died on 2 March 1878.
“Honourable” was applied to untitled children of
nobility. In the case of Cochrane’s father, the
Honourable John Cochrane (1750-1801) was a son of
Thomas Cochrane, the eighth Earl of Dundonald. He
was a much-travelled man, and his children were born
to several women. He was not married until 7 May
1800, when the marriage register of St Marylebone
shows that he tied the knot as a bachelor with
Selina Fitzroy Birch, a spinster, of Pinner,
Middlesex. Neither of them lived long afterwards,
and they left no surviving issue. Selina made her
will (National Archives, PROB 11/1383/378) on 24
July 1801, and it was proved on 22 December 1802.
Her husband was buried at St James’s Piccadilly on
26 October 1801. A short death notice in the Morning
Post (29 October 1801, page 4) mentioned that he
had died on 21 October at his house in Harley
Street, Cavendish Square, “two months after the
death of his beloved wife and infant son”.
The will of the Honourable John Cochrane (National
Archives, PROB 11/1407/25) was written on 27
September 1801, while he was living in Harley
Street, but was not proved until 6 April 1804. He
named three (illegitimate) sons and a daughter
(Angelique Cochrane). The first two sons were
Nathaniel Day Cochrane and James Johnston [sic]
Cochrane. Since the third son was John Cochrane, the
information corroborates that obtained from the
Inner Temple Admissions Database (see above), and
that makes it possible to identify the chessplayer
as the recipient of the following bequest:
“I give and bequeath unto John Cochrane the son of
Margaret McDougal now living at Newhaven near Leith
the like sum of one thousand pounds.”
Newhaven lies on the coast about two miles to the
north of Edinburgh. It appears from this bequest
that the chessplayer spent at least some of his
early childhood there. Nothing is otherwise known of
his mother, Margaret McDougal, although there is
ample scope for further research, and especially if
she left a will.
In 1826 John Cochrane received another gift of
£1,000, this time from the brother of the Honourable
John Cochrane, the Honourable Basil Cochrane, whose
will (National Archives, PROB 11/1718/389) contained
this:
“And I do hereby give and bequeath the sum of one
thousand pounds Sterling to John Cochrane also the
reputed Son of my said late Brother the Honourable
John Cochrane.”
This immediately follows bequests to Nathaniel Day
Cochrane and James Johnstone [sic] Cochrane,
and therefore underlines the status of John Cochrane
as the third son. The will was made on 7 June 1824,
and probate was granted in London on 16 November
1826. The first two sons rose to senior positions in
the navy and army respectively, while John Cochrane
became a barrister.
Also to be found in the National Archives, and not
so far examined, is a “probate inventory, or
declaration, of the estate, with account”, of Hon.
John Cochrane, deceased, of Harley Street, St
Marylebone, dated March 1810 (PROB 31/1037/285).
The age of John Cochrane the chessplayer was given
as 72 in the 1871 census (National Archives, RG
10/165, folio 48), his place of birth being entered
as Edinburgh. At that time, he was living as a
lodger in a boarding house at 32 Seymour Street,
Marylebone, described as “Barrister in Practice”. In
the same house were two women by the name of Emily
Cochrane; their ages were given as “60” and “30-40”.
Cochrane’s age at the time of his death in the
March quarter of 1878 was given as 78 in the death
indexes at the General Register Office (ref.
Marylebone, vol. 1A, page 444).
With that information it may be possible to find a
baptism (or birth) record for the chessplayer during
the approximate period 1798-1800, perhaps in
Edinburgh, Newhaven or Leith. Such a search would be
assisted by the knowledge that the mother was
Margaret McDougal and the father the Honourable John
Cochrane.
Cochrane was a most generous subscriber to the
1851 London tournament, as can be seen from pages
xxxi and lix of Staunton’s The Chess Tournament
(1852). In addition to his own donation of £20, he
must also have played some part in a contribution of
£100 in the name of the Calcutta Chess Club, of
which he was the President. However, he was not a
rich man when he died. His own will is referenced in
the National Probate Calendar, which shows that he
died on 2 March 1878 and that his personal estate
was valued at under £200; the sole executrix was his
niece, Emily Cochrane, a spinster, and the address
of both was entered as 12 Bryanston Street, (which,
incidentally, differs from the 6 Bryanston Street
given for Cochrane’s death in the Inner Temple
Admissions Database.) This Emily Cochrane was an
illegitimate daughter of Nathaniel Day Cochrane, and
was born on 13 October 1825, according to her
baptism entry on 21 February 1828 in the parish
register of St Marylebone.’
11103.
Another Fischer photograph
From the plate section of International
Championship Chess by B. Kažić (London, 1974):
The caption might have added the identity of Fischer’s
chewee: William G. Addison. The position shows the end
of their game in round seven of the 1963-64 US
Championship, New York.
11104.
Miss Cotton (C.N. 11101)
Gerard Killoran (Ilkley, England) submits a game from
O.C. Müller’s column on page 8 of The Globe, 12
October 1912:
1 e4 e5 2 f4 d6 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 Bc4 Be7 5 O-O Bg4 6 c3 Bxf3
7 Rxf3 exf4 8 d4 Nf6 9 Rxf4 d5 10 Bd3 dxe4 11 Bxe4 Nxe4
12 Rxe4 Qd7 13 Bf4 O-O-O 14 a4 g5 15 Bg3 f5 16 Re1 f4 17
Bf2 g4 18 Nd2 h5 19 Ne4 h4
20 g3 hxg3 21 hxg3 Qf5 22 Kf1 f3 23 Qc2 Rh1+ 24 Bg1 Qh5
25 Nf2 Qh2 26 White resigns.
11105. Faster
or easier wins
Annotators and chroniclers often have difficulty
deciding to what extent players who miss faster or
easier wins should have such lapses pointed out. To
illustrate the theme, we present a range of observations
in books by Irving Chernev.
Combinations The
Heart of Chess (New York, 1960), page 37
Denker won quickly with 34 Qd5 Kf8 35 Rxg7. The
artist/butcher remark is reminiscent of an observation
by Emanuel Lasker on page 68 of the Chess Player’s
Scrap Book, May 1907 in connection with the game Morphy v the
Duke and Count.
Combinations The
Heart of Chess (New York, 1960), page 74
Logical Chess Move by
Move, various editions, Game 27 (Chekhover v
Rudakovsky, Moscow, 1945)
The almost identical text was on pages 193-194 of The
Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played (New
York, 1965).
Another example is Paulsen
v Morphy, New York, 1857:
Combinations The
Heart of Chess (New York, 1960)
The Chess Companion
(New York, 1968), pages 232-233
The next position comes from a famous brilliancy by
Capablanca (White) against Juan Corzo, Havana, 1901:
The Golden Dozen
(Oxford, 1976), page 284
Virtually the identical text had appeared on pages
175-176 of The Chess Companion.
The ‘commentator’ in question was Fred Reinfeld, in The
Immortal
Games of Capablanca (New York, 1942). In My
Chess Career (London, 1920) Capablanca wrote:
‘Today, very likely, I would simply have played Q-Q2
and won also, but at the time I could not resist the
temptation of sacrificing the queen. At any rate, the
text move was the only continuation which I had in
mind when I played P-K6.’
From later in the same game, where Capablanca played 46
Kf2:
Capablanca’s Best
Chess Endings (Oxford, 1978), page 7
Neither Capablanca nor Reinfeld mentioned 46 Kg3. On
pages 228-230 of Combinations The Heart of Chess
Chernev made no adverse comment on either 29 Qxb5 or 46
Kf2.
A final illustration of the difficulty of avoiding
inconsistency comes from page 255 of The Chess
Companion, in the conclusion to D. Byrne v
Fischer, New York, 1956:
Our feature article
on the game shows that the future world champion’s own
small book, Bobby Fischer’s Games of Chess, made
no reference to the faster mates available at move 36
(...Rf2+) and at move 37 (...Re2+). Those lines would
have given mate just one move earlier, and their
noteworthiness is a matter of opinion. It is curious,
though, that Chernev mentioned only one of the two.
11106. John
Cochrane (C.N. 11102)
Shortly after John Cochrane’s death, a tribute
by
I.O. Howard Taylor was published on page 2 of the
Hartford Weekly Times, 4 April 1878. It was
reproduced on pages 30-32 of the American Chess
Journal, April 1878 and, thanks to the Cleveland
Public Library, we give below the front cover and the
frontispiece portrait of Cochrane in addition to the
letter itself:
11107.
Miss Cotton (C.N.s 11101 & 11104)
The obituary on page 92 of the March 1929 BCM
which was referred to in C.N. 4838:
From John Townsend (Wokingham, England):
‘The National Probate Calendar has a 1929 entry
for Charlotte Helena Minchin Cotton, of 2 Chester
Terrace, Regent’s Park, Middlesex, spinster, who
died on 9 January 1929 at 7 Osnaburgh Terrace,
Regent’s Park. Probate was granted in London on 20
February to Mary Rose Small, widow, and Reginald
Waring Cotton, electrician, the effects amounting to
£3,631 18s. 9d.
The death indexes at the General Register Office
contain an entry in the March quarter of 1929 for
Helena C.M. Cotton (ref. Pancras, vol. 1b, page 4),
the age being given as 53.
There is a corresponding birth entry for the June
quarter of 1875 for Charlotte Helena M. Cotton in
the registration district of Tiverton (Devon) (ref.
vol. 5b, page 431).’
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