Nicolas Rossolimo

Edward Winter

Jeremy Gaige (1994)

Joshua B. Lilly (Martinsville, VA, USA) raises the subject of a famous game, Rossolimo v Livingstone, New York, 1961, asking for specifics as to a contemporary source, the occasion and Black’s identity:

1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qa5 4 d4 Nf6 5 Nf3 Bg4 6 h3 Qh5 7 Be2 Nc6 8 O-O Bxh3 9 gxh3 Qxh3 10 Ng5 Qh4 11 d5 Ne5 12 Bb5+ c6 13 dxc6 bxc6 14 Nd5 O-O-O 15 Ba6+ Kb8 16 Bf4 Rxd5 17 Bxe5+ Ka8

18 c4 Qxg5+ 19 Bg3 Rxd1 20 Raxd1 Nd5 21 cxd5 c5 22 b4 c4 23 Rd4 e5 24 dxe6 Bxb4 25 Rd7 Rb8 26 Rfd1 Be7 27 exf7 c3 28 f8(Q) Resigns.

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Jack O’Keefe (Ann Arbor, MI, USA) writes:

‘I have part of an answer to the mystery of the Rossolimo v Livingstone game. It was published in B.H. Wood’s column in the Illustrated London News, 30 December 1961, page 1160. His introduction to the game was:

“N. Rossolimo, born in Odessa of Greek parentage, wandered to Prague, then Paris. He is now in New York. Here is a real Wild West game he played there recently.”

Wood wrote nothing further about the occasion or the opponent. However, Chess Life for 1961 gives no tournaments in which Rossolimo took part, and it seems likely that the game was not played in a serious event.’

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We note that Rossolimo’s brilliancy against Livingstone at New York, 1961 (with the spectacular move 18 c4) was published, with no further details concerning the occasion, on page 204 of Schach-Echo, 8 July 1961.

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‘America, I decided, is a better country for my wife, a better country for my son. A better country for everyone but chess players.’

That remark by Rossolimo comes from an article about him by Thomas Buckley on page 88 of the New York Times, 23 November 1958:

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Hans Renette (Bierbeek, Belgium) sends this picture from page 2 of De Gooi- en Eemlander, 31 July 1947:

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From our feature article Modern Chess Openings:

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.

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A fine portrait of Rossolimo (Hastings, 1949), courtesy of the Hulton Archive:

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Michael Petrow (Munich, Germany) notes references to an alleged self-publication by Nicolas Rossolimo: Rossolimo’s Brilliancy Prizes (New York, 1970).

It is mentioned in the English-language Wikipedia entry on Rossolimo, but neither online nor elsewhere have we found authoritative information about its existence.

The other chess work referred to in the entry, Les Échecs au coin du feu (Paris, 1947) with a Preface by Tartakower, has 28 pages and, courtesy of the Cleveland Public Library, a number of them are shown below: