British Master title (1972)

[E Michael White]

I'm told that Mortimer's opponents in his last tournaments included Sir George Thomas, E.G. Sergeant, and J.H. Blake….

I knew about the Sir George Thomas link as he played Mortimer in the Brighton event of 1904, as well as on other occasions. In 1904 Mortimer played 10 games in the London League for the Metropolitan club in addition to at least 3 other tournaments.

Beware when researching G Thomas; I know of 6 G Thomases some of whose games have been aggregated with Sir G A’s on commercially available databases.

When E G Sergeant played in the British in 1959 he played against the less well known F Clough and D G Ellison who may turn out to be the English veteran player George Ellison and the Welsh veteran Fred Clough. Both these players played rated games earlier this year and would be M3s.

[Matt Mackenzie]

When E G Sergeant played in the British in 1959 he played against the less well known F Clough and D G Ellison who may turn out to be the English veteran player George Ellison and the Welsh veteran Fred Clough. Both these players played rated games earlier this year and would be M3s.

I believe you are correct in both cases.

Of course, George remains active in the Blackpool area chess scene. Fred was a fellow member of Poulton-le-Fylde CC in the 1970s and 80s.

[John Saunders]

I see that the Wikipedia page on Morphy numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphy_Number) lists Bob Wade as a 'Morphy Number 4'. Utter drivel, of course. Bob was a MN 3 via Tartakower, whom he played at least twice (Staunton 1951 and Hastings 53/54). Since Bob was a MN 3, it means that half the planet must therefore be MN 4s! I honestly cannot see why they bother listing any MN 4s since surely we nearly fall into this category. As for some of the people listed on Wikipedia as MN 5 - totally ludicrous (one example on Wikipedia: Gligoric MN 3, Ribli MN 5?? - a quick check revealed they have played at least 12 times).

Bernard Cafferty is another living MN 3, by the way (played EG Sergeant in the British Championship in 1960). Like Bob, Bernard will confer MN 4 "status" on a huge number of players. BH Wood would also have been an MN 3 (via Znosko-B). I'm sure there are stacks of British MN 3s, living and dead, whom most of us will have played, making MN 4 a non-status.

[Frederick Rhine]

Wikipedia's listing of Ribli as an MN5 is founded on Taylor Kingston's designation of him as such in his article. Wikipedia's listing of Gligoric as an MN3 comes from the more recent article by Frederick Rhine (i.e., me). There is no article that synthesizes the discovery of the Mortimer connection and its effect on MN4's. You are right that there must be a huge number of them now. I do think an MN4 is somewhat harder to come by for those of us in the U.S. than for you English folk - though there are many Americans, including me, who've played Bisguier.

[John Saunders]

There are plenty of other relatively recent American MN 3s (e.g. Benko, Reshevsky, Koltanowski) to confer "4" status on a huge number of other US players via simuls, I would have thought. It is just a question of doing the research (flicking through old mags, etc).

Databases are a less reliable source, however. Whilst looking through Mega Database at various Morphy opponents, I found a very surprising MN 1 - Simon JB Knott! Apparently he played Morphy in a New York simul in 1859 when he was minus 99 years old. Chessgames.com gives the player as Hubert Knott (which is presumably correct). He is not the only Morphy opponent to have had his name incorrectly standardised.

[John Saunders]

Ossip Bernstein, who didn't die until 1962 and was still an active competitor until the previous year, must confer MN 3 status on a large number of living players. Two I found immediately were K Langeweg (overlooked by Wiki) and F Kuijpers (who appears on Wiki but not in the table). Bernstein also provides Bob Wade with a second route to MN 3 status. He played in tournaments in England and Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s, thus spreading MN 3 status far and wide. Abe Yanofsky was most definitely an MN 3, having played Tartakower at Hastings, thus opening up scope for many more MN 4s from Canada, Britain and elsewhere. Jens Enevoldsen was also an MN 3 (played Bernstein, 1961), rather than MN4 given by Wikipedia.

[E Michael White]

Ok then John if you want a few more potential Morphy Number 3s, MN3 who may still be living; there are very similar names in the FIDE lists :-

1. Puig v O Bernstein, Madrid/1959 is this Jaume Puig Argiles : B 1929

2. Joseph Kupper v O Bernstein, Amsterdam/1954 – is this Josef Kupper : B 1932

3. Walter Estrada v O Bernstein, Montieideo/1954 is this Walter Estrada many times champion of Uruguay or a younger relative in the FIDE list

4. Salomon v O Bernstein, Montevideo/1954 is this Eugene Salomon B 1928, of the USA

5. O Bernstein v M Valvo, USA/1954 is this Michael J Valvo of the USA B 1942

6. F Andrija v O Bernstein, Saabrucken/1953 is this Fuderer Andrija of Belgium B 1931

7. J T Sherwin v Bernstein, USA/1959 this is obviously James T but is it Sidney or Ossip. One of my sources says Sid the another Ossip


I guess C Boutteville, Born 1917 may be the oldest living MN3

John -

are you sure Sergeant played in the 1960 British ch ?

MVN4 is a bit rarer than MN4

[John Saunders]

Yes, I'm quite sure about EG Sergeant playing in the 1960 British Championship - BCM, Oct 1960, p289 has a crosstable. EG Sergeant's results were: 1 drew Arthur Hall; 2 drew RH Newman; 3 beat David Levens (member of this forum? Think so); 4 drew Michael Haygarth; 5 drew Owen Hindle; 6 drew Peter Clarke; 7 lost to Frank Parr; 8 lost to Bernard Cafferty; 9 lost to M Fallone (Scottish player); 10 lost to Ron Bruce; 11 drew M Thompson. Quite a few living MN 3s derive from those games: at least four definites and very probably more.

I'm doubtful about the quoted Bernstein games played in the USA which were probably Sidney rather than Ossip. Would need following up - not got the time to do it.

[John Saunders]

I think I have another relatively recent MN 2 - Eugene Ernest Colman (1878-1964) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Ernest_Colman - he played Mortimer in the City of London Championship of 1910/11. Colman's life story was written up in Olimpiu Urcan's excellent Surviving Changi and it gives a few names of people Colman played in his old age - including Frank Parr, DB Pritchard, JH Beaty and Jim Nicolson (Lancashire), all of whom are thus MN 3s. Jim Nicolson's still with us (I think) - not sure about JH Beaty. Colman was an active post-war member of Wimbledon CC until the early 1960s so there are likely to be a number of other living MN3s lurking in leafy Surrey. And, although I can't prove it, I would have thought Michael Franklin must be a racing certainty to be a MN 3 (via Sergeant, Colman or somebody similar); also I would have thought Elaine Pritchard is a very likely MN 3, having been an active girl player in the 1930s.

Other long-lived MN 2s, via meeting Mortimer in his five City of London Championship appearances (1906/7 to 1910/11): TF Lawrence (d 1953), FW Flear (d ??), JH Blake (d 1951), Sir GA Thomas (d 1972), HB Uber (alive late 1940s). I feel sure these could spawn more living MN 3s.

[Mick Norris]

I assume you mean this Jim Nicolson, I'm not sure

http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/getre ... ef=142857D

In which case, the answer is yes, still playing for Greater Manchester county teams (most famously, getting 13 successive blacks for the U150 team)

[Frederick Rhine]

Great research, all. It seems that the number of living MN3s probably exceeds 30. There are obviously many thousands of MN4s, although a lot fewer than "half of the planet." For example, is Kramnik an MN4? I can't find any games of his against Larsen, Gligoric, or any of the other MN3s that he would be likely to have played.

I do wish that there were more solid confirmation (i.e., a game score or at least a contemporaneous remark by Morphy's secretary Frederick Edge or some such person) that Morphy and Mortimer in fact played. But given the facts that they were unquestionably well acquainted (David Lawson in his biography of Morphy notes that Mortimer was one of the few spectators at Morphy's match with Anderssen, and that it was probably Mortimer who conveyed to Harrwitz Morphy's subsequent offer to play him a match at pawn and move odds) and that Mortimer evidently told Chess Monthly (Sept. 1892, p. 66) that they had played hundreds of games, there is no reason to doubt that. Sadly for chess history, Morphy's mother got him to agree - after his triumphant tour of Europe - that he would not play chess publicly or for stakes, nor do anything to encourage the publication of his games. (Philip Sergeant mentions this in his book Morphy Gleanings.) That is why there are about 390 recorded Morphy games through 1859, but only about 80 thereafter: about 48 games where he gave knight odds to his friend (and faithful scribe) Charles Maurian, and about 30 against other people. (I apologize if these numbers are a little off; I'm at work at the moment, so can't consult the books.)

[John Saunders]

Yes, I'm pretty sure this is the right Jim Nicolson.

Add to the list of living MN 3s: Michael Franklin and George Dickson (both still very active players), and Ken Lloyd (who isn't active now but was until about 10 years ago). I've traced games against either EG Sergeant or EE Colman for them. George Dickson played as a youngster in the 1956 British Championship (as a teenager, I think) and lost to EG Sergeant. I found a Surrey Championship result between Franklin and Colman. Have already forgotten the source of the Ken Lloyd info (sorry!). Also Prof. Derek Lamport, who used to play for Sussex and met one of aforesaid MN2s many moons ago in a county game. He's still around.

There are still some glaring anomalies in the Wikipedia page. Garry Kasparov is only mentioned as a tentative MN 4 (based on a possible game with Botvinnik) but his status is clear cut - he played Gligoric in tournament games (the confusion is perhaps because Gligo is show twice under 3 and 4! He's definitely MN 3). Frank Marshall is down as an MN 3 but he played Mortimer in a tournament game (acc. Mega Database) so should be MN 2. I'm not sure who is editing this Wiki page but I'm not impressed.

What surprised me was to see Korchnoi, Kotov, Smyslov and Taimanov grovelling down in MN 4 - bracketed with all us British plebs aged 50 or over (or even younger), with our myriad games against MN 3s Wade, Clarke, Penrose, Barden, Cafferty, Franklin, etc. But it does seem quite hard to match them with a likely MN 2 to get them up a category. But this is probably because Soviet chess was effectively segregated from the rest of the world during the 1930s and 1940s. The older generation of players (Tartakower, Znosko-Borovsky and co) headed west and stayed out of their way. The other reason is geographical: we Brits are closer to the Morphy centres of gravity (USA, London, Paris).

[Leonard Barden]

Kotov and Smyslov both played Tartakover at Groningen 1946.

[John Saunders]

Good point - so they should be shown in MN 3.

[Frederick Rhine]

I'm not sure who is editing this Wiki page but I'm not impressed.

You are of course right that the current Wikipedia page is a mess. The reason for this is that Wikipedia's policies forbid original research and publication of material that hasn't been previously published in a "reliable source." Mortimer's status as an MN1, and the consequent explosion in the numbers of MN2s and MN3s, have only recently been discussed. No one has as yet published a list of leading Mortimer-based MN4s, so the MN4s and MN5s listed in Wikipedia mostly come from the lists previously published by Kingston and Harding. In light of the Mortimer connection, I have no doubt that most of the MN5s are in fact MN4s.