Victor Buerger (Berger)

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John Moore
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Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by John Moore » Fri Feb 24, 2023 6:17 am

I noticed a copy of the Hastings 1895 tournament book for sale on Ebay which has a dedication to Victor Berger (1904-1996) from as late as 1993 for "all he has done for chess at Roehampton Club". An interesting association copy although the condition might not be great. The inscription is shown in the second photograph.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225441891867 ... _Auction=1

John Townsend
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by John Townsend » Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:31 am

Edward Winter's C.N. 6387 was about Victor Buerger and includes a portrait of him:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/win ... ml#CN_6387

Neil Blackburn
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by Neil Blackburn » Sat Feb 25, 2023 9:07 am

£20. Bargain!!

John Townsend
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by John Townsend » Sat Feb 25, 2023 9:56 am

Neil, have I misunderstood? Hasn't the auction another five days and more to run? £20 would be a bargain!

Perhaps it is topical to point out that Victor Buerger was a Ukrainian who was naturalised in England in 1927. He ran a bridge club in London.

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John Saunders
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by John Saunders » Sat Feb 25, 2023 11:11 am

Victor Buerger made a surprise reappearance, some 30 years after his retirement from chess, at the 1981 Lloyds Bank Masters...

https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/19 ... iewer.html

... though none of his games made the bulletin. If you page down below the crosstable you can read some comments Leonard Barden shared with me.
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Leonard Barden
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by Leonard Barden » Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:27 pm

I should also add, since it is not mentioned in John's Lloyds Bank Masters link above, that I also had played Victor Buerger 30 years earlier, in the British Championship qualifying competition of 1950. I can't recall much about the occasion except that the game was played in my room at Balliol, Oxford, and that I think I congratulated him on his win over Alekhine, sparking a quizzical look in reply. I recall him as laconic and reserved, probably perceiving me as an upperty undergraduate.

I think we drew, but am not sure. There should be results from that tournament somewhere, probably in BCM, as it was quite strong including David Pritchard and Elaine Saunders (not yet married). Neither Buerger nor I managed to qualify, so I had to apply to the selectors for a place at Buxton 1950.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Sat Feb 25, 2023 3:06 pm

Interesting memories from Leonard there. "uppity undergraduate"! :D

Maybe the quizzical look was because Berger maybe knew full well that he had only won because it was a "wild game marred by time trouble", or maybe it was because Alekhine wasn't world champion at that point (or even because Berger finished "next to last" in the tournament)?

I hope John won't mind me quoting in full what he provided from Leonard and BCM in that footnote, as it completes a bit more of the picture of Berger:
snippet from BritBase wrote:published results give the name as V Berger but Leonard Barden is of the opinion that this is indeed Victor Berger (sometimes given as Victor Buerger - 1904-1996) who had not otherwise been an active player for many years. Leonard believes Berger lived near the tournament venue and has a vague memory of greeting him during the event. Berger's name does not appear in records of competition chess that I can find after 1952, nor is he in any grading list that I have looked at, so it is a surprise to find him competing as late as 1981. Here is Berger's 1996 BCM obituary, penned by Bernard Cafferty: "Victor Berger, who for a long time wrote his name as Buerger, died in early March after a distinguished chess career between the wars. Born in Russia in 1904, he came to England as a child and was educated here. In 1922 he won the junior section of the City of London club and by the mid-20s was a leading Middlesex player who took part in cable matches with the USA and played in international tournaments such as London 1927 (see the BCM book of this event) and Margate 1937, where he finished next to last but took the scalp of Alekhine in a wild game marred by time trouble. Note that this was in early April, when Alekhine had not yet recovered his world title from Euwe, so Victor could not aspire to the honour of being a Briton who had beaten the current world title holder. Only Penrose could claim this till the days of Miles and Short. In recent years Victor was a member of the Roehampton club, and was kind enough to make available to BCM mementoes from his collection such as the score sheets of the London 1927 event."
I wonder if any traces of Berger's games remain in the Roehampton chess club history and local newspapers (I believe some of that club history has been unearthed by Richard James in his Minor Pieces)?

I wonder where the scoresheets "made available to BCM" from the London 1927 event are now?

There are some classic lines from the bulletin of that 1981 Lloyds Bank Masters, including confirmation of the draw being adjusted to meet norm-seeker requirements:

"[Yacob Murey's] 2570 performance has nothing to do with the Swiss System but more to do with the fact that, as we were pairing him to offer the opportunity for a gm norm, he met no unrated opponents".

The comments on Hebden's "foolish attitude" to early setbacks at the most recent British Championships, and Smyslov's struggles against younger opponents are also documented.

[John, there is a small typo here: "something that is hard to leam and can only be achieved through experience"]

Quick question. Is the chess IM Ravikumar ("Ravi") Vaidyanathan related at all to the Imperial College professor of the same name? I have no idea how likely it is that they are related.

It is interesting to see where some of those who played at the 1981 Lloyds Bank Masters are now. One example I alighted on was Ed. W. Formanek, at the time a US International Master, who is more famous for being the first IM to lose to a computer (in 1988), but at the time of the 1981 tournament in London already held a doctorate in mathematics (he worked on polynomial identity rings) and should be added to the list of academics who hold international chess titles (worked at Penn State from 1978 to 2009, becoming professor of mathematics there):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_W._Formanek

John Townsend
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by John Townsend » Sat Feb 25, 2023 4:02 pm

After Buerger's death in 1996, Christie's auctioned some chess score-books of his:

"The Property of the late Victor Berger (formerly Buerger):
BRITISH EMPIRE CLUB, MASTERS' CHESS TOURNAMENT, LONDON 1927 -- A set of ten score books, kept by ten of the twelve participants, Nimzowitsch, Tartakower, Vidmar, Bogoljubow, Reti, Colle, Buerger, Thomas, Yates and Fairhurst, each book containing 11 games with the moves recorded in pencil (some leaves in Nimzowitsch's book detached), original printed wrappers, modern cloth box. The other two participants, whose score books are no longer present, were Marshall and Winter."
See: https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-696573

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Sat Feb 25, 2023 4:21 pm

The "quizzical look" may have been because he infamously missed winning that game on the spot with a Knight fork!
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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Victor Buerger (Berger)

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat Feb 25, 2023 5:39 pm

"quizzical look"

maybe he was impressed that young Leonard even knew about the game?

I assume the "ue" in Buerger is "u-umlaut", and he anglicised it.

Looking at the link, the publisher is probably "Chatto...", is it not?

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