Chess history trivia

[MJMcCready]

Have to admit I am a bit curious. So pre 1920s? Any small clues on offer?

[Gerard Killoran]

OK, fin de siècle, writes in English but not English... oh, and I expected Tim Harding to provide the answer.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is it during World War I? Maybe Isidor Gunsberg?

[John Moore]

Chris - fin de siècle means end of century. If he writes in English but not English and Tim might have been expected to provide the answer, how about the Irish-American, James Mason, who died in 1905.

[Gerard Killoran]

Is it during World War I? Maybe Isidor Gunsberg?

Correct.

From The New Review - Volume 10 1894 - Page 256

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[John Moore]

Oh, well done, Chris!

[Nick Grey]

Gunsberg was Battersea Chess Club's strongest player (not Keene or Hartston).
Though Gunsberg quite clearly shows that he is not the typical Battersea chess player who would continue the game even when the alcohol was flying around.

Well done Chris.

Nice guess of Simon Williams who Battersea have got in for a simul at their club next month. An apt choice by Battersea in the finest traditions of a Battersea type player.

Gunsberg gave a simul at the club in the 1890s.

Nick - born in Battersea, parents still living in Battersea, not far from the dogs home, ex-Battersea player.

[John Moore]

OK, fin de siècle, writes in English but not English... oh, and I expected Tim Harding to provide the answer.

And the reference to Tim Harding is because Gunsberg is one of those in his "Eminent Victorian Chess Players"!

Must admit that I thought of Gunsberg and discarded him because I didn't see him as someone out on the town at 3am - mainly because the only pictures I remember of him were as an old man. But there are images of him as a younger man where he has a distinctly raffish air.

Excellent question, Gerard.

[MJMcCready]

Is it during World War I? Maybe Isidor Gunsberg?

Correct.

From The New Review - Volume 10 1894 - Page 256

guns.png

Could you explain where it comes from, is it an article or a story he wrote? It's not the sort of thing you associate chess players with and find it rather curious.

[Colin Patterson]

This may be too easy, but I have been unable to find a biography of the player in English, so maybe not ...

Which chess player scandalously dumped his Dutch wife by doing a runner, and then sending her a telegram that simply read: "Don't expect ever to see me again!"?

[Matt Mackenzie]

Reuben Fine?

(who was, in fact, a bit of a "ladies man")

[John Moore]

When Fine retired from competitive chess to concentrate on his profession as a psychoanalyst, a fellow grandmaster allegedly said that it was a great loss for chess and at best a draw for psychoanalysis. The same source, Bill Hartston's obituary of Fine in the Independent, pointed out that he was married four times. I'm not sure whether that proves that Matt was right in describing him as a bit of a ladies man.

[Colin Patterson]

No, not Reuben Fine, but the era is about right.

[MJMcCready]

Was it James Singen-Smythe?

[Colin Patterson]

No, not James Bond. But he did once do damage to a Cuban ambassador on English shores.