Who was R. Schwarzschild?

[Brian Valentine]

When I played my first adult league match, Craddock was the top board for my team.

In the 1939 register, James Marston Craddock is single and working as an assistant principal for the inland revenue. He's living with his parents in Woking. His father is an H.M. inspector of taxes. His mother, however, has a very interesting sounding job - bee expert for the Surrey agricultural committee!

James Craddock seems to have given up chess in the 1970s but he didn't die until 2001.

I was playing for the Met Office where Craddock was very senior. At the time the Met Office was building its early computer forecasts. A Google search brings up several papers he had published. The MO team amalgamated with another company team around 1969 and was soon subsumed into Bracknell Industries. So consistent with Jon's timeline.

[John Clarke]

Craddock was a strong player but this was not his finest hour.

Nor was this. A well-known miniature, reprinted quite often since then, and cited by RDK in The Article a couple of years ago.

(I'd give the game in full, but Chessgames won't permit copy-and-paste of moves - well, they wouldn't be able to plague you with so many pop-up ads, would they? - and I haven't time to muck around transcribing it.)

The information about Craddock's career path all hangs together. Assistant Principal was the basic entry grade to the Administrative Civil Service in 1939. If you got in there, you were highly likely to progress to "very senior" roles later on. The grade disappeared after the Fulton reforms of the late 60s, when the Administrative, Executive and Clerical branches were merged into a single unified structure.

[IM Jack Rudd]

It's easy enough to click on the PGN option on there.

[Event "Civil Service - National Liberal Club"] [Site "London ENG"] [Date "1939.??.??"] [EventDate "?"] [Round "?"] [Result "0-1"] [White "James Marston Craddock"] [Black "Jacques Mieses"] [ECO "A25"] [WhiteElo "?"] [BlackElo "?"] [PlyCount "28"] 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3 Nf6 4. Bg2 Bb4 5. e3 d6 6. Nge2 Bg4 7. Qb3 Rb8 8. Nd5 Bc5 9. Nxf6+ Qxf6 10. Bxc6+ bxc6 11. Qxb8+ Kd7 12. Qxh8 Qf3 13.Kd1 Qxe2+ 14.Kc2 Qxc4+ 0-1

[Gerard Killoran]

I think Craddock deserves a better example of his standard of play.

Here he beats a strong up-and-coming player.

[Event "Bedfordshire vs Oxfordshire"] [Site "St. Brides Inst. London"] [Date "1956.01.14"] [Round "?"] [White "Craddock, James Marston"] [Black "Persitz, Raaphi"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A18"] [Opening "English: Mikenas-Carls, Flohr variation"] 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. e4 d5 4. e5 d4 5. exf6 dxc3 6. fxg7 cxd2+ 7. Bxd2 Bxg7 8. Qc2 Nc6 9. Nf3 Qe7 10. Bd3 Bd7 11. O-O O-O-O 12. a3 Nd4 13. Nxd4 Bxd4 14. Rfe1 Bc6 15. Be3 Rhg8 16. Be4 Qc5 17. b4 Bxe4 18. Qxe4 Qxc4 19. Rac1 Qd5 20. Bxd4 Qxd4 21. Qxh7 Qg4 22. g3 Rg7 23. Qc2 f6 24. f4 Qxf4 25. Rxe6 Rd2 26. Qc5 Rd8 27. Qe3 Qf5 28. Rf1 Qd3 29. Rfxf6 b6 30. Kg2 Qd5+ 31. Qf3 Qc4 32. Re2 Kb8 33. Rf4 Qc1 34. Rf8 Rg8 35. Rf7 Rd1 36. Rf8+ Rxf8 37. Qxf8+ Kb7 38. Qf3+ Ka6 39. Rf2 Rg1+ 40. Kh3 Qh6+ 41. Kg4 Qg6+ 42. Kh4 Qh6+ 43. Qh5 Qe3 44. Qe2+ Qxe2 45. Rxe2 c5 46. bxc5 bxc5 47. g4 Kb5 48. g5 Kc4 49. Re3 Kd4 50. Rg3 {Beds and Herts Pictorial - Tuesday 17 January 1956 p.2} 1-0

Daily Mirror - Tuesday 21 April 1931 p.6.png

[John Saunders]

At the time when Craddock beat Persitz in the above game, the same two players were locked in a struggle in the County Correspondence Championship. Which Craddock also won... from the same newspaper with notes by Tom Sweby...

[Event "Counties Corr ch"] [Site "corr"] [Date "1956.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Craddock, James Marston"] [Black "Persitz, Raaphi"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A34"] [Annotator "Sweby, Tom W"] [PlyCount "69"] [EventDate "1956.??.??"] [EventType "corr"] [EventCountry "ENG"] {When Bedfordshire played Oxfordshire in the Counties Chess Championship in January a much-admired victory was that of Beds leader, J. M. Craddock, over R. J. A. Persitz, the Israeli international and Oxford first board. Craddock, who was Cambridge University champion in 1934, and who now lives at Dunstable, has again shown his strength by beating Raaphi Persitz in the Coun­ties’ Correspondence Championship. As Mr. Craddock rarely plays nowadays, few outside his Bedfordshire colleagues would have anticipated this fine "double" and the accuracy of his play brought from Persitz the comment “Very well played!" (I am indebted to W. G. Everitt for the score of the game which went} 1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Bg2 Nc7 {Craddock played his own} 6. f4 {and in view of Black's subsequent difficulties it seems that in this line he should fianchetto his KB on moves 3 and 4 and avoid the central thrust, at least until White plays Nf3} ({Up to this point the game had followed one between Kirilov and world champion Botvinnik. In that White continued} 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. O-O e5) 6... g6 7. b3 Bg7 8. Bb2 O-O 9. Na4 $1 Nba6 10. Bxg7 Kxg7 11. Qc2 Ne6 12. Nf3 Bd7 13. f5 gxf5 14. Qxf5 f6 15. Qe4 b5 16. Nc3 b4 17. Nd5 Kh8 18. Nh4 Nac7 19. Qe3 Nd4 20. O-O Nce6 21. Qh6 Rg8 22. Nxe7 Nxe2+ 23. Kh1 Qxe7 24. Bxa8 Qf8 25. Qxf8 Rxf8 26. Bd5 N6d4 27. Kg2 f5 28. Rf2 f4 29. Nf3 Bb5 30. Nxd4 cxd4 31. Bc4 Bxc4 32. bxc4 d3 33. Rf3 Rc8 34. Rxd3 Rxc4 35. Re1 {Source: Beds and Herts Pictorial - Tuesday 17 July 1956} 1-0

[John Saunders]

Returning to the original topic of this thread, I found the following mate in 3 problem by Robert Schwarzschild in the Kensington News and West London Times, Friday 17 March 1939...

5N1k/5Pp1/7p/2p5/2p1p3/8/7Q/1K6 w - - 0 1

According to the MESON Chess Problem database, Schwarzschild had ten problems published. The above problem was first published in CHESS in 1938, while the other nine referenced on the linked page appeared in German publications.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

That is a goodie. You just knew Ng6+ and f8=N+ would be in there in somewhere.
The e5 pawn (why is it there?) suckered me into 1.Qc2 for a while. Then all pawns moves other than c4-c3 allows a mate in one or two moves.
So find the mate in two after c4-c3 being aware c2 is a move wasting check.

1.Qa2 (eventually, I forgot one my solvers tricks. Looking at the longest Queen moves should be one of the first things you do, it's a common theme from problem setters. )

After 1.Qa2 all non-c-pawn moves allow a mate in two. 1...h5 and the Queen going back to h2 is cute. and 1...c3 2.Ng6+ Kh7 3.f8=N mate.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Some great material here on both Craddock and Schwarzschild. That OTB game by Craddock against Persitz has a fascinating period where QRR battles QRR. In the shorter loss to Mieses, the sequence starting 7.Qb3 Rb8 was presumably seen by both players, but evaluated differently - maybe Craddock assumed that recapturing with the queen on f6 was not possible, but should have seen the danger. 12.Qb3 (i.e. only taking one of the two Black rooks) doesn't help in any of the lines, as after 13.Kd1 it is still mate (just a slightly different way) and the alternative of 13.Kf1 still fails regardless of whether the White queen is on h8 or b3.

How active were these players in their school days? Would King Edward's School, Birmingham, for example, have played other schools locally and nationally in the 1920s and 1930s?

[Alan McGowan]

The problem shown by John Saunders appeared on page 371 of the 14 June 1938 issue of CHESS. However, another of his problems is on page 368 of the same issue (not mentioned in the Meson list). There was an error in the diagram which was commented on in the 14 August issue; the correct diagram was shown, with comments, on page 441.

Another of his problems is in '1234 Modern Chess Endings', by Sutherland and Lommer (1968, I think), but it is missing from '1357 Endgame Studies' (Lommer, 1975).