Longevity of Senior Chess Players

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Neil Graham
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Longevity of Senior Chess Players

Post by Neil Graham » Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:46 pm

In the thread in the obituaries section on Samuil Markovich Zhukhovitsky who has died just short of his 100th birthday, John Moore speculates that there are no active players alive who participated in serious chess prior to World War II.

Other contributors state that no FIDE titled player has ever reached their 100th birthday.

I wondered how accurate these two statements were and whether anyone could give any more examples of aged senior rated players?

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Longevity of Senior Chess Players

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Sun Oct 30, 2016 10:05 pm

Well, we still have Zoltan Sarosy - a naturalised Canadian who apparently played in some inter-war Hungarian championships.

And of course he has just reached not his 100th, but 110th, birthday - making him surely the best player ever to become a supercentenarian.

Never recieved a FIDE title as far as I know, though?
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

Hans Renette
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Re: Longevity of Senior Chess Players

Post by Hans Renette » Mon Oct 31, 2016 5:03 pm

I often wondered about long-living Victorian chess players. I believe Edward Pelham Pierpoint (1830-1928), a Reverend and sometimes visitors of the C.C.A. congresses grew oldest (http://www.edochess.ca/players/p3021.html).

Tim Harding
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Re: Longevity of Senior Chess Players

Post by Tim Harding » Sat Nov 05, 2016 5:47 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:Well, we still have Zoltan Sarosy - a naturalised Canadian who apparently played in some inter-war Hungarian championships.

And of course he has just reached not his 100th, but 110th, birthday - making him surely the best player ever to become a supercentenarian.

Never received a FIDE title as far as I know, though?
I am glad to hear Sarosy is still going strong. I lost a postal game to him in 1990. He was awarded the title of Correspondence Chess International Master by ICCF in 1988.
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

Tim Harding
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Re: Longevity of Senior Chess Players

Post by Tim Harding » Sat Nov 05, 2016 6:09 pm

Hans Renette wrote:I often wondered about long-living Victorian chess players. I believe Edward Pelham Pierpoint (1830-1928), a Reverend and sometimes visitors of the C.C.A. congresses grew oldest (http://www.edochess.ca/players/p3021.html).
I am not sure I can beat that but I can suggest perhaps the longest-living female Victorian chess player. Maybe Brian Denman can help with this one, indeed he already has in the past.

Kate Carden (birth registered in the first quarter of 1849) married Arthur Smith on 5 May 1868 and they were both leading lights of Sussex chess in the last quarter of the 19th century. "Mrs Arthur Smith" is quite often mentioned in reports. A photograph and profile of her appeared in the Lady's Pictorial on 8 June 1895.

She and Arthur were two of the grandparents of Canon Arthur Eric Smith (1908-1994) another noted Sussex player, who beat me in a county match in 1968 and again by post in 1974 (both times he had Black, ouch!)

Another relative, Margaret Smith, informed me that Kate Smith had died in 1944 and indeed there is a civil death registration on ancestry.com for a Kate Smith who died in Cuckfield, Sussex, in the first quarter of 1944, aged 94 (so she must have been nearly 95).
Tim Harding
Historian and FIDE Arbiter

Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
http://www.chessmail.com

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