Cable Match question

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John Upham
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Cable Match question

Post by John Upham » Sat Nov 13, 2021 3:09 pm

Which cable match was commented as

"Hm ! Won by three aliens and a gaol-bird." ?
Last edited by John Upham on Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Radio Match question

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Sat Nov 13, 2021 5:27 pm

There are a few candidates for gaol-bird (Ritson Morry, Whitaker to name but two)
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John Clarke
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Re: Radio Match question

Post by John Clarke » Sat Nov 13, 2021 8:55 pm

Winter seems likeliest.
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Leonard Barden
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Re: Radio Match question

Post by Leonard Barden » Sat Nov 13, 2021 9:13 pm

Alexander, Golombek and Winter scored a point each against the USSR in 1946, and Abrahams scored 1.5-0.5 against Ragozin, so the quartet 'won' their part of the 10-board match 4.5-3.5.

The remaining six players managed just 1.5-10.5 (three draws)-although even that was better than the 1.5-18.5 over-the-board result in 1954.

John Moore
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Re: Radio Match question

Post by John Moore » Sun Nov 14, 2021 11:04 am

The England team against the USSR in the 1946 radio match included Ernst Klein, Paul List and Imre Konig so that would fit the description of "three aliens" However, they scored 0.5 out of 6 between them.

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John Upham
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Cable Match question

Post by John Upham » Sun Nov 14, 2021 11:26 am

I was careful not to say it was an England vs someone cable match.

However all of the four players were based in England.

The comment was made by J Walter Russell
Last edited by John Upham on Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Leonard Barden
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Re: Radio Match question

Post by Leonard Barden » Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:18 pm

John Upham wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 11:26 am
I was careful not to say it was an England vs someone radio match.

However all of the four players were based in England.

The comment was made by Lord Russell of Killowen
Something wrong here? Lord Russell of Killowen died in 1900, while the earliest radio chess match (as opposed to cable, telegraph or wireless) was in 1920.

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John Upham
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Re: Radio Match question

Post by John Upham » Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:30 pm

Leonard Barden wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:18 pm
Something wrong here? Lord Russell of Killowen died in 1900, while the earliest radio chess match (as opposed to cable, telegraph or wireless) was in 1920.
Apologies, now corrected. It was a cable match rather than a radio match and the comment came from J. Walter Russell
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John Upham
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Re: Cable Match question

Post by John Upham » Sun Nov 14, 2021 2:16 pm

Another clue for you:
The aliens were Buerger, Goldstein, and an ex-South African champion, Siegheim, who at that time was resident in London.
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Re: Cable Match question

Post by John Moore » Sun Nov 14, 2021 8:33 pm

London-Chicago 1926 won by London 4-2.

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John Upham
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Re: Cable Match question

Post by John Upham » Sun Nov 14, 2021 8:36 pm

John Moore wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 8:33 pm
London-Chicago 1926 won by London 4-2.
Excellent and quite correct.

What was your source?
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Re: Cable Match question

Post by John Moore » Mon Nov 15, 2021 8:20 am

Rare and Unpublished Tournaments of 1926 by A J Gillam. I remembered playing through Winter's game from the Cable Match quite recently. Confirmed it by checking with MegaBase.

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Re: Cable Match question

Post by Leonard Barden » Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:44 am

It's a really awful question, since even apart from the factual errors in the puzzle as originally posed, the quoted comment by J Walter Russell is misleading.

As the detailed results on Britbase http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/192 ... iewer.html show, only Buerger and Winter of the 'three aliens and a gaolbird' scored a win. Goldstein drew, Siegheim lost.

London's third win was actually scored by RP Michell, the subject of du Mont's book A Master of British chess, of which I had the honour to correct the proofs 75 years ago, and who was as quintessentially an English gentleman as you could wish for.

Michell's defeated opponent Edward Lasker also played 50 years later in the 1976 London v New York telex match, an event which piloted Lloyds Bank's influential chess sponshorship, and lost again to another English gentleman, Sir Stuart Milner-Barry. I guess that London v Chicago was to mark the 150th anniversary of the American Revolution, as London v New York marked the 200th.

Nul points for the puzzle from me......

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Cable Match question

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:42 am

Maybe not too early to consider preparations for an online chess match to mark the 250th anniversary in 2026? (Radio -> Telex -> Internet)? :?:

Preparations already underway in the USA:

https://america250.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... centennial

EDIT: I can't find any evidence of a USA-UK chess match in 1876 (the centennial year), but there was the "Grand international centennial chess congress, held in Philadelphia, in August, 1876, during the celebration of the American centennial" (I think this was the Fourth American Chess Congress won by James Mason).

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Re: Cable Match question

Post by James Pratt » Sun Nov 21, 2021 11:20 pm

When Milner-Barry played in the London-v-New York Telex Match, which I attended as a boy, he added that he little thought he would be facing someone old enough to be his father. Lasker in his turn added that he was honoured to be playing 'one of the Men of Bletchley'. {One of the BCM photos used shows Rumens commentating and the sharp-eyed might even spot me in the audience.}

As to the Mason enquiry, the McFarland book 'James Mason in America' by Joost van Winsen covers the period neatly.