Chess history trivia

Historical knowledge and information regarding our great game.
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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:33 am

Neither of the above. He was born when Andrew Jackson was the president of America.

John Moore
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by John Moore » Fri Dec 29, 2017 12:01 pm

H E Bird. It ought to have been Franklin K Young because it looks like the sort of garbage he might have churned out but he lived on into the 1930s so I guess it's not him, so my nomination is Henry Edward.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:04 pm

Not him. The author in question has a strong literary connection with chess in more than one respect becoming the librarian of Cornell University upon its inception.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:05 pm

And here he is in action.
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Tim Harding
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by Tim Harding » Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:34 pm

D. W. Fiske
Tim Harding
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Author of 'Steinitz in London,' British Chess Literature to 1914', 'Joseph Henry Blackburne: A Chess Biography', and 'Eminent Victorian Chess Players'
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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Fri Dec 29, 2017 5:53 pm

Correct once again Tim.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:15 pm

From which text, written in the 1950s, does the passage below come from and any thoughts on who won the game?

'In chess, a pawn may be captured “in passing” — when a pawn advances two squares from its initial position, it may be captured by an adjacent pawn as if it had advanced only one square.

This can lead to a curious state of affairs:
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From this position White plays 1. Bg2+ and declares checkmate. Black says “Au contraire,” plays 1. … d5, and announces checkmate himself. White shakes his head, plays 2. cxd6 e.p., and reasserts his own claim:
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Black claims that this last move is absurd. He says the game ended when he advanced his pawn to d5. But White argues that the pawn never reached d5 — in principle it was captured on d6, and thus could not stop White’s original mate.'

So who won the game? It would seem to be a matter of opinion!

Mike Truran
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by Mike Truran » Sat Dec 30, 2017 12:08 am

"Justice Good and True" (Heinrich Fraenkel, AKA Assiac).

Fraenkel is in no doubt: "...... the Professor, so far from being a master at chess, would seem to be a master at sophistry rather than at logic".

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John Clarke
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by John Clarke » Sat Dec 30, 2017 8:54 am

From the second diagram, Black continues 2. ... Bxh3 and claims the game. As Gerald Abrahams once remarked (I forget where): "first king lost loses".

BTW, the book this little conundrum comes from is The Pleasures Of Chess (originally published as Adventure In Chess, afterwards renamed to be a better companion title to the same author's The Delights Of Chess).
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Sat Dec 30, 2017 11:49 am

Yes correct. I thought that one would be hard to get.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by MJMcCready » Sat Dec 30, 2017 12:16 pm

Who came up with this oddity? It's mate in 21 and not too hard.
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Tim Harding
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by Tim Harding » Sun Dec 31, 2017 10:16 pm

MJMcCready wrote:
Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:15 pm
So who won the game? It would seem to be a matter of opinion!
I agree with John Clarke that Black wins in this curious example, but of course taking the king is not allowed in any form of chess now as a response to an illegal move.

It's a case of helpmate in one move since 1...d5 is a perfectly legitimate reply to 1 Bg2+?? but 2 c5xd6 does not get White out of check so is illegal.

I take it that White in this example was an ancestor of Inarkiev?
Tim Harding
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Gerard Killoran
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by Gerard Killoran » Mon Jan 01, 2018 10:43 am

MJMcCready wrote:
Sat Dec 30, 2017 12:16 pm
Who came up with this oddity? It's mate in 21 and not too hard.
Thomas Rayner Dawson

John Townsend
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by John Townsend » Mon Jan 01, 2018 12:59 pm

Happy New Year, everyone! May all your research meet with good fortune.

My question (below) may be considered a sequel to Christopher Kreuzer's recent theme of the Bonus Socius collection.

Which celebrated nineteenth-century player was once the owner of a copy of a famous medieval manuscript collection of chess and other games, including 288 chess problems, which is now preserved in an English museum?

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Gerard Killoran
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Re: Chess history trivia

Post by Gerard Killoran » Mon Jan 01, 2018 4:30 pm

It was Baron Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa

http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/exp ... oid=178358

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