Lowest Graded British Champion

[Roger de Coverly]

What happened? In what way did Dr Fazekas feel ill-treated?

Before my time of course but I think the issue for him was that the BCF could have sent 6 players ( 4 + 2 reserves) to the 1958 Olympiad but only sent 5. So perhaps he felt he should have been the sixth. After that Penrose won virtually every year so tiresome debates about whether the British champion should have an automatic slot in the Olympiad team were mostly avoided.

The BCF team that year was
Alexander
Penrose
Golombek
Clarke
Wade

Although they qualified for the top section, only Penrose scored more than 50%.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Although they qualified for the top section, only Penrose scored more than 50%.

Maybe you should replace "although" with "because" in that statement

Ola, who was the modest IM then?

[Ola Winfridsson]

Although they qualified for the top section, only Penrose scored more than 50%.

Maybe you should replace "although" with "because" in that statement

Ola, who was the modest IM then?

Erik Lundin. He was approached more than once and declined on the grounds that in his view a GM has an obligation to play frequently! For many years (1935-1957) he was the editor-in-chief of Sweden's biggest chess magazine (Tidskrift för Schack) while also running the "Stockholm's Schacksalonger" - a sort of "chess house" that was open daily.

He produced several good international results in the 1930s and 1940s to merit the GM title when Fide regularized the title structure after WWII (he was considered world top 15-20 in the mid-1940s). He represented Sweden in nine olympiads (the last time in 1960). He finally accepted the GM title a few years before his death in 1988 (at that point he probably felt that it no longer carried the same obligations). A number of older players were awarded the GM title in the early to mid 1980s as something of a lifetime achievement award.

[Roger de Coverly]

Erik Lundin.

One of the earliest pioneers of the Volga (or Benko) Gambit. For example his game with Szabo in the 1948 interzonal.

Event "Izt"]
[Site "Saltsjobaden (Sweden)"]
[Date "1948.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Szabo Laszlo (HUN)"]
[Black "Lundin Erik (SWE)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A58"]


1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 g6 6.Nc3 Bxa6 7.e4 d6 8.Bxa6 Nxa6 9.Nf3 Bg7 10.O-O Nd7 11.Bf4 O-O 12.Qe2 Qc7 13.Rfc1 Rfb8 14.Rab1 Bxc3 15.Rxc3 Qa5 16.Nd2 Nc7 17.Ra3 Qb6 18.Rxa8 Rxa8 19.a3 Nb5 20.Be3 Ra4 21.Rc1 Nd4 22.Bxd4 cxd4 23.Nf3 Nf6 24.Qc2 Ra5 25.Nd2 d3 26.Qc7 Qxb2 27.e5 Qxd2 28.exf6 exf6 29.h4 Kg7 30.Qc3 Qxc3 31.Rxc3 Rxd5 32.Rc1 g5 33.Kf1 gxh4 34.Ra1 f5 35.a4 Kf6 36.Ke1 Re5+ 37.Kd2 Re2+ 38.Kxd3 Rxf2 39.a5 Rxg2 40.a6 Rg8 41.Kc4 f4
42.Kd5 Kf5 43.Kc6 f3 44.Kb7 Re8 0-1

[Ola Winfridsson]

Erik Lundin.

One of the earliest pioneers of the Volga (or Benko) Gambit. For example his game with Szabo in the 1948 interzonal.

Event "Izt"]
[Site "Saltsjobaden (Sweden)"]
[Date "1948.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Szabo Laszlo (HUN)"]
[Black "Lundin Erik (SWE)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A58"]


1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 4.cxb5 a6 5.bxa6 g6 6.Nc3 Bxa6 7.e4 d6 8.Bxa6 Nxa6 9.Nf3 Bg7 10.O-O Nd7 11.Bf4 O-O 12.Qe2 Qc7 13.Rfc1 Rfb8 14.Rab1 Bxc3 15.Rxc3 Qa5 16.Nd2 Nc7 17.Ra3 Qb6 18.Rxa8 Rxa8 19.a3 Nb5 20.Be3 Ra4 21.Rc1 Nd4 22.Bxd4 cxd4 23.Nf3 Nf6 24.Qc2 Ra5 25.Nd2 d3 26.Qc7 Qxb2 27.e5 Qxd2 28.exf6 exf6 29.h4 Kg7 30.Qc3 Qxc3 31.Rxc3 Rxd5 32.Rc1 g5 33.Kf1 gxh4 34.Ra1 f5 35.a4 Kf6 36.Ke1 Re5+ 37.Kd2 Re2+ 38.Kxd3 Rxf2 39.a5 Rxg2 40.a6 Rg8 41.Kc4 f4
42.Kd5 Kf5 43.Kc6 f3 44.Kb7 Re8 0-1

A fine game, played in the last round and depriving Szabo of first place if I remember correctly. Lundin for his part underperformed and struggled rather badly in an admittedly strong field (a few places below midtable would have been more in line with expectations).

By the way, the g6 fianchetto in the Volga Gambit (as I prefer to call it myself) is called the "Kaijser Gambit" (the name "Volga Gambit" being reserved for the e6 lines) by some in Sweden, in honour of a Stockholm player by the name of Fritz Kaijser who pioneered the variation as early as the 1930s. Personally, I think he's a little bit too obscure internationally (although he did play on a low board for Sweden in the unofficial Munich Olympiad in 1936 where each team consisted of 8 players) to be given the honour of having invented this line, especially since the Soviet players and Benko seem to have worked out much of the theory independently.