Chess history trivia

[John Moore]

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1444108
32. B-Z was a Soviet national master, though not a Fide IM. Perhaps this name was misremembed.

Yes, Leonard, I mentioned this game earlier in the thread.

[MJMcCready]

Well it's not since 1989 that I looked at the book where I believed I saw the game, I just misremembered it, probably thinking they had the longest names and connecting them up that way.

So if we stayed with surnames only and kept it to titled players, I wonder what the game with the fewest letters in the surnames combined is. Probably Wesley So verses someone.

[John Moore]

Yes, Wesley So vs anyone of half a dozen Chinese GMs with two letters in their surname.

[John Moore]

Just as an example - Wesley So vs Wei Yi Tata Steel 2017.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Wei Yi"

But with Chinese, (and some Indian names), it's sometimes a bit confusing which is the "surname", not that it makes a lot of difference in this case!

[Ian Thompson]

So vs Le has occurred several times.

[MJMcCready]

Not as short as Sha v Enbonce in terms of hair length though.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Dzindzhihashvili (or however you prefer to spell it) must have featured in some "lengthy" Soviet era encounters.

(also a game of his in Chess Informant against Radashkovich, when both were based in Israel)

[MJMcCready]

There's been no mention of those with double barrelled names either such as Ilyin-Genevsky or Duz-Khotimirsky they played each other in the 2nd-5th Soviet championships, letter total equals 27. In the 7th Soviet championship we have Kan v Budo, which is about as short as it gets on the Soviet side.

[NickFaulks]

The Thai U18 championships in 2019 featured Charoenlarpnopparut - Chotichanathawewong. ( 38 )

Under my rules this one wins. Just saying.

[MJMcCready]

Hmmm, okay so starting from the centre square on a Scrabble board and placing the letters across the board, which titled player has the name which scores the most points? Slightly trickier question as the name can't be more than 8 letters long.

[IM Jack Rudd]

It'll obviously be a name that's exactly eight letters long so that you can get the triple word score. JANOWSKI gets me 156, but I'm sure this can be improved on.

[MJMcCready]

It'll obviously be a name that's exactly eight letters long so that you can get the triple word score. JANOWSKI gets me 156, but I'm sure this can be improved on.

I can't beat it, the best I've come up with is Averbakh which = 138.

[MJMcCready]

Correction, in the 44th Soviet Championship there is a player who came 16th named Zakharov, which adds up to 168.

[John Garnett]

Muzychuk would score 222, but I think this is probably beatable if there is a player with Q or Z as the 5th letter