Paul Keres

[Gavin Strachan]

I don't care as long as they are wearing that t-shirt.

so instead of pony and monkey you could have a Nigel or a Mickey?!

[Matt Mackenzie]

Hmmm Warren, Russia is a huge and powerful country with a vast history. They have a few more famous people to choose from than Estonia, tbh

And Keres is to the Estonians more than a chess player, but a national icon - a symbol of the unfairness they see themselves as suffering during the Soviet years. His massively attended 1975 funeral in Tallinn became one of the earliest expressions of suppressed Estonian nationalism - the (then, of course, banned) national flag was much in evidence, and the authorities did not dare to intervene.

[Dan O'Dowd]

Paul Keres is the only chess player to be on a banknote, according to Wikipedia anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keres

I would have thought the Russian players would have been all over theirs!!

Who should be on ours then?

Logically I would choose either Howard Staunton or Nigel Short, though as Britain's first official Grandmaster, Tony Miles would be another sound choice.

[Mick Norris]

Paul Keres is the only chess player to be on a banknote, according to Wikipedia anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keres

I would have thought the Russian players would have been all over theirs!!

Who should be on ours then, as a side question?

CJ in his T-shirt

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Logically I would choose ... Nigel Short

People would complain about being Short changed.

[Gavin Strachan]

I am hoping I do not do what Keres did at the end of his life. His tournament results were pretty bad at the end of his playing days and then in his last tournament in Canada he had a storming result winning it really well. On the way back home he had a heart attack and died. Now currently this season I am having a bit of a shocker (not a major disaster).....

[Geoff Chandler]

[Peter Turner]

Brilliant, I wonder what the note would be know as?

[Gavin Strachan]

A (Scottish) pound. Never really accepted in England even though it is legal.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I am hoping I do not do what Keres did at the end of his life. His tournament results were pretty bad at the end of his playing days and then in his last tournament in Canada he had a storming result winning it really well. On the way back home he had a heart attack and died. Now currently this season I am having a bit of a shocker (not a major disaster).....

To be strictly accurate, his results tailed off badly in 1973. After that he decided to play much less for a while, and in 1974 only took part in a few internal Soviet matches. He returned to tournament chess in his home town tourney of Tallinn the following year, and won it without losing a game (ahead of Olafsson, Spassky, Bronstein, Hort et al) following this up with his triumph at Vancouver (again unbeaten, beating Browne hollow with the Black pieces in the penultimate round)

His death was completely unexpected

[AustinElliott]

Hmmm. Only surprised Geoff Chandler managed NOT to make it a nine-bob note.

On Keres, Estonia and the Soviet Union, I like the story that gets quoted, apparently from a Keres obituary by Harry Golombek in The Times, about the oft anthologised Keres-Å ajtar game at the 1954 Olympiad (a famous early example of a Be6: sac in the Sicilian):

"At Amsterdam in 1954 [Keres] scored 96.4% on fourth board and won another game so brilliant against Å ajtar of Czechoslovakia that the Soviet non-playing captain, Kotov, told me that it was 'a true Soviet game.' I told this to Keres who, with the nearest approach to acerbity I ever saw him show, said: 'No, it was a true Estonian game.'"

[John Clarke]

Brilliant, I wonder what the note would be know as?

A monkey? Nah, a monkey's five 'undred quid, innit? Anyway, it isn't green.

[George Szaszvari]

Brilliant, I wonder what the note would be know as?

A monkey? Nah, a monkey's five 'undred quid, innit? Anyway, it isn't green.

Cor, blimey, mate, ain't 'eard (or seen) the 'ometown vernacular fer quite erwhoile.. flippin' 'ell. Ta, mate, for the
bit o' nostalghia.

[George Szaszvari]

Logically I would choose ... Nigel Short

People would complain about being Short changed.

Funny Jon

And for more fun here is a DIY competition playing around with money pics...

http://www.freakingnews.com/Money-Celeb ... --1773.asp

Couldn't find any chess references on other currencies, even if chess players are often depicted on stamps
(can't stamps be used as currency up to a point?)

[George Szaszvari]

And for more fun here is a DIY competition playing around with money pics...

http://www.freakingnews.com/Money-Celeb ... --1773.asp

Couldn't find any chess references on other currencies, even if chess players are often depicted on stamps
(can't stamps be used as currency up to a point?)

How the hell do you find these sites?

Using search engines with various parameters like "celebrity depicted on currency"

Very funny, esp Julia Roberts, bloody scary. Also funny how it can go from Paul Keres to Julia Roberts in a split second

Yeah, the Julia thing does look like a Halloween shocker, and the multitude of ways to go astray off topic in these endless
mazes of threads, topics and info can get pretty scary, too!