Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

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Luis Mendez
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Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by Luis Mendez » Sun May 24, 2020 5:43 pm

Please, I need information about Hamburg 1930. In this event the Spanish champion Manuel Golmayo faced Sultan Khan. I'm currently writing a book about Golmayo and I don't have this game. Does anyone know this game?

John McKenna

Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John McKenna » Mon May 25, 2020 1:51 am

Hello and welcome!

The obvious place to start the search from here is on Britbase -

http://saund.co.uk/britbase/players.html

Where we find -

"187 games, plus 36 part-games and stubs, by the legendary Indian/Pakistani player Mir Sultan Khan (c1905-66), who played most of his chess whilst residing in the UK between 1929 and 1933. This is probably the most comprehensive collection of Sultan Khan's games currently online, though there are gaps that still need to be filled..."

In which there is, I am sorry to say, only -

Golmayo de la Torriente,Manuel v. Sultan Khan,Mir
Date: 18/07/1930
Event: Hamburg Olympiad

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cd 4.Nd4 e5 5.Nb3 Nf6 6.Bc4 d6 7.Nc3... 0-1

No more moves are given and I am not sure where John Saunders acquired the given moves. It is late here in England so I cannot say more, now, but others may come forward to help investigate the game further, given time.

NB: Forumites may like to know -

Manuel Golmayo de la Torriente (b. Havana, 12 June 1883 d. Madrid, 7 March 1973) was Spanish champion 1902, 1912, 1921, 1927 &,1928

(He also had some good results against top players of his day.)
Last edited by John McKenna on Tue May 26, 2020 9:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

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John Saunders
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John Saunders » Mon May 25, 2020 10:34 am

The source of the part-game Golmayo-Sultan Khan is given on BritBase: "Source: Mir Sultan Khan by Coles (2nd ed., 1977), note on p62" And there is a further text note: ""... M. Golmayo, Spain's top board, could not arrive till the eighth round." (BCM, Oct 1930, p358)"

Daniel King's new book about Sultan Khan has the same moves and a footnote quoting some text from the Manchester Guardian, 22 July 1930, sourced from Tony Gillam's book on the 1930 Hamburg Olympiad: "Sultan Khan won by out-playing the Spanish Champion in an endgame of bishop against knight."

Going back to the original Guardian source, there is more text: "In the eighth round England scored a fine victory over Spain, who, for the first time in this tournament, had the assistance of their champion M. Golmayo." That is as much as I can ascertain. I wish Sr. Mendez good luck with his further researches.
Last edited by John Saunders on Mon May 25, 2020 6:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John McKenna » Mon May 25, 2020 12:34 pm

Many thanks for that very informative and swift response, John.

There is one fly in the ointment, however, as there is NO player that I can find with the name "Mattison".

The almost certain candidate is Matisons,Herman the Latvian player. I have seen at least one book (by a very erudite chess author) with a game of his in which his name is given, in error, as "Mattison".

Herman Matisons does not seemed to have played at all in the 1930 Hamburg Olympiad (in which Latvia came in 10th place out of 18 teams).

Golmayo,Manuel v. Feigins,Movsa(s?) was played when Spain met Latvia in the 16th round (of the 17-round all-play-all team event)

Therefore I must conclude that the BCM and Guardian got it right as, in addition, there is no sign of Golmayo playing until round 8, in which he had white versus Sultan Khan - the game we are attempting to find more than the first 7 moves of. I will try to say something more later today.

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John Saunders
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John Saunders » Mon May 25, 2020 6:59 pm

Sorry, I got my wires crossed somewhere. The Golmayo ref I found in the Guardian was to an Olympic contest in July 1924, not July 1930. I'll edit what I wrote above.
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Gerard Killoran
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by Gerard Killoran » Mon May 25, 2020 8:51 pm

There seems to be more in ...

Sicilian: lines with ... e5
T. D. Harding, P. R. Markland
B.T. Batsford, 1982

golmayo.png
I wonder if Tim has the rest of the game.
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JustinHorton
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by JustinHorton » Mon May 25, 2020 9:09 pm

Some of Daniel King's book on Sultan Khan is viewable via Google Books: he gives a game Weenink-Sultan Khan from the same tournament, in the notes of which he refers to the game we are looking for. He only gives the first eight moves but there's a footnote, numbered 105. I am guessing that it probably refers to Harding and Markland as per Gerard's note, but it may be worth somebody else looking, just in case.
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John McKenna

Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John McKenna » Tue May 26, 2020 8:58 am

Thanks to Gerard and Justin for their pointers, to where more moves can be gleaned, and to John S for his minor correction, above.

I'll make a couple of minor additions to my original contribution -
Spanish Champion on numerous occasions (1902, 1912, 1919, 1921, 1927, 1928)
Adding more background information -
He played for Spain in three official Chess Olympiads: 1927, at first board in 1st Chess Olympiad in London (+2 –4 =9); In 1930, at second board in 3rd Chess Olympiad in Hamburg (+3 –4 =3); In 1931, at first board in 4th Chess Olympiad in Prague (+3 –5 =7).
The source is -

The Chess Playing Golmayos

https://tartajubow.blogspot.com/2015/11 ... s.html?m=1

There seem to be quite a few other Olympiad games of Manuel Golmayo (and Mir Sultan Khan, too) the moves of which are missing.

I wonder if Luis Mendez has the moves of Sultan Khan,M v. Golmayo,M, which was a draw they played in the 18th (edit - there was no 19th) and last round of the Prague Olympiad 1931?

The source of the moves of Manuel Golmayo's 81 move draw, playing black, against Akiba Rubinstein, in the 7th round at Prague 1931, has been attributed to "Els esacs a Catalunya 1931". Has Luiz Mendez checked the 1930 edition(s) to see if any of Golmayo's games from the Hamburg 1930 Olympiad were given?

Thanks in advance.
Last edited by John McKenna on Tue May 26, 2020 3:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Mike Gunn
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by Mike Gunn » Tue May 26, 2020 9:40 am

Danny Kiing's footnote 105: "'Sultan Khan won by out-playing the Spanish Champion in an endgame of bishop versus knight.'The Manchester Guardian 22 July 1930 -as quoted in Chess Olympiad Hamburg 1930, Gillam."

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JustinHorton
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by JustinHorton » Tue May 26, 2020 9:56 am

Ah, so my footnote had in fact already been referred to by John Saunders above, duh. (I think I got confused by the 1924-related correction.)
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John Saunders
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John Saunders » Tue May 26, 2020 2:47 pm

A second apology for confusing the issue here (my pathetic, Cummingsesque excuse being that I was dealing with an elderly relative's health crisis and not properly focused at the time).

Well done to Gerard for digging out that 1982 reference showing that more moves of the game in question are available, if only we can find them. Hopefully Tim Harding will reveal all when he next logs into the forum.

It did raise another issue in my mind, and that is how I am sometimes too reliant on (or too trusting in) ChessBase's Big/Mega Database. My primary area of research is British-based chess, but I do sometimes try to collect all the games of particular players, Sultan Khan being a case in point, and this includes games they play overseas. I had assumed that the CB stock of 1930 Hamburg games had been achieved by inputting all the available games of that event, but it looks like that assumption was false and that, to fill in the gaps, it is necessary to go back to earlier sources of info. Incidentally, Daniel King's new Sultan Khan book does have a handful of game scores that aren't in the BritBase collection. I'll add them in due course.

What are the earlier sources for the 1930 Olympiad? Unfortunately I don't have a copy of Tony Gillam's 2016 book on the 1930 Hamburg Olympiad. Is the game in there? The excellent bibliography at the back of Alan McGowan's 2018 McFarland book on Kurt Richter lists two other books on this Olympiad, neither of which I have - Chalupetsky, F., & L. Toth. Die Schacholympiade von Hamburg, BCM (St Leonard's-on-Sea, 1973) and Filipowicz, A., and Konikowski, J. III Olimpiada szachowa Hamburg 1930. Gorzow Wielkopolski: Integracja, 2004. I wonder if either of these books might have this (and other) missing game scores from the Hamburg Olympiad. Are there other sources?

Hope that helps Sr. Mendez. It's also a further reminder, to me at least, to put not one's trust in databases. (A similar scenario applied between about 1966 and the mid-1990s before the advent of computer databases, whereby if a game wasn't published in Informator, then it was as if didn't exist.)
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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Tue May 26, 2020 3:02 pm

John McKenna wrote:
Tue May 26, 2020 8:58 am

I wonder if Luis Mendez has the moves of Sultan Khan,M v. Golmayo,M, which was a draw they played in the 19th(!?) round of the Prague Olympiad 1931?
Routine back then, all Olympiads prior to 1976 were done in two stages - preliminaries, and then the groups that resulted from them.
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John McKenna

Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by John McKenna » Tue May 26, 2020 3:27 pm

Matt, I'd just updated that part of my post while you were posting.

There were many fewer teams in the early Olympiads so, I believe, they were run as all-play-all team events.

(See Olimpbase for cross-tables.)

E.g. Hamburg 1930 had 18 teams so 18 rounds. Prague 1931 had 19 teams and therefore 19 rounds. (I was confused about that before Alex M set things right.)

I read John S's latest post, above, with gratitude and in the hope that Tim Harding will let us know more about the game in question in due course
Last edited by John McKenna on Tue May 26, 2020 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alex McFarlane
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by Alex McFarlane » Tue May 26, 2020 3:55 pm

John McKenna wrote:
Tue May 26, 2020 3:27 pm
Prague 1931 had 19 teams and therefore 18 rounds
Hi John,

19 teams requires 19 rounds as each team would have had a bye. The idea of triangular matches a la 4NCL was not used!! :D

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Golmayo vs Sultan Khan 1930

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Tue May 26, 2020 4:05 pm

Ah right, that is true about the earliest Olympiads. The fact remains that the 14/12 round Swisses we are now used to didn't start until 1976.

(and of course we had some early events in odd numbered years)
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)