Chess Panorama
by Bill Wall
In 1975, the late grandmaster
William Lombardy (1937-2017),
along with chess master David
Daniels, wrote "Chess
Panorama." It contained some
chess trivia, chess history, and a
several chess games (see my pgn
list of games). Here are a few
items and stories from the book.
On page 4, Lombardy describes
the first chess tournament, held Bill Wall
at the Crystal Palace in London
in 1851. He says it was called a
tournament because it was
analagous to the medieval
institution in which armored
knights clashed in combat. The To play for a draw, at any rate
tournament was supposed to be with White, is to some degree a
a meeting of gentlemen crime against chess. —Tal
amateurs.
On page 10, Lombardy desribes
chess titles. He says that the
Germans were the first to
formalize a system through
which players could earn the
master's title, which then served
as a kind of union card to secure
them admittance to international
events. Players like Tarrasch and
Emanuel Lasker worked thier
way up through the German
ranks and finally secured their
master's title in a Hauptturnier
(candidates tournament).
On page 11, Lombardy tells the
story of Richard Reti's debut in
international chess. In 1908, a
huge chess tournament was held
in Vienna. One of the
international players dropped
out at the last minute, so the
tournament organizers allowed
the strong local player Reti to
enter in the event. Reti did very
poorly. He only drew 3, lost 16
games, and not winning a game.
He was so discouraged that he
almost gave up chess.
Fortunately he persevered, to
become one of the most original
thinkers in the game of chess.
Reti took last place at Vienna
1908 with 1.5 out of 19 (the next
to the last person had 6 points).
There was a 3-way tie for 1st
place with Schlechter, Maroczy,
and Duras. By the way, Reti
took 1st place in his next
tournament in Vienna in 1909.
On page 13, Lombardy describe
the rise of the Soviet Union and
chess. He states that in 1922
there were about 1,000 officially
registered chess players in the
USSR. In 1929, there were
150,000 registered players. In
1934, there were 500,000
registered players. In 1966, there
were 3,540,000 registered chess
players throughout the Soviet
Union. In the Soviet Union, a
candidate master, in order to
earn the master's title, had to
win a chess match against a
recognized master.
On page 19, Lombardy
described the evolution of the
Chess Olympiad. By 1972, at
the Skopje Chess Olympiad, six
of the world's seven continents
were represented. Lombardy
wrote that the penguins of
Antarctica too were anxious to
come, but could not raise the
necessary funds in time (the
penguins' opponents were fish).
On page 20, Lombardy
describes the rise of Paul Keres,
born in Parnu, Estonia. Paul's
only chess opponent growing up
was his older brother. He
couldn't obtain any chess books,
so he copied over 1,000 chess
games by longhand from
newspaper columns. He soon
began to play postal chess, and,
at one time, he had 150 postal
chess games going on at the
same time. Keres died too early.
He had a heart condition. He
won his last tournament be
beating Walter Browne at the
Vancouver Open in 1975 (I
played in the event and ran the
demo board for them). He died
of a heart attack on the way back
to Estonia.
On page 68, Lombardy
discussed a chess ending
between Tchigorin and Tarrasch
at the 1898 Vienna tournament.
Their game came down to an
ending with a symmetrical pawn
formation and bishops of
opposite colors. Lombardy
wrote, "Tchigorin got fed up and
offered a draw. Tarrasch
refused. Tchigorin knew
Tarrasch well, and was half
expecting that; he calmly
removed his bishop from the
board and said, in broken
German, ‘Go ahead. Win.’
Tarrasch proceeded to
reappraise the position in the
light of this startling
development, and then tamely
agreed to a draw."
On page 77, Lombardy
discusses the chess clock and
how it became needed in chess.
There were no chess clocks or
time limit during the 1851
London international chess
tournament. In that event one
player in particular, Elijah
Williams, took so long between
his moves against Howard
Staunton that Staunton protested
in a loud manner and later
forfeited a playoff match against
Williams out of sheer
frustration. Williams sometimes
spent over 2 hours on a move.
Staunton is quoted as remarking
while playing against Williams,
"... Elijah, you're not just
supposed to sit there — you're
supposed to sit there and think!"
On page 80, Lombardy
describes a match between
Samuel Reshevsky and Donald
Byrne. In the first game, there
was a dispute as to whose flag
fell first in a time scramble.
Neither one claimed a flag fall
right away. In the second game,
neith player notices their flag
down. Seated in the front row of
spectators was Mrs. Reshevsky
who jumped up from her seat
and shouted, "I claim the game
on behalf of my husband." Sam
Reshevsky then claimed that
Byrne's flag was down, and
Bryne claimed that Reshevsky's
flag was down. The matter was
referred to an arbitration
committee - a procedure to
which Byrne objected so
strongly that he temporarily
resigned the match. Play
eventually resumed, and
Reshevsky won.
Starting on page 101, Lombardy
wrote a chapter about scandals
in chess and described the antics
of Nelson Treysman (1881-
1959), who Lombady called the
greatest coffeehouse player of
all time. Treysman earned his
livelihood in the dingy cafes on
the Lower East Side of
Manhattan. In one game, he was
losing. At the critical moment of
the game a waiter came by that
had a salt shaker on the tray.
Treysman captured the salt
shaker and slammed it down on
the appropriate square, and
shouted "Mate!" Before his
startled opponent could protest,
Treysman had pocketed the
stakes and begun to set up the
pieces for the next game.
Sometimes he grabbed an
unmoved rook from an adjacent
board. Treysman (age 55) tied
for 3rd place in the 1936 US
championshhip. In 1950, when
the first USCF rating list
appeared, he was one of the
highest rated players in the US,
rated 2531.
On pages 104-105, Lombardy
relates the anecdote about Aron
Nimzovich (1886-1935) who
abhorred tobacco smoke. His
opponent took out his pipe and
began to fiddle with it.
Nimzovich then went to the
tournament director to complain.
But the TD told Nimzovich that
he was not actually smoking.
Nimzovich replied, "I know, but
he threatens to smoke and you
know as well as I that in chess
the threat is often stronger than
the execution." Lombardy then
writes that this was one of the
basic principles elaborated in
Nimzovich's work "My
System." However, this
principle is not in "My System."
On page 105, Lombardy wrote
that American master Arthur
Dake was once forfeited against
then world champion
Capablanca for repeatedly
offering a draw. Lombardy
noted that Dake was a fine
sportsman, but he was reacting
to the severe pressure of
competition.
On page 192, Lombardy
described an incident of a
grandmaster trying to play
blindfold chess. Yugoslav GM
(1957) Miro Udovchich (Mijo
Udovcic) agreed to give a 10-
board simultaneous blindfold
exhibition in a village in
Yugoslavia. At one point, he
could no longer remember the
positions on the boards. He then
excused himself to go to the
bathroom, found an open
window, climbed out of it, and
went as fast as he could back to
his home town in Zagreb.
Udovcic (1920-1984) was the
first Croation GM and was
Yugoslav chess champion in
1963.
Click here for all the chess
games in the book in pgn
format.
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Wall
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