While visiting the Daily Oklahoman plant in Oklahoma City
I saw the chess club across the street. Later I visit the
club and played against an older player wearing a jungle hat.
He beats me once, and then again and then again. I thought I could
play chess but obviously was wrong. Leaving the
club I meet a fellow student who explains, that was Mr. Johnson, the
club's worst player. Later I am able to beat Mr. Johnson
playing blind folded (a condition where the moves are vocally
identified to the 'blind' player).
My first USCF rating was 1727 which is probably a medium rating.
The rating was from coming near the middle in a Wichita Open and then
fourth in my first Oklahoma championship tournament.
I was in the Tradewinds bar in Honolulu when a barmaid
says "there goes the strongest chess player in Hawaii". That gets
my attention; I soon learn the manager (Mr. Don Webb) is an avid
chess player. This leads to games with the Filipino consul and
others and many, many free drink chits. The further related tales
in Hawaii have been avoided.
While in a Hawaii the Filipino consul gave me a letter of
introduction to the Filipino Minister of Finance. It seems
that president Garcia was an avid chess player, and many of his
cronies knew how to play chess, and may have had other qualifications.
I visited the palatial home of the minister in Manilla.
Arrangements for me to play a simultaneous was scheduled at
the Alamo Hotel in Colorado Springs against all comers. Forty-six
players showed up to play. Results were 1 loss, 7 draws and 38
wins (from my view). The way it worked or was supposed to was I
had white on all boards, made my first move and then when I appeared
before a player, the player should make his move, I would make mine
and move on. There was an elderly man whose game gave me more
problems than any other. He would make a move before I showed
up and then make another move when I did. Fortunately, I could notice
the difference and restore the position. Also, several small
sets were there that gave me problems such as I could not
readily recognize what piece was what. The whole affair took
about 3.5 hours.
I won the New Mexico state championship in 1956. Thomas Heldt,
one of the top finishers, was a high school student who asked me to
play at their school club. I won all 18 games then, and in the
future my best results were with less than 21 players with not more
than 3 or 4 Class A or better players.
While in San Diego I ventured to Tiajuana in quest of a nice
chess set, (You can believe whatever you want). Besides buying
a set, I met a barber, Senor Rubicalba, who had his shop as the
local chess center. Eventually, as a CAT member (Club Ajedrez
de Tiajuana) I would ride with the Mexicans to play in the San Diego
commercial chess league against teams such as Boeing.
The chess move P-QN4 or b2-b4 is usually identified as
Santasiere's Folly, named after Anthony Santasiere. As the
first move it is also known as the Orangutan or the Polish
opening. Anyway, I beat this named master in a New York State
speed tournament but lost to the international and grand masters.
As a CAT member (Club Ajedrez de Tiajuana) I was invited to
play in a Mexican States tournament. My entry made in an
international tournament, After introductions were made,
a player from Mexico City played out a game I had played in
the US Open the prior year against Joaquin Medina, a Mexican
player. Apparently, there had been a group critique of all
his games by other Mexican players. By the way Colonel Arriza,
the champion of Mexico won the tournament. I came in third
or fourth (don't even remember), but I could remember enough
to recognize the game that had been played out before my
very eyeballs. Note that the tournament was held in the back
of Ceasar's, another place that claims to have invented
the Ceasar salad.
May have misled you. The Golden Gate Bridge and Chess
Club is where I saw big money change hands after some bridge
"lessons". As the better chess players did not show and I
was not interested in such bridge lessons, I did not go there
often. I did however, start to take lessons from the master
Imre Koenig who had found his way to San Francisco from Hungary.
His English was so bad, I did not have a second lesson. Though,
I think I still have a book he authored.
In the North Beach area just beyond Chinatown was where
the beatniks were hanging out in coffeehouses and tearooms.
I met this fellow from India. He had a master degree and had
been working for the state of California, but quit and was
eking out a small living by small bets on chess games. We
continued to play but no longer for money as I usually beat
him. One noon he invites to share his lunch, a bowl of tomato soup
and as he said he was lucky, that day there also half a banana.
From 1960 through 1980 or so most computer chess programs
were poor players and often irritatingly slow. Deep Blue,
which beat Kasparov has been reassigned to more commercial
research. Current PC chess programs can readily defeat most
players. Often their opening move access is better than the
books on openings. They can be excellent teaching devices.
I came up with the theory that the fancier the chess set,
the poorer the owner played. Many tournament players will
only play with Staunton design sets of certain size. When
I was in high school I had a set I made from campaign buttons.
I did not at the time know that Chinese chess sets were made using
small wooden blocks with symbols on them.
My play was becoming stronger. I was matched against Hugo
Teufel III, the Wichita Kansas champion. I am attacking with
my pieces. I offer a sacrifice and then let a small groan.
Hugo thinks briefly and then takes the piece. Several moves
later he realizes the soundness of my sacrifice and upsets
the board so that pieces go noisily in all directions.
He withdraws from the tournament and though I did not get
first place money I was awarded the brilliancy prize for that
game. Tournament director McDonald always liked my attacking
style. Since that game I have put away my audible arsenal
except for park or club games where wild talk fits into the
game strategy.
As in chess and other activities improvement comes applied
study and motivated efforts. When I played at the Oklahoma
City chess club, I could remember my games, replay and based
on results evaluate the moves I had made. Remembering moves
or games is key in blindfold chess, also.
George Koltanknoski, was famous for his blindfold exhibitions. I saw one of his
proteges perform the "Knight's Tour" where each square had been given a city's name.
He had been shown the cities and then performed the tour, remembering the city name
that had been assigned each square. Computers can be readily programmed to
systematically try each square use recursion from the last 'point' of failure until
a successful tour is achieved. This can take some time. Adding a test to observe
how many squares remain open for each candidate square provides solutions that work
the first time with no recursion necessary. Direction and general circular motion
can be achieved by adding tiebreak criterion based on left/ right and up/down choices.
I have even achieved the circular flow where move 64 to move 1 is legal by adding a
test that resolves tiebreaks by avoiding moves squares open to move 1.
Example of tour
I find I was using Warnsdorff's rule, which states that at
each stage of the knights tour, one must choose the square with
the fewest remaining exits. Ref. "The Construction of Magic Knight
Tours",
The Journal of Recreational Mathematics, 1:225-233, 1968.
At work I meet, play and beat Mr. Kavalayia Dixit. He is
the chess team manager for the company team in the Philadelphia
chess league. I start at on board 3 but after discussions with
the other team members I start playing board 1. Now board 2 is
the national amateur champion and board 3 is a former PA state
champion. My results on board 1 are not totally stellar as I lose
to a former champion of Spain but clean up against first board at
Gerard Prison (they only have home games). Boards 2 and 3, I think,
won all their games. Our team won the title 4 or 5 years straight.
At the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco I met some unusual
or dear people. First, Horace King was a lawyer who liked my style
of play. He treated me to many Chinese dinners and gave me much free
advice, which he probably charged dearly to others. Charles Bagby I
describe as a fantastic speaker and with a career as a corporation
lawyer. Typically, when we left the chess club, we would go get
something to eat. At the dining location, waitresses would stop
serving, and just stand around and listen to him speak. He appeared
knowledgeable on any subject be it what is at Tecumseh or Shawnee
Oklahoma and other information about any little town in any state.
I do not know how he had the time to study every little burb.
Another personal note was that I gave ship size and tonnage
information on two occasions. His comment was: "Oh, you are
changing the figures you gave me four years ago".
The rules of go are much simpler than chess, but the strategy and
tactics particularly are much richer. Computers can play grandmaster
chess, but I think there is still a million dollar prize to the
programmer whose program can beat a lower ranked master (known as a
dan). Formal chess has a rating system that spans a range from 0 to
about 2800. Ratings under 100 reflect a total beginner. In go there is
a graduation of about 45 degrees and this is built into the game
play except for the most formal matches. In go because a predefined
handicap can be given to players of different strength, either play
should have an equal chance of winning. Go is played on a board with a
19 by 19 grid. Each player in turn places a white or black stone at
an intersection on the grid.
Final round in a Dallas Texas Qualifying tournament, I had already
beat the extremely strong Ken Smith (for a price I will tell you
how Ken threw it away). I'm white against R.B. Potter. I play the
Ponziana (1-PK4, Pk4 , 2-N-KB3, N-QB3 3-P-QB3). This opening is
believed to relinquish much of white's natural advantage. I had
seen a variation that is better for white in Chess Life about a
year earlier. Anyway, Potter is happy and telling his friends
what a yo-yo opening I was playing. His position deteriorates
as I add pressure, and soon after he resigns. Later a young
tournament official tells me I am more lucky than good. This
is after beating four of the top Texans in this tournament
and winning two other Texas qualifying tournaments. Are good
players lucky or sometimes do lucky players have good results?
A moderately strong player, Dr. de la Torre taught Spanish.
Dr. Bernstein (I probably have the name wrong) taught English
and is a chess historian. There is a large chess archive at Norman.
It is an ftp site. And once in the halls or student
union (I forget where), I recognized a student and started
talking to him. But, did I not have it wrong - it was
someone I had not met and never seen before. He was an
identical twin of Lee Magee, Nebraska's strongest chess
player.
In the final round 5 players have higher scores than I do.
I have 2.5 points, and am playing the top player who has 3.5 points.
Four other players have 3 points each and they are paired amongst
themselves. If any of those players with 3 points win, or my
opponent beats or draws, I am clearly out of any share of first.
It seems impossible that my string of wins (the last 6 tournaments)
is not ended already. The unlikely happens: I beat my opponent, John Curdo,
the strongest player in New England, and the other 2 games between
the players with 3 points each are draws. There are 6 players
with 3.5 points after that final round. I win the tournament
on tie-break
points and reign for a year as greater Boston champion.
Checkers is a much more deterministic game with few possibilities
compared to chess. The computer programs were able to equal world
class checker play in the late 60's. I witnessed part of a world
championship checker match: Case a farmer from Alabama, Hellman,
an accountant I think from Indianoplis. Hellman won the match.
Case did not win a single game, but drew 47 of the 50 games in
the match. Do not believe that checkers are all that easy. A
master will beat a medium strength player almost every game and
certainly would not lose a game.
A good and genuine chess problem follows: White moves are
given Black's fourth is ... checkmate. Fill in the black moves.
1 P-KB3..?? 2 K-B2..?? 3 K-N3..?? 4.K-R4..?? mate.
algebraic; 1 f2-f3 .. ? 2 e1-f2 .. ? 3 f2-g3 ..? 4 g3-h4 .. ? mate
I had a clear victory in the El Paso open. The tournament
director asked if I would play a young Mexican lad of ocho
anos (8 years old). The kid outplayed me by beautifully executing
a minority attack of pawns on the queen side. This is a concept
that less gifted players would have to study and study books
before they could understand it. No, I didn't recall his name,
but he was close to being a master at that age. The only excuse
I can offer was I might have had some tequila earlier and it was
not played as a tournament game.
The difference of skill and play varies greatly from the
casual to club to tournament to big city club/tournament players.
See my comment about venturing into the OKC chess club. If I
had been from New York City or Chicago, I would have reached
my peak much sooner. As it was I was able to meet or exceed
the local level of competition, but found that I would have
had to study to progress or even maintain a master level of play.
Marriage and/or a working career cramps a chess players style.
Many times I heard phrases like I beat everyone in Ukelele
Arkansas or you will have trouble with me as I have an unusual
style of play. Generally statements like these made me think,
substitute weak for strange.
Boston has many strong players, I learned while playing first
board for a Boylston Chess Club in the Boston league. I lost to
Shelby Lyman, an off and on master known for reporting on the
Fischer-Karpov match. Now he authors chess columns appearing in
many newspapers. Harvard has a beautiful campus close to the
James River with MIT on the other side.
I talked about Charles Bagby before. He has played blindfold chess
and like myself, he says he cannot visualize the board like
most
famous blindfold players, but is totally dependent on memory and
analytical powers.
I participated in the set up to test his analytical
abilities. Some one had a book printed in Romanji, that is Anglisized
Japanese.
Bagby stated he did not know Japanese or Romanji and therefore
would not know any of the words in the book. The group of us created
a simple random letter substitution code, made an encryption of a
paragraph from the book, and gave the encrypted paragraph and one
original page from the book to Bagby. He solved the encryption in
less than 15 minutes stating his solution was based on analysis of
word forms and structure he had derived from analysis of the sample
page.
I was in Israel when the chess Olympics was taking place in Tel Aviv.
I saw Botvinnik, Euwe, Reshevsky, Bronstein, Tal, Keres and others I had
read and marveled about. I talked quite a bit with William Addison, an
alternate for the American team. I had played Addison a few times in
the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. He revealed the food on
Israel's El Al was not kosher enough for Reshevsky. Addison himself
has no hang-ups as he is strict vegetarian.
In Athens as well as several places in Israel, there were chess
players who would not play except for money stakes. After losing
two or three games they generally would agree or insist on play
for fun only. I met some fairly good hustlers in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem, but generally held my own. In Tel Aviv many of the
sidewalk cafes were chess nut hangs outs, but the stakes could
be limited to coffee or tea.
I took a trip to enter the Maine open. The final round I was
matched against Harlow B. Daly, who had won the tournament probably
forty or fifty times. After he was clearly hopelessly lost, he
complained to me that I should have resigned when he was materially
ahead. Maybe I had a 'lost' game but he still needed to win it and
failed - of course nobody wins a game by resigning, but if it is
hopeless, that is the proper thing to do.
The military started annual chess branch and service championships
shortly after I left the military. That would have been within my reach.
Two schools in Florida offered chess championships in the 60 and 70's
but it was too late in time and further the competition was beyond me.
I met Fisher only once at a US Open when he was 13. He came in fourth,
I came in 35th out a hundred and ten players. I was present when a
tournament director was giving him a pep talk. I came to the conclusion
he could probably become as good as he wanted to become. He became an
American hero and wonderment. Enough said without more praise or any
belittling.