(51)
Who beat Bobby Fischer for the world title?
(a) Boris
Spassky
(b) Anatoly Karpov
(c) Garry
Kasparov
(d) Alexander Khalifman
(e) none of the
above
Answer (e) Karpov, as winner of the candidates
cycle, was awarded the title in 1975 when Fischer and FIDE couldn’t
settle their differences.
(52) Spassky won game two of
his match with Fischer in
how many moves?
(a)
41
(b) 0
(c) 62
(d) 17
(e)
31
Answer (b) Fischer did not show up for the
game.
(53) Botvinnik defended his world title five times.
Of
these matches he won:
(a) none
(b)
one
(c) two
(d) three
(e)
four
Answer (a) He drew two (Bronstein and Smyslov) and
lost three (Smyslov again, Tal, Petrosian). But he won both of his
return matches! (Smyslov and Tal)
(54) Perennial US
champion Sammy Reshevsky was born in 1911.
He played in his first
master level chess tournament in:
(a) 1935
(b)
1933
(c) 1927
(d) 1922
(e)
1916
Answer (d)
(55) The most draws in any
world championship match occurred in
(a)
Lasker-Schlechter
(b) Petrosian-Spassky I
(c)
Petrosian-Spassky II
(d) Karpov-Kasparov I
(e)
Karpov-Kortchnoi I
Answer (d) Forty draws and eight
decisive games!
(56) Prior to their world championship
match, Fischer had
won how many games from
Spassky?
(a) 0
(b) 1
(c)
2
(d) 3
(e) 4
Answer (a)
(57)
In the late 1970s the Soviets had a policy of boycotting
all
international tournaments in which the following GM
played:
(a) Bobby Fischer
(b) Boris
Gulko
(c) Patrick Wolff
(d) Victor Korchnoi
(e)
Jan Timman
Answer (d) Korchnoi was a famous defector
from the USSR. (Gulko later joined him, but at this point he was
still in the USSR.)
(58) Which of the following World
Champions was the only one to win an unshared
first prize in an
international tournament while holding the title?
(a)
Machgielis (Max) Euwe
(b) Vasily Smyslov
(c) Mikhail
Tal
(d) Tigran Petrosian
(e) Bobby
Fischer.
Answer (a) Euwe, at Bad
Nauheim-Stuttgart-Garmish 1937, ahead of Alexander Alekhine. Believe
it or not, none of the others won a tournament while they held the
title.
(59) Who has scored the highest lifetime
total of
victories in top level international
tournaments?
(a) Alekhine
(b) Fischer
(c)
Lasker
(d) Kasparov
(e) Karpov
Answer (e)
Karpov has accumulated close to 150 tournament wins, mostly in the
10 years after he became world champion in 1975.
(60) As
a young man World Champion Smyslov was torn between
two career
options. As well as a chess player he
seriously considered
becoming:
(a) a mathematician
(b) an
engineer
(c) an artist
(d) a sculptor
(e) an
opera singer.
Answer (e)
(61) Which
of the following world champions did not earlier
win the world
junior championship?
(a) Garry Kasparov
(b)
Anatoly Karpov
(c) Bobby Fischer
(d) Boris
Spassky
(e) none of the above.
Answer (c) I
guess he didn’t think it was worth entering.
(62)
Which of these players was forced to flee his
homeland (or at
least found it to be the prudent move)?
(a) Emanuel
Lasker
(b) Salo Flohr
(c) Alexander
Alekhine
(d) Garry Kasparov
(e) All of the
above.
Answer (e) It’s a bit of a theme in quiz #3 to
let
people know that chess players have sometimes had
rather
interesting - or unpleasant - experiences away from the
board.
(63) The second citizen of the UK to hold the
Grandmaster
title was:
(a) Raymond Keene
(b)
C.H. O’D. Alexander
(c) Anthony Miles
(d) Michael
Stean
(e) J. H. Blackburne
Answer (c) Trick
question!
(64) The first citizen of the UK to hold the
Grandmaster
title was
(a) Wilhelm Steintiz
(b)
C. H. O’D. Alexander
(c) Harry Golombek
(d) Jacques
Mieses
(e) Anthony Miles
Answer (d) I remember
being rather surprised when I learned
this. I had no idea he took
out citizenship. It’s amusing
that a man whose first name was
French and second name Austrian
lived in Germany but became a
British citizen. Actually,
that would be a good question, would
it not? "What player..."
(65) Which of these world
champions defeated the first challenger for
his
title?
(a) Capablanca
(b) Tal
(c)
Fischer
(d) Smyslov
(e) Petrosian
Answer
(e) Petrosian does get underestimated.
(66) In
what year did Euwe become the World Champion?
(a)
1900
(b) 1933
(c) 1935
(d) 1937
(e) Euwe
never became world champion
Answer
(c)
(67) In what year did Geller become world
champion?
(a) 1948
(b) 1951
(c)
1953
(d) 1962
(e) Geller never became world
champion
Answer (e) Just checking for those who are
awake! Although he never played a match for the world championship,
the Soviet player Efim Geller had plus scores (more wins than
losses) against almost every world champion he
played.
(68) From the inception of the title in 1886
until the disputes
of 1993, how many people were world
champion?
(a) 6
(b) 13
(c) 15
(d)
9
(e) 47
Answer (b) Note the weaseling-out of
the current problems... 1. Steinitz, 2. Lasker, 3. Capablanca,
4.Alekhine, 5. Euwe, 6. Botvinnik, 7. Smyslov, 8. Tal, 9. Petrosian,
10. Spassky, 11. Fischer, 12. Karpov, 13.
Kasparov
(69) Ruben Fine won the US championship
in:
(a) 1936
(b) 1948
(c) 1950
(d)
1952
(e) Ruben Fine never won the US
championship.
Answer (e) Heck, it still surprises me.
Despite being one of the top two or three players in the world Fine
never won the US Championship. (Usually thwarted by
Reshevsky.)
(70) Who was the youngest person ever
to win the world
championship?
(a) Tal
(b)
Smyslov
(c) Capablanca
(d) Kasparov
(e)
Rubinstein
Answer (d) At 22 years of
age.
(71) Which player won the least games while
world champion?
(a) Petrosian
(b) Euwe
(c)
Capablanca
(d) Fischer
(e) Smyslov
Answer
(d) Zero! Fischer played not a single serious game between winning
the title in 1972 and 1975.
(72) The first Western player
to win a FIDE-sponsored match against
a Soviet Grandmaster
was:
(a) Euwe
(b) Fischer
(c)
Reshevsky
(d) Fine
(e) Larsen
Answer (e)
Against Geller.
(73) How many times has Korchnoi
qualified for the
final Candidates match in his remarkable
career?
(a) Once
(b) Twice
(c)
Thrice
(d) Four times
(e) Five
times
Answer (d) Incredible. 1968 (lost to Spassky),
1974 (lost to Karpov, later made a world championship match
retroactively), and the two he won.
(74) The first
citizen of the United Kingdom to play
a match for the world
championship was:
(a) Mikhail Tchigorin
(b)
J. H. Blackburne
(c) Henry Bird
(d) Isidor
Gunsberg
(e) Nigel Short
Answer (d) Moved to the
UK while very young, naturalized.
(75) In the late
19th century G.H.D Gossip wrote a huge opening book titled "The
Chessplayer’s Manual." Which opening received the most
attention?
(a) The Ruy Lopez
(b) The King’s
Gambit
(c) The Giuoco Piano
(d) The Sicilian
Defense
(e) The Queen’s Gambit
Answer (b) This
exciting, attacking opening received a whopping 120 pages. Now it is
rarely played and the newest opening tomes give it a half-dozen
pages at most.
(76) When did Botvinnik play his first
match for the
world title?
(a) 1947
(b)
1938
(c) 1962
(d) 1954
(e)
1951
Answer (e) Against David Bronstein. Botvinnik won
the title in the "match-tournament" of 1948 against Smyslov, Keres,
Reshevsky, and Euwe.
(77) When did Fischer (born 1943)
first play in a Candidates event?
(a) 1953
(b)
1956
(c) 1959
(d) 1962
(e)
1965
Answer (c)
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