(78) Dr Saviely Tartakover
once said that a game of chess
has three stages. The first is
"when one hopes one
has an advantage" and the second occurs "when
one
believes one has an advantage". What is the third
stage?
(a) "one converts the favorable middlegame to a
won ending"
(b) "one knows for sure one has an
advantage"
(c) "one increases the advantage to decisive
proportions"
(d) "one uses the advantage for an attack on the
king"
(e) "one knows one is going to
lose"
Answer
(e)
(79) The
first international chess tournament took place in 1851
in
(a) New York
(b) London
(c)
Berlin
(d) Moscow
(e)
Paris
Answer
(b) Organized by Howard
Staunton, this event resulted in
his losing the "unofficial world
championship" to
Adolph Anderssen.
(80) The second
international chess tournament took place 1851 in
(a)
London
(b) Berlin
(c) Paris
(d)
Moscow
(e) New York
Answer
(a) Not
all London players backed the first 1851
event. The dissidents
organized their own tournament
in London in the same year. In
chess some things
never change.
(81) The first
international tournament to use the
"round robin" format and to
use time limits was played
in
(a) London
(b)
Berlin
(c) Paris
(d) Moscow
(e) New
York
Answer
(a)
(82) Perennial
World Championship Candidate Yefim Geller had
a superb record in
his individual encounters with the
world champions of his day.
His advice on how to beat
a world champion was to
(a)
Forget that the opponent is a world champion.
(b) Always
remember that the opponent is a world champion.
(c) Play
highly aggressive opening systems.
(d) Avoid the endgame at
all costs
(e) Both (a) and
(b)
Answer
(e) Makes sense in a strange
way.
(83) World champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly
Karpov played
tournament chess against one another
at
(a) Caracas, 1970
(b) Never
(c) Palma de
Majorca interzonal, 1970
(d) Buenos Aires, 1970
(e)
Moscow, 1967
Answer
(b)
Sadly.
(84) Ossip Bernstein was one of the strongest
players of
his day, was born to a well off family, and was a
lawyer of great
skill. Despite this he lost his entire
fortune
(a) Sponsoring the commercialization of
chess
(b) Investing in Canadian diamond mines
(c)
Three times
(d) Because he lent it to Alekhine
(e) In
the Russian revolution of 1905.
Answer
(c)
He lost one fortune in the Russian revolution of
1917, made
another and lost it in the 1929 crash, made
a third and lost it
in WWII. If he made a fourth he
seems to have kept
it.
(85) Those chess masters who do not devote all
their
time to the game often have remarkable careers in
other
fields, ranging from papyrologist (GM Robert Hubner)
to
soldier (long-time US champion Captain George
Henry
Mackenzie). Trained as a lawyer, IM Norman
Whitaker
chose the career of
(a) International
Arbiter
(b) Advisory counsel to the Geneva
Convention
(c) Antarctic explorer
(d) Confidence
man
(e) Politician
Answer
(d) Though
he was not involved in the Lindburgh kidnapping,
he nevertheless
extorted $100,000 in ransom money which was
never
found.
(86) Soviet player and international master
Rashid Gibyatovich
Nezhmetdinov had the distinction
of
(a) Being one of the most feared attacking players of
his day
(b) Being the first IM from Kazan
(c) Being
Champion of the RSFSR (i.e. the Russian federation).
(d)
Being the first to be a national master at both chess
and
checkers (draughts) in the USSR.
(e) All of the
above.
Answer
(e) Somewhat neglected in
western chess writings, Nezhmetdinov’s
play has been praised by
world championship Candidate Lev
Polugayevsky, among
others.
(87) The great English player of the last
century,
Joseph Henry Blackburne, once said that before a
game
he
(a) Made sure to sleep at least 12
hours
(b) Ran two miles to wake up
(c) Drank a pot of
coffee
(d) Had a couple of alcoholic drinks
(e) None
of the above
Answer
(d) He also claimed that
most other strong players did
the same. A FIDE master of my
acquaintance strongly recommends
(b), but the fitness craze
hadn’t hit in J. H.’s day.
(88) Frank Marshall was US
champion from 1909 to 1936.
In that period he defended his
title
(a) Every year
(b) Every three
years
(c) In four matches
(d) In one match
(e)
Never.
Answer
(d) Marshall narrowly defeated
Edward Lasker in a match
in 1923. Other players could not raise
the stake money.
Marshall was eventually convinced to resign his
title.
(89) On losing his first game to Bobby Fischer,
World
Champion Mikhail Tal said:
(a) "I was winning
until I blundered on move 38"
(b) "Just wait until next
time"
(c) "The kid is improving rapidly"
(d) "I’m
really not feeling well"
(e) "It is difficult to play against
Einstein’s theory".
Answer
(e) Did he mean
the General or Special theory?
(90) American
Grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky’s best chance
at winning the right
to a match with world champion
Mikhail Botvinnik was possibly the
1953 candidates tournament.
To enhance his chances in this
critical event Reshevsky:
(a) Took a month off work to
study
(b) Brought GM Larry Evans along as a second
(c)
Played a training match with GM Arthur Bisguier
(d) Quit his
job
(e) Did none of the
above.
Answer
(e) Reshevsky could not afford
(a), (b), or (d). It is
amazing that he did so well in the event,
considering
the excellent training, both physical and mental,
received
by his Soviet opponents, and the GM-level seconds
who
aided them. Fischer was not handicapped by a family
or
non-chess career.
(91) Almost all world champions
attained their title
by defeating the previous champion in a
match. Thus
one would think that by definition they are
good
match players. How many world champions have defeated
at
least one challenger in a match?
(a) 10
(b)
6
(c) 12
(d) 5
(e) all of
them.
Answer
(b) - Steinitz, Dr Lasker,
Alekhine,
Petrosian, Karpov, Kasparov
(92) Which of
the following comments did Dr
Tartakower not make:
(a)
"The mistakes are all there, waiting to be made"
(b)
"Sacrifices only prove that someone has blundered"
(c) "After
1 e4 white’s game is in its last throes"
(d) "Tactics is what
you do when there’s something to
do, Strategy is what you do when
there’d nothing to do".
(e) "Erro ergo
Sum"
Answer
(c) That is attributed to the
ultra-hypermodern
Julius Breyer.
(93) Siegbert
Tarrasch, one of the top two or three players
at the turn of the
century, and famous for his severely logical
style of play, was
also a medical doctor. He claimed that his
tendency to make
obvious blunders (despite his great chess
strength) as due
to:
(a) Alzheimer’s disease
(b) Parkinson’s
disease
(c) Tarrasch’s disease
(d) Amaurosis
Schacchistica
(e)
Hangovers.
Answer
(d) "Chess Blindness", in
Latin.
(94) Paul Keres finished second, or tied for
second,
in how many candidates tournaments?
(a)
0
(b) 1
(c) 2
(d) 3
(e)
4
Answer
(e) Unfortunately, only the first
place player gets
a chance at the title. Keres tied for first in
the
candidates-like tournament of AVRO 1938, but the
champion
was not in this case compelled to play
the
winner.
(95) Mastery of chess and wealth do not tend
to go
hand in hand, the inherited money of Paul Morphy
being
an exception. Which of the following world-class
players
became a successful banker?
(a) Gideon
Stahlberg
(b) Emanuel Lasker
(c) Wilhelm
Steinitz
(d) Ignac Kolisch
(e) T. S.
Eliot
Answer
(d) He became a millionaire,
though this was not quite a
rags-to-riches story as he was born
to a family that was
comfortably off.
(96) Italian
players circa 1850 were dedicated to the
concept
of
(a) a free lunch
(b) free castling
(c)
free Italy
(d) free love
(e) all of the
above
Answer
(b or e) Free castling, under
which the rook moves to e1/e8
or d1/d8, while not as popular
perhaps as some of the other
choices given, remained common in
Italy well after other
countries adopted the now-standard form of
the move.
(97) Opening variations are sometimes named
after
the inventor or popularizer of the variation (e.g.
the
Benko Gambit, Alekhine’s defense) or after the
tournament where
the variation was unveiled (e.g. the
Meran or Cambridge Springs).
Damiano’s defense was named
after
(a) Damiano, an
Italian player who invented this defense
(b) The small
Italian town of Damiano where this was first played.
(c) Ian
O. Dam, a shy inventor who insisted on an anagrammatic
version of
his name.
(d) Damiano, an Italian player who condemned this
defense
(e) There is no such thing as Damiano’s
defense.
Answer
(d)
Amazingly
(98) Which of the following animals does not
have a chess
opening named after it:
(a)
Hippopotamus
(b) Rat
(c) Great Snake
(d)
Pterodactyl
(e)
Brontosaurus
Answer
(e) The rat and hippo
are most commonly known, the Great
Snake and Pterodactyl names
are not canonical but have
appeared in published games. The
Pterocdactyl is so named
because it looks like a "rat with
wings", referring to
early pawn advances, while Black’s odd pawn
advances
in the Great Snake seem to mimic such a
creature.
(99) World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik
benefited greatly
from training games with future World
Correspondence
champion Viacheslav Ragozin. One of Ragozin’s
other
services for Botvinnik was:
(a) Physical
trainer
(b) Supplier of vodka
(c) To blow smoke in his
face
(d) KGB contact
(e) English
Interpreter
Answer
(c) Botvinnik had found
himself disturbed by second hand
smoke, so to get used to it he
asked Ragozin to puff
smoke his way in training games. Those were
dark days
indeed.
(100) The finals of the 1971
candidates match had the
unique distinction that neither
qualifier had lost even
a single game in the earlier rounds.
However, the number
of wins was different. Fischer won all of his
games
(i.e. 12) and Petrosian won:
(a) 10
(b)
8
(c) 6
(d) 4
(e)
2
Answer
(e) In a beautiful reflection of
his style, Petrosian
won just one game in each match - quite
enough if you
never lose a game.
(101) Who was/is
known as the Magician of Riga?
(a) Alexi
Shirov
(b) Aivar Gipslis
(c) Alexander
Koblentz
(d) Mikhail Tal
(e) Alexander
Alekhine
Answer
(d) Who
else?
(102) What player was referred to as "Der
schwarze Tod"?
(a) Wilhelm Steinitz
(b) Conrad
Black
(c) J. H. Blackburne
(d) Edward
Blackmar
(e) Adolf Schwarz
Answer
(c)
AKA "the black death".
|
Free Email
Chat
Message Boards
KC Newsletter
