Below: GM Hikaru Nakamura Defeats Former World Champion GM Vladimir Kramnik at the Olympiad; See Page 20 for the Full Report

40TH OLYMPIAD: U.S. DEFEATS RUSSIA AND FINISHES FIFTH | USCF SALES HOLIDAY BUYING GUIDE ENCLOSED

DECEMBER 2012

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THE WORLD’S MOST WIDELY READ CHESS MAGAZINE 7 2527464631 9 www.uschess.org Below: GM Hikaru Nakamura defeats former World Champion GM Vladimir Kramnik at the Olympiad; see page 20 for the full report. Bottom of page: The team celebrates their ﬁfth place ﬁnish. From l-r: GM Gata Chess Life Kamsky, GM Ray Robson, KGM Varuzhan Akobian, Team Captain IM John Donaldson, GM Hikaru Nakamura. DECEMBER

COLUMNS PHOTOS: TONY RICH TONY PHOTOS: 12 LOOKS AT BOOKS / HOW I BEAT FISCHER’S RECORD Goldilocks To Play and Win By Dr. Alexey Root, WIM 16 CHESS TO ENJOY / ENTERTAINMENT Trivia! By GM Andy Soltis 18 SOLITAIRE CHESS / INSTRUCTION Old McDonald Had a Chess Cow By Bruce Pandolfini 42 BACK TO BASICS / READER ANNOTATIONS An Unspectacular Upset By GM Lev Alburt

44 ENDGAME LAB / INSTRUCTION 20 International Events / 40th Olympiad Uneven Fights If Only ... By GM Pal Benko By FM Mike Klein For the fifth-seeded U.S. team at the 40th Chess DEPARTMENTS Olympiad in Istanbul, a satisfactory fifth-place finish will forever be dogged by “if only” scenarios that kept 3 DECEMBER PREVIEW / THIS MONTH IN them—barely—from medaling. CHESS LIFE AND CLO

6 COUNTERPLAY / READERS RESPOND 30 Cover Story / John G. White Collection The White Collection 8 FIRST MOVES / CHESS NEWS FROM Text and Photos By Mark N. Taylor AROUND THE U.S. Exploring the largest chess library in the world.

10 FACES ACROSS THE BOARD / BY AL LAWRENCE 36 Chess Journalists of America / Annual Awards 14 USCF AFFAIRS / NEWS FOR OUR MEMBERS 2012 CJA Awards By Joshua Anderson Celebrating the best in American chess journalism. 46 KNIGHT’S TOUR / TOURNAMENT TRAVEL

50 TOURNAMENT LIFE / DECEMBER 37 USCF National Event / U.S. Masters Stay on the Attack 69 SOLUTIONS / DECEMBER By FM Todd Andrews At this year’s U.S. Masters, one thing was clear: 69 CLASSIFIEDS / DECEMBER The player on the attack usually won.

70 INDEX / 2012 CHESS LIFE INDEX

72 MY BEST MOVE / PERSONALITIES

ON THE COVER A page from the early eighteenth- century Italian manuscript, Il dilettevole, e giudizioso giuoco de scacchi (the pleasurable and most judicious game of chess). Courtesy of Cleveland Public Library, White Collection

4 December 2012 | Chess Life Cover Story / John G. White Collection

The White Collection Exploring the largest chess library in the world Text and Photos By MARK N. TAYLOR

hess dreams are a fairly common of chess, checkers, folklore, and Orien- to the humblest mimeographed local bul- motif in novels. Sometimes the talia: the largest chess library in the world. letins. It is not uncommon for a historian C dreamer is a pawn trapped in a John Griswold White (1845–1928) was of local chess history to have to travel to nightmarish world of greater forces; a prominent Cleveland attorney who Cleveland to consult these obscure publi- sometimes the dreams are more pleas- learned chess while a child and became cations. The White collection is the closest ant. Let me tell you about mine, which is proficient enough to play blindfold games thing the chess world has to an interna- of the latter sort. I was walking down the while walking with his father. He did not tional archive. White himself would blush street of some grey northern industrial begin collecting chess books until 1870 to read that. He maintained, “I would pre- city, surrounded by old Beaux Arts archi- and, although he donated some 50,000 fer not to have so much ado about the tecture. I was irresistibly drawn inside a books to the library, he kept his chess books which I may give the library.” large building and up a large marble stair- and checker library. Late CPL librarian H. J. R. Murray, author of the monu- case to the third floor where I saw two boys Alice N. Loranth, who has done much mental A History of Chess, was an early playing chess on a large floor chessboard research on White, indicated why he may beneficiary of White’s open use policy (see there in the high-ceilinged foyer. I passed have held onto them longest. White sidebar). “Mr. White’s generous and unfail- through ironwork doors down a hallway regarded chess books as an “educational ing courtesy in placing his library freely at with rare books displayed under glass on vehicle” and his collection allowed him to the service of any student of chess has either side and came into a large rectan- travel “in many centuries, through many been acknowledged over and over again,” gular room, the length of half a football countries and cultures.” The CPL received he wrote in his preface. “To me he has field. On one side the windows opened to the chess and checker books after he died given not only this, but far greater help. He the shore of Lake Erie. A voice spoke: at age 83 during his annual fishing trip in has repeatedly obtained copies of manu- “Can I help you?” Wyoming. A member of the library’s board scripts which it was important that I I sat down at a table and said, “I’d like of trustees and serving as president from should see, but which were inaccessible to to see some of Bobby Fischer’s score- 1884-1885 and again from 1913 until his me, and has placed these copies unre- sheets.” Immediately they appeared on death, White was instrumental in trans- servedly at my service.” White always the table in front of me. forming the fledgling city library into a maintained that his collection should Intrigued, I called out, “I’d like to see the five-star institution. remain accessible to anyone who wanted chess medals won by Emanuel Lasker.” The Orientalia collection began as an off- “to be able to use it like Murray used it.” These too appeared in front of me. shoot from White’s interest in the Persian If you’ve ever done serious research in After admiring them, I cried, “Show me history of chess. Since he had a working national archives in Europe or private Philidor’s manuscript with all his pawn knowledge of some 20 languages, he was libraries in America, you had probably secrets!” After a moment this too was laid not restricted to collecting only works in got the impression at some point that you in front of me. English: original manuscripts, early edi- were not exactly welcome. Not so in the My excitement grew fevered and I began tions, critical editions, translations, CPL’s Special Collections room. Fine Arts crying out in rapid succession, “I want to popular treatments, he collected them all. and Special Collections Manager Pamela see the most beautiful chess manuscript You can find works in nearly every Euro- Eyerdam and Special Collections Librar- in the world! Show me a Greco first edition! pean language and many Asian languages. ian Kelly Ross-Brown have taken White’s Persian problem collections! Medieval Presently, however, acquisition of Eng- attitude to heart and have created a wel- chess allegories!” I couldn’t stop. “I want lish-language books dominate the growth coming atmosphere most rare among the complete run of the British Chess Mag- of the collection. first-rate collections. It is hands down my azine! Every Fred Reinfeld book in every The John G. White chess and checkers favorite library for serious work. edition!” As if by magic, they all appeared collection has now grown beyond 32,500 You do not have to be a serious researcher on library carts rolling up to my table. volumes of books and serials, including to be touched here by the greatness of chess The best part about my dream is that it more than 6,300 volumes of bound period- history. You can pass a few pleasant hours wasn’t a dream at all. It’s all true—more icals. There is also much unique material browsing through many current chess peri- or less. There really is such a place where in manuscript, correspondence, and vari- odicals from around the world, consult this can happen. You see, I was in the ous ephemera. Its scope as well as its reference works, or take in as many techni- Cleveland Public Library (CPL), one of the depth is enormous, encompassing the his- cal treatises as you like. You do not even need largest public libraries in the nation, a tory, development, literature, and technical to open a book. The reading room has sev- first-class research facility. And it is here aspects of the game. The works range from eral glass cases full of interesting displays, you will find the John G. White collection the best-known and most influential books Continued on page 34

30 December 2012 | Chess Life GISELA KHAN GRESSER’S DEATH MASKS Among the most bizarre items in the collection are two plaster casts of the death mask of Gisela Khan Gresser, who won multiple U. S. women’s championships in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. She died in 2000 and the casts were included when her papers were donated to the library. The physical objects in the collection were typically donated by individuals, even though the White collection is not a museum and does not keep such items on permanent display. (The other plaster cast is more Sphynxlike, its nose broken off.)

www.uschess.org 31 Cover Story / John G. White Collection

NOTEBOOKS AND SCRAPBOOKS The romance of holding a handwritten or hand-assembled book comes with knowing that there is no other text like it in the world— you are about to have a unique experience with a unique item. If the manuscript is in the hand of one of the greats from the past, the romance may bloom into undying love, and part of falling in love comes from being seduced by mystery. Is that really Philidor’s autograph? What is the relationship between this manuscript and the English version of his inﬂuential book, Analyse du jeu des échecs (Analysis of the game of chess)? Then there is the curiosity of looking over the game scores Löwenthal recorded in his notebook: the large scrawled letters, the numerous corrections— almost looks like my kid’s scoresheets. The neat strong hand of Philidor matches our impression of a clear forceful champion, but Löwenthal’s hand does not match the accomplished chess player we know him to have been.

ONE COPY OF EVERYTHING John G. White’s goal for his personal collection of chess and checker books was to collect one copy of everything. He collected for content, not condition or bindings as many collectors do. White believed that it was not up to him but up to every researcher to decide the intellectual value of a work; his job was to furnish researchers with all the material to make such judgments. One copy of everything means not just every text, but every edition of every text. In the case of especially old works there are a lot of editions to collect. Here you have access to over 100 editions of Castiglione’s Il Libro del Cortegiano (Book of the courtier) with its anecdote of a chess-playing monkey, and to 1100 editions of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam A notebook apparently in the hand of Philidor. (based simply on the chessboard of mortality quatrain). Jacobus de Cessolis, a late thirteenth- century Dominican monk, wrote a highly inﬂuential allegory, Liber de moribus hominum et ofﬁciis nobilium super ludo scacchorum (the book concerning the customs of men and the duties of nobles, or, the game of chess), in which he invites the reader to see society as a collection of chess pieces working together for the common good. The White collection has over 50 manuscripts, facsimiles, editions, and translations of this work, besides numerous critical studies about it. The collection ranges from a particularly important fourteenth-century Lombard manuscript to incunables (books printed before 1500 with moveable type), to translations into vernacular languages, and modern critical editions. No one has yet fully researched the textual history of this important work. If anyone wants to, a long visit in Cleveland will be essential.

The Cleveland Public Library

32 December 2012 | Chess Life Cover Story / John G. White Collection

This page from John G. White’s law notebook covered in his small meticulous handwriting, displays his neat, clear, highly-organized mind.

THE METICULOUS ATTORNEY, THE CONSUMMATE COLLECTOR SCORESHEETS Anyone can hoard books, but it takes a special The White collection does not actively pursue modern chess ephemera as many private collectors do. kind of genius to create a well-deﬁned The popularity of such items in the market coupled with their limited value to researchers makes them collection. And it takes a visionary who can less desirable than substantial work in print and manuscript. Nonetheless a number of interesting items arrange to make that collection accessible and have come into the collection, such as this group of scoresheets (photo, above) in Bobby Fischer’s hand useful for generations. John G. White was from the XIXth Chess Olympiad in Siegen, West Germany in 1970. Sometimes the originals reveal little both—and he was wealthy and generous as surprises, such as a doodle on one of the scoresheets of a bored or distracted Frank Marshall. well. When he died in 1928 he bequeathed not only his 12,000-item carefully collected chess and checker library to the Cleveland Public Library, but an endowment to preserve and grow the collection as well. Careful stewardship has kept White’s vision alive, and it remains the largest and most comprehensive chess library in the world.

A PIONEER IN MANUSCRIPT FACSIMILES John G. White was himself an active researcher and the collection includes his many diaries, manuscript research notes, and correspondence with other chess writers. White was not content to rely on modern editions of early works; he had to have the originals, and, if they were unobtainable, he arranged to have facsimiles produced specially for him. In 1912 he spent $850 (that’s about $20,000 in today’s dollars) to produce a photocopy of a Persian chess manuscript. This involved having the manuscript photographed and then the images processed in a lab in Europe before being shipped to him. At this time the technology for photocopying was still new and very expensive. White also went to considerable expense to obtain a photocopy of the large medieval An early facsimile of the famous Libro de acedrex dados e tablas, (Book of chess, dice, and backgammon) Alfonso manuscript. Today anyone can down- of the thirteenth-century Castilian king Alfonso X. load a full-color digital facsimile from the web.

www.uschess.org 33 Cover Story / John G. White Collection

The Murray-White correspondence fills several archival albums.

ASSOCIATION COPIES One of the most exciting things about researching in the White collection are the serendipitous surprises. You may request a fairly pedestrian item and when you open it, wonderful associations are revealed. In an otherwise unremarkable nineteenth-century chess story by Jacob G. Ascher, chess journalist for New Dominion Monthly, one can see that this copy has been uniquely excerpted from the journal and rebound. The author’s inscription A HISTORY OF CHESS shows he made of it a presentation copy to Johannes Zukertort in 1884. Below that is a note One early beneficiary of John G. White’s collection was H. J. R. Murray, author of the definitive A History of in John G. White’s hand, stating that he received Chess, published nearly a century ago. Between 1900 and 1918, Murray and White enjoyed a lively this copy from the famous problemist Alain C. exchange of letters. Among the many acknowledgements in the preface to his great work, Murray’s most White in 1913. And while a German translation fulsome thanks are reserved for White, “the owner of the largest chess library in the world,” explaining of Montigny’s 1820 edition of Kriegslisten des that he had benefited from the rare manuscripts White had obtained. “Whatever in the way of Schachspiels (Strategems of chess-play) is completeness I have been able to achieve is entirely due to Mr. White’s help. Without that help, this book hardly rare, a copy owned and heavily annotated would never have been written.” The original letters of the Murray-White correspondence are preserved by Max Lange is unique (photo, above). in the collection—and they have yet to be edited.

Continued from page 30 periodical is permanently archived. and rare and unusual chess sets and chess Although the Special Collections is an paraphernalia line the walls. Yes, you can unequaled repository of material for chess even ask to see Bobby Fischer’s scoresheets researchers, that is not all it is. Pam Eye- (see sidebar). rdam actively promotes links between The serious researcher, however, may Special Collections and the general pub- be interested in the many boxes of personal lic. Numerous library displays are drawn papers of noted chess players and writers, from the collection, and events—“Asian such as Paul Morphy biographer David Games,” “Chess Metaphors, Anecdotes Lawson, the late GM László Szabó, former and Proverbs,” and “Women in Chess,” to U.S. Women’s Champion Gisela Khan name a few. It has hosted the Ken Whyld Gresser (see sidebar), and the notorious Association. Claude F. Bloodgood. There is also a col- The CPL actively partners with other lection of nineteenth- and twentieth- institutions and the White Collection has century chess correspondence. Much of had an active role. For several years run- the material in these boxes has never been ning, Professor Barbara Stanczak has thoroughly catalogued and may hold inter- engaged her Cleveland Institute of Art stu- esting surprises (see sidebar). dents in the “Chess by Design” project RESCUED FROM THE TRASH The number of digitized images and where they design original sets for dis- texts is growing on the library’s online play in the Special Collections reading Among the many boxes of manuscript website, where you can find a collection of room, temporarily joining the permanent material in the collection is an uncatalogued chess player images and the beautiful Ital- collection of sets on display from around box of material rescued from the Marshall ian manuscript, Il dilettevole (see sidebar). the world. Chess Club. You will probably recognize this The collection, however, is primarily In 2011, the Lockwood Thompson famous game, but the annotator has yet to founded on and maintains print copies Library endowment commissioned Cleve- be identiﬁed. What else might be tucked away and has yet to establish a purely digital land Center for Arts & Technology in such boxes, just waiting for the right archive. States and regions that publish a instructor Donald Black, Jr., to create a researcher to bring it to light? print newsletter should include the CPL in special exhibition for the library, “Power of their mailings to ensure that their chess the Pieces,” in which he handcrafted over

34 December 2012 | Chess Life Cover Story / John G. White Collection

Kelly Ross Brown displays the Dilettevole manuscript. John G. White looks on approvingly from a painting over her shoulder. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CHESS MANUSCRIPT EVER MADE The White collection has a large number of chess instruction books, many even in manuscript, from medieval Persia and Europe, along with many plain modern printed books. For sheer artistic excellence and exuberant beauty, however, none can compare to the early eighteenth-century Italian manuscript, Il dilettevole, e giudizioso giuoco de scacchi (the pleasurable and most judicious game of chess). Each of the 49 diagrams are rendered in ﬁnely executed miniatures where the heads of kings, queens, knights, horses, towers, and soldiers are arranged on the checkerboard, their movements indicated by lines of force arranged in abstract geometric patterns. For all this, however, the text reminds us, “La pratica, l’esempio, vale più delle parole” (practice and example is of more value than words).

1,000 chess pieces for the project. His dis- at nearby private Bridge Avenue School, play tables are now a permanent feature of which serves academically troubled chil- the reading room and foyer. dren. All students play chess there. One After a full day of chess dreaming, the day the school lost power and no one could librarians and I retreated to a nearby study in the cold dark. The students asked chocolate bar, where Pam Eyerdam, Kelly if they could go to the library to play chess. Ross Brown, and Stacie Brisker told me As always, they were welcomed into the IF YOU GO about other connections between the Spe- Special Collections reading room where No appointment is necessary to visit the cial Collections and the community. they set up their boards. They were so Special Collections Reading Room (photo, “Progress with Chess,” a Cleveland-based grateful, they promised to be quiet. above). If you come for research, check the non-profit after-school chess program In these ways the library uniquely brings Cleveland Public Library online catalogue founded and administered by Michael together the illustrious past of chess with beforehand for availability of material and do Joelson (national chess master and 2003 its living present. The first thing one notices contact the librarians with any questions. If Ohio champion) maintains close connec- is the large chess set in the foyer outside you know what you want to consult, let the tions with the CPL, which hosts an annual the Special Collections reading room. How librarians know at least a few days before you spring tournament for the kids. tempting, like the children, to put off study arrive and they will have the material waiting Meanwhile, children have seen their lives for a bit and just play in the present. Life for you. The stacks are closed to the public. turned around thanks to a chess program can indeed be a dream here.