Reshevsky tales

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 05 November 2010)

Last Friday we were discussing the theoretical paper authored by Charles C. Moula and John V.C. Nye where through a series of statistical simulations they concluded that Samuel Reshevsky (in photo, sourced from chesshistory.com) might very well have won the 1953 Zurich Candidates’ Tournament (instead of Smyslov) and faced Botvinnik for the world championship. Would Reshevsky then have a chance of upending the defending world champion? It is not so farfetched that he could win -- Reshevsky had in fact always been a difficult opponent for Botvinnik.

Reshevsky was held in much higher regard then than he is now. In 1964 Bobby Fischer wrote an article for ChessWorld a short-lived American magazine. The article was called "Ten Greatest Masters in History." Here are the 10 players Fischer named, in no particular order: Paul Morphy, Howard Staunton, Wilhelm Steinitz, Siegbert Tarrasch, Mikhail Tchigorin, Alexander Alekhine, Jose Capablanca, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Tal and Samuel Reshevsky.

Take note: no Emanuel Lasker, no Tigran Petrosian (reigning world champion then), no Akiba Rubinstein. There is, however, a Howard Staunton and Samuel Reshevsky.

Reshevsky was a child prodigy born in 1911 in Lodz (here shown in photo doing a simul at 8 years old against adults), then part of the Russian Empire but now part of Poland. He learned to play chess at age four, and was soon acclaimed as a child prodigy. At age eight he was beating accomplished players with ease, and giving simultaneous exhibitions. In November 1920, his parents moved to the US to make a living exhibiting their child. Reshevsky played thousands of games in exhibitions all over the US. Under the guardianship of Julius Rosenwald (co-owner of Sears, Roebuck and Co.) he temporarily gave up competitive chess for seven years, from 1924 to 1931, to complete his secondary education. He enrolled at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1934 with a degree in accounting. He then took up his professional chess career again in 1935 and was soon among the top players in the world.

Samuel Herman Reshevsky left few brilliant games behind, but we have to remember that he was brought up as a child with a constant diet of simultaneous games where brilliancy was not a necessity -- he just had to avoid mistakes and exploit the inaccuracies of his opponents to rack up huge winning margins.

In fact, Emanuel Lasker did not have a high opinion of the young prodigy’s play. Reshevsky remembers one incident when he was 15 years old and Lasker was in Detroit for an exhibition. His friend Morris Steinberg invited Lasker to be his guest. After a friendly chat, Steinberg suggested to Lasker that he play a game with Reshevsky. Infuriated at the suggestion, Lasker ran upstairs without saying a word and never returned.

I looked up Ed Beronio’s Ultimate Chess Collection ver.3 to come up with some anecdotes about Reshevsky.

1. The five highest-rated 80-year-olds in history according to chessmetrics.com were Samuel Reshevsky, Vassily Smyslov, Svetozar Gligoric, Antonio Medina, and Stuart Wagman.

2. Samuel Reshevsky had the worst memory of any great player according to some of the New York players. They would show him a game or position and he wouldn’t remember that he just played it a few months ago. This really held him back. He admitted that he never studied middle or end games, just calculated over the board. He spent all his time trying to memorize openings. Often not too successfully!

There was a little story in the book, someone showed Reshevsky a game, and Reshevsky said that the players "weren’t very good" and the game was uninteresting... it was one of Reshevsky’s own games! Forgotten!

3. "How are you?" asked a Russian interpreter to Sammy Reshevsky as they met for the first time right before the 1948 World Championship Tournament. "Fine," Reshevsky replied curtly but fairly politely. Reshevsky was suprised by the Russian’s panicked reaction: The interpreter fled.

Reshevsky did not know, however, that the interpreter meant to ask: "Who are you?" but his English was limited. Soon there was a brief period of panic among the Soviet delegation based on a rumor that Reuben Fine (his great American rival who was also invited to contend for the world championship but declined the invitation) did arrive to play after all!

4. In 1952 the Swedish GM Gideon Stahlberg described Reshevsky’s style as colorless. Former world champion Max Euwe did not completely agree with this assessment. In his book Meet the Masters, Euwe wrote that GM Samuel Reshevsky liked boring positions, "that is, positions that were boring to his opponent."

5. GM Isaac Kashdan should have been US Champion in 1942, but lost out to Reshevsky when the TD scored Reshevsky’s time-forfeit loss to Denker as a win instead. Denker had already won on time, but the tournament director (Walter Stephens) came up from behind the clock, turned it around, and forfeited the wrong player. Despite violent protestations Stephens refused to change his decision, which ultimately gave Reshevsky the title.

6. Reshevsky shares one distinction with Frank J. Marshall. Both of them had their collection of best games (Fifty Years of Chess for Marshall and Reshevsky on chess) ghost-written by Fred Reinfeld.

7. GMs Samuel Reshevsky and Miguel Najdorf exchanged punches on at least two occasions in two different tournaments.

8. Nottingham 1936: America’s two best players Samuel Reshevsky and Reuben Fine really didn’t like one another. They nearly got into a fistfight in one of the greatest tournaments of all time when Fine became increasingly upset at Reshevsky’s attempts to win a dead-drawn endgame.

9. Fischer-Reshevsky Match 1961: One story goes that on a particular hot days Fischer demanded a fan but Reshevsky declared that the sound of a fan prevented him from concentrating; Reshevsky wanted air-conditioning but Fischer said it was too cold. Hence, the arbiter, apart from his main responsibilities, also performed "auxiliary" ones such as turning the fan on during Fischer’s move, and then switching it off during Reshevsky’s.

10. Larry Evans: "One problem with dealing with Sammy Reshevsky was his wife, who was a pest that interfered in his games. At the US Open in 1955 I was analyzing some game with Donald Byrne at the far end of the tournament hall while one of Sammy’s games was in progress. His wife came over and swept the pieces from our board, "Stop analyzing my husband’s game!" she shrieked."

One of Reshevsky’s most famous games was against the legendary Cuban Capablanca in 1935 Margate. He was 23 years old and this was the first time to meet Capablanca in chess encounter. Reshevsky opened with his favorite Queen’s Pawn opening and Capablanca relied on the Orthodox Defense. On the 27th move, Capablanca offered a draw but Reshevsky promptly declined. Capablanca’s face reddened visibly. On the 40th move, Reshevsky again declined Capablanca’s second draw offer. Capablanca was visibly disturbed. Reshevsky finally won in the end game that enabled him to win first prize.

Reshevsky, Samuel Herman -- Capablanca, Jose Raul [D62]
Margate (4), 1935
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