"Chess ... & Stuff"

This will be a page for chess-related stuff, odds and ends, etc. Page last edited on: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 06:23 PM .

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Here is a chess-trivia question:
In a span of almost 35 years, ONLY ONE (1!) man ever finished ahead of Emanuel Lasker or Jose R. Capablanca in an international chess tournament. This one person accomplished this feat {at least} THREE different times. Who was this man?

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At one time I had a plus score against several World Champions. Like Capablanca, I won the first International Chess Tournament that I ever played in. I won the Soviet Championship(s) ... more than once. (I also - later - won one of the strongest international tournaments of that period.) In the mid-1960's there was no ELO-rating system ... but if there had been, I may have been the NUMBER ONE player in the whole world! Yet - at that time - most western chess players DID NOT EVEN KNOW MY NAME!!!

---> Who am I? (Leonid Stein. Answer posted in July, 2004.)

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I was the first FIDE-era World Champion to successfully defend my title. Who am I? (Answer: GM Tigran Petrosian.)

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At one time, I was the youngest IM in the world. Later, at age 18, I became the youngest FIDE GM of all time. (Up until that time ... obviously this was some time in the past.) Then 2-3 years later, my country considered me ... "all washed up at chess." But later I was to successfully make a run at the World Championship. Who am I? ANSWER: Boris Spassky (Answer posted: October 22nd, 2004.)

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I was a world-wide media sensation as a teen-ager. (NOT Bobby Fischer!!) I represented my country at the FIDE Olympiads ...
and I even won a medal for my performance. I was one of the better prodigies of chess, yet you can probably ask the average chess player today about me ... and all you will get is a blank look. (OR - "I heard or read his name somewhere, but I can't recall any details.')

WHO AM I??? {Gotten several e-mails on this one, hee-hee.} (Question posted: July 23rd, 2004.)

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I was the youngest World Champion ever, at least up until that time. My story is one of a true chess meteor, blazing across the heavens. I was a virtual nobody ... two-to-three years later, I win the National Championships, {twice in a row!}; and then - within a relatively short span of time - I am the WORLD CHAMPION!!
(I also have NEVER played the current, reigning world champ in real, OTB chess. We play for the VERY FIRST TIME in the first game of our FIDE Chess World Championships. The game is a French Winawer, the experts feel I stand {much} worse out of the opening. Yet I win one of the most brilliant games of the whole match. I {then} go on to dominate the rest of the match. I - later - will write a book about this match, it will go down in history as one of the best chess books on a world championship match ever written.)

WHO AM I??? Answer: Mikhail Tal. (Question posted: July 23rd, 2004; answer posted October 22nd, 2004.)

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Who was the ONLY master (at least - the first one) ... to win the championship of the USSR ... three out of a possible (1st) four tries? (March, 2005.) Answer: GM Leonid Stein. (Posted in Nov, 2005.)
(Note: November 29th, 2011: Peter Svidler has won the Russian Championships many times now ... he may have also equaled this record, but I am not 100% sure.)

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Who was the FIRST person ... to break Bobby Fischer's record ... of the youngest GM (age 15)? (Its not who you think. Sept, 2005) Answer: GM Judit Polgar. (Oct, 2011) [more] [article] [webpage]

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Who is currently the person to hold the record for the youngest GM? How old was he when he gained the title? (Nov, 2005.) [article]

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If you have a tidbit of interesting chess trivia, send it to me.

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