Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi lads.

The Aiken books are revealing all kinds of hidden gems including one game v W.H. Cozens (alas not a King Hunt)
which is a very rare find indeed. chessgames.com never even had a Cozens page till I sub'd them the game.

One game in Aitken book 14 has myself, John and Alan McGowan stumped.
(though between you and me, the three of us love a good chess mystery.)

Obviously some kind of correspondence game from December 1952- June 1953.
But who or what is HSR and HJL



Aitken also kept a separate index of his games and here is the index 'H' entry. date is 1952-1953.
You will notice Aitken has marked it '1' so what ever this is he won or was on the winning side.



Aitken lived in Russell Square, London when it was started and moved to Cheltenham in 1953.
He tells us on the bottom of the score that on the 28th April 1953 v Jim Adams which is game 657,
(the game before the mysterious 658 was entered ) this was his last game in London before moving to Cheltenham.

Anybody any ideas? I have a feeling I am missing something obvious but cannot quite nail it.

The full game:

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.c4 Nc6 4.d4 cxd4 5.Nxd4 e5 6.Nc2 Bc5 7.Be3 d6 8.Nc3 Nf6 9.Be2 Be6 10.0-0 0-0 11.Kh1 Rc8 12.f3 Nh5 13.g3 Bxe3 14.Nxe3 Qg5 15.Ng2 Qh6 16.Kg1 Nd4 17.b3 b5 18.f4 Nxe2+ 19.Qxe2 bxc4 20.f5 cxb3 21.fxe6 Rxc3 22.exf7+ Rxf7 23.Qxa6 Rxf1+ 24.Rxf1 Qe6 25.axb3 Nf6 26.b4 Rc2 27.Ne3 Ra2 28.Qd3 d5 29.Nxd5 Nxd5 30.Qxd5 Qxd5 31.exd5 Rb2 32.Re1 Rxb4 33.Rxe5 Rb5 34.Kf2 Kf7 35.g4 Kf6 36.Rf5+ Kg6 37.Ke3 Rb1 38.Kd4 Rb4+ 39.Ke5 Rxg4 40.Rf2 Rg1 41.Ke6 Re1+ 42.Kd7 Rd1 43.d6 1-0

[Tim Harding]

This game is not in my huge CC database.
Perhaps it's a game he didn't play himself but copied it because he was interested in it for some reason?
What did AItken normally write for himself in the White/Black fields?

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Tim,

He usually fills in the names and initials though the handwriting, especially in a 'live' book,
a book he used during the actual game as opposed to copying it in from a loose score sheet,
is sometimes a wee bit dodgy.

This is an example of the details he supplies, I have just sent it to John, I cannot make out the player of the White bits.
The Index is not helping as it is even more obscure and Aitken only played this player once.

He sometimes adds wee tit-bits. Like here, 'this was his first loss in 21 games.'

I have not come across any other game in his books that he has not played.
It's a strange one - hopefully somebody will clear it up.

Whilst here, can you see who was White? (and what club are they playing for?)

[Geoff Chandler]

Got the name to last query. Wladyslaw Tabakiernik and the club is probably Leicester. (thanks John)

[David Williams]

The index seems to suggest it's HSr and HSl. Right and left, though that doesn't explain what or who HS is?

[Tim Harding]

Sr could mean Senior?
The dates of the correspondence game suggest it could have been played in the Ward-Higgs inter-county competition of that season, so it might be worth checking out the BCF Yearbooks for 1952, 1953 and especially 1954 to see if the individual competitors are listed.
Lots of OTB players only played by post in that competition, which was run by the BCF.
Perhaps a game played by one of Aitken's team-mates? If he had played the game, why would he not put his own name down?

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Dave,

It is odd. HSL in the index but looks like HJL on score sheet.



Thanks for the heads up Tim regarding year books and correspondence information.

Looking at it again, maybe the 'r' is a 'v' and it HS v HJL or HSL.
(that sound you just heard is a straw being clutched - but even so, none the wiser.)

[Matt Mackenzie]

Have you seen any other games in these books where Aitken does not appear to be one of the players?

[David Williams]

The third letter in each is clearly lower case, which must have some relevance. It would be nice if you could make them HSr and HJr, which would be Senior and Junior, but that doesn't seem to work. You have plenty of his handwriting, but even on what we can see the one that looks like a J could be a sloppy S.

The only other forensic thought would be whether the game appears to be written all with the same pen at the same time, which shows it was transcribed after it had finished, but that doesn't really prove anything

[Kevin Thurlow]

The 1954 game is I think against Wladislaw Tabakiernik (1906 -1997?), originally from Poland, then England. He played in the British Championship in mid 60s. I vaguely remembered a name starting Tabak... and searched for that on Chessbase.

See also https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=40871

which says he lived in Leicester, which could be the club in Aitken's scrawl (not that I'm one to criticize bad handwriting). See today's comment from Sally Simpson...

Spelling of his forename varied.

Edit - and in 1961, he played Leonard Barden in the Leicester Centenary event.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Lads,

Thanks for all the suggestions and interest.

This book with HSL etc is a copied book, that is the games have been entered in pencil from a loose score sheet.
The book with Tabakiernik (thanks all) is a live book, it is a book he used during the game.

No other game appears anywhere without Aitken's name. The give away is the '1' marked in the index book.
In the index book Aitken gives the name, game number, what book it is in (In Roman numerals) and the result.
He was white, or part of a white team and he or his team won. (his losses are recorded with 0. He was involved in this game)

The moves are always clear, but the handwriting for the names and events is tricky even in the copied books.
Usually he supplies all the details, once or twice no event or date. (very rare)
John and Alan have a good record in deciphering the handwriting the bogey is game 658 the HSL game.

Ian Whitaker is going through the Aitken papers which has amongst other things has load of loose score sheets.
When the books are done these will be checked to make sure we have them all - suspect they are doublers.
Maybe he might come across a clue to game 658 but as yet nothing.

Next trip to the club will be to see if we have the year books for the 1950's.

If all else fails then I'll buy a black candle, light it and play out the game backwards from the final position.
I'll let you know if this works.

Enjoying it. Feel privileged, especially using a live book. The games are good, I'm picking up things.
Want game 658 solved. It's bugging me.

[John Clarke]

Couple of random comments. (1) Anyone know if Dr Aitken was right or left handed? Might help in deciphering those names in #658. (2) Careful with spelling Mr Tabakiernik's forename - seeing it's Polish, should either (or even both) of the l's have that little cross through them that alters the pronunciation to something more like "w"?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"(2) Careful with spelling Mr Tabakiernik's forename - seeing it's Polish, should either (or even both) of the l's have that little cross through them that alters the pronunciation to something more like "w"?"

I assumed they did, but they are frequently omitted. I guessed he was "Vwadiswav"

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Is this the only correspondence game in the scorebooks? If there are others, what did he normally write in these fields for correspondence games? The start and finish dates might help pin it down to a specific game. And what did he tend to put on the scoresheet if he was part of a team? (What sort of team correspondence events were running then?) Are there any other scoresheets where he put lower-case 'r' and 'l'?

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

Aitken appears to right handed from the pictures of him at the board, score sheet on the right.
(and the board is round the correct way so the picture has not been accidently flipped.)

These are not names, it is Two teams playing a match by mail (or phone) from Dec 1953-JUne 1954.
Hopefully I'll know more if I can get my hands on 1950's year books.

If you look at the picture from the index.



Then look at the '5' in '658' and the five in '53' and '54' is looks like. H5 v H5L.
Which further complicates things. I'll go to the club on Monday or Tuesday next week
and hopefully find a bunch of 1950 year books.
Tim suggesting it may be from the Ward-Higgs inter-county competition sounds like a good lead.

If not I'll kidnap someone and send a photo-copy of the score sheet with the ransom note.
The police have experts in cryptographically they will solve it for me.
The accompanying 10 year prison sentence will be worth it.

Re: The Spelling.
John Saunders takes care of the finer details, I get the joy of playing over the games, he does the real work.