English Chess Forum

Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-iv-1907 15-iii-1980)

Gerald Abrahams was one of the strongest British amateurs for many years and an excellent writer and wit. His Not Only Chess is well worth obtaining but not easy to find.

He was involved in possibly the most famous chess legal case involving a murder.

Based in Liverpool and a Barrister at Law.

He was a keen problem composer and had many fine OTB wins to his credit including over a Soviet GM.

He developed the Abrahams variation of the Semi-Slav Defence in 1920s.

John - if you can enable comments on the BCN piece, there's one or two things I could add.

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:13 pm

John - if you can enable comments on the BCN piece, there's one or two things I could add.

Apologies, Now enabled.

I could explain why I forgot to enable them but no-one would be interested!

I'm pleased to take corrections, typos etc via a pm of course.

Thanks, John. I've added my bits - hope readers find something of interest there. I don't bother about typos and things these days unless they're really gross. Plenty of other folk around who like to point out that sort of stuff.

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 18, 2021 8:30 am

Thanks, John. I've added my bits - hope readers find something of interest there. I don't bother about typos and things these days unless they're really gross. Plenty of other folk around who like to point out that sort of stuff.

Many thanks for your comments. I will integrate these with the existing content and make any appropriate corrections. I'd not heard the horse racing story previously.

Talking of typographical errors I've noticed that older commentaries sometimes use the word "close" when referring to what we would nowadays call a "closed" position.

These kind of potential errors are best reported via a pm to this place.

Thanks!

Trefor Thynne wrote today on the BCN web site:


Remembering Gerald Abrahams (15-4-1907 – 15-3-1980)

I was delighted to read the article on Gerald Abrahams and particularly so because it included the game G. Abrahams v R.S.Thynne ( Liverpool 1930).
Reginald Thynne (1911-1991) was my father. He recalled the occasion of the Abrahams game very clearly – Abrahams was so pleased with his combination that he took my father out for a restaurant meal immediately afterwards. The game appears in Abrahams’ book “The Chess Mind” on page 43 where he comments that the move 2Qg8+ is “ one of the very few moves known to the Author which merits an exclamation mark although the main variation is only 2 moves deep”. Abrahams was perhaps not the most modest of chess players! My father wryly remarked on one occasion that losing this game was his only claim to chess fame despite playing all his life! A Liverpudlian, like Abrahams and a member of Liverpool Central Chess Club , he was Club Champion in 1937 ( I still have the replica trophy) and moved with the family to Devon in 1955 to take up a teaching post at Exeter Technical College. He became a leading figure in Devon Chess as Secretary and Match Captain of the very successful Teignmouth club, founder of the Teignmouth Rapidplay Congress in 1982 and later as President of the Devon County Chess Association. He was very active in the promotion of junior chess, a cause I endeavoured myself to maintain as teacher in charge of chess at Torquay Boys’ Grammar School for 30 years from 1987.

John, that is not Gerald Abrahams surely? Not our man anyway .. wrong pic ..

Hello John,
I suspect you might find that Gerald Abrahams was not born in Liverpool but Prescot, despite many internet references to the contrary. Prescot was not considered part of Liverpool until about 1974. Happy to be proved wrong.

He was born in the registration district of West Derby.

West Derby was created in 1837 and abolished in 1934. Prescot was not part of it, but parts of Liverpool were

(according to https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/reg/districts/ ... derby.html)

Excuse me, gentlemen (White & Townsend), but here from one who knows (or should know).

Prescot is not in Liverpool (it's in Knowsley); West Derby is most definitely in Liverpool.

Gerald Abrahams used to play for Prescot & Knotty Ash CC. Knotty Ash is in Liverpool; Ken Dodd lived there

I met Gerald Abrahams just once, in a match against P&KA CC in c.1976. He met John Carleton on top board. Carleton punted the Evans Gambit, and after 4...Bb6 (the gambit, declined), Carleton played the standard 5. a4. To which Abrahams responded with his trademark, but theoretically unfavoured, 5...a5. And lost. Quickly. The last we would ever see of him was a man in a hurry stalking from the room. A great man. But comically self-regarding

David Robertson will, I expect, appreciate that the discussion until now has been about places as they were in 1907, when Abrahams was born, and that the references to West Derby are to the registration district of that name.

The way to resolve fully the matter of where he was born would be for E. Michael White to invest £11.00 in purchasing a birth certificate. If he discovers that the birth was in Prescot, I will refund him the £11.00 and eat suitably humble pie.

Where was Gerald Abrahams born? Use your skill and judgement to decide the parish of his birth. (Quoted odds are notional only).

3/1 Liverpool

25/1
West Derby
West Derby Rural

33/1
Aintree
Allerton
Bootle cum Linacre
Childwall
Croxteth Park
Everton
Fazakerley
Ford
Garston
Great Crosby
Ince Blundell
Kirkby
Kirkdale
Litherland
Little Crosby
Lunt
Netherton
Orrell
Orrell & Ford
Seaforth
Sefton
Thornton
Toxteth Park
Walton on the Hill
Waterloo
Wavertree

66/1
Prescot
Knotty Ash

James Pratt wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 01, 2022 6:51 pm

John, that is not Gerald Abrahams surely? Not our man anyway .. wrong pic ..

I have contacted the National Portrait Gallery to investigate the matter.

David Robertson wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 06, 2022 2:53 pm

I met Gerald Abrahams just once, in a match against P&KA CC in c.1976. He met John Carleton on top board. Carleton punted the Evans Gambit, and after 4...Bb6 (the gambit, declined), Carleton played the standard 5. a4. To which Abrahams responded with his trademark, but theoretically unfavoured, 5...a5. And lost. Quickly. The last we would ever see of him was a man in a hurry stalking from the room. A great man. But comically self-regarding

I found most of GA's chess works enjoyable reading, and think they stand up fairly well today.

But it would still be dishonest to claim he doesn't come across at times as somebody with a high opinion of himself.

I don't think anyone has said, ever, that Gerald didn't have a high opinion of himself.