Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

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John Upham
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Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by John Upham » Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:50 am

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Tim Harding
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by Tim Harding » Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:48 pm

I would prefer to forget this person.
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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:20 pm

Indeed, "not a terribly easy person to get on with" might be a not unfair summary by all accounts.
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

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John Upham
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by John Upham » Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:48 am

Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:20 pm
Indeed, "not a terribly easy person to get on with" might be a not unfair summary by all accounts.
Could you relate these accounts in this place?
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:52 pm

Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:20 pm
Indeed, "not a terribly easy person to get on with" might be a not unfair summary by all accounts.
One story is that when he returned to active play in the early 1970s, he demanded that he play on top board in the Counties competition for Essex. Board 2 would have been Jonathan Penrose who apparently gave way to avoid a row.

An example is the Essex v Oxford match of 28th October 1972 (source SCCU bulletin 1972_89). Although headed "Surrey", an unmistakeably Essex team had Klein on one drawing with Moles, whilst on two, Penrose defeated Tim Harding.

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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Tue Aug 24, 2021 1:14 pm

John Upham wrote:
Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:48 am
Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:20 pm
Indeed, "not a terribly easy person to get on with" might be a not unfair summary by all accounts.
Could you relate these accounts in this place?
Just going on the accounts of others in that assessment, but Edward Winter's feature article hints at some of them at least.
"Set up your attacks so that when the fire is out, it isn't out!" (H N Pillsbury)

Tim Harding
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by Tim Harding » Tue Aug 24, 2021 5:38 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:52 pm
Matt Mackenzie wrote:
Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:20 pm
Indeed, "not a terribly easy person to get on with" might be a not unfair summary by all accounts.
One story is that when he returned to active play in the early 1970s, he demanded that he play on top board in the Counties competition for Essex. Board 2 would have been Jonathan Penrose who apparently gave way to avoid a row.

An example is the Essex v Oxford match of 28th October 1972 (source SCCU bulletin 1972_89). Although headed "Surrey", an unmistakeably Essex team had Klein on one drawing with Moles, whilst on two, Penrose defeated Tim Harding.
I can absolutely verify that, except that I thought the date was a bit earlier in the autumn. This was probably the first Oxfordshire county match of the 1972/3 season as normally I wouldn't have been on such a high board. Probably the Oxfordshire team consisted of postgraduates and local players. To our surprise Essex had Ernest Klein on top board (because he wouldn't play otherwise) and Jonathan Penrose had agreed to play board 2. Moles had no trouble drawing with Klein.

Many years later I interviewed Penrose for my magazine and we had a good laugh over the contrast between the modest Penrose (who had a lot not to be modest about) and the arrogant Klein. He told me the story of the Barda radio match which is, I think, mentioned in the Winter article.

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John Clarke
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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by John Clarke » Wed Aug 25, 2021 4:02 am

"When Klein (who was being paid to play the game) got to this position two pawns down, he refused either to play on or to resign. "He de-Kleined to continue" as Penrose put it when interviewed for Chess Mail issue 3 of 2000."

Or, as his mathematician brother Roger might have put it: "Klein bottled out of continuing".
"The chess-board is the world ..... the player on the other side is hidden from us ..... he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance."
(He doesn't let you resign and start again, either.)

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Re: Remembering Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:24 am

""Klein bottled out of continuing".

Very good!