English Chess Forum

We remember Ernst Klein (29-i-1910 22-viii-1990)

I would prefer to forget this person.

Indeed, "not a terribly easy person to get on with" might be a not unfair summary by all accounts.

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?

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.

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.

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.

[Event "BBC Radio game"] [Site "corr"] [Date "1952.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Klein, Ernst"] [Black "Barda, Olaf"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A03"] [Annotator "CHESS Aug 1952 pp. 222-3; Penrose, J"] [PlyCount "76"] [EventDate "1952.??.??"] [EventType "corr"] 1. g3 d5 2. Bg2 Nf6 3. f4 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. c3 e6 6. d3 Qc7 7. O-O Be7 8. e4 dxe4 9. dxe4 Nxe4 10. Ne5 Nd6 11. Nxc6 bxc6 12. Qa4 O-O 13. Be3 Rb8 14. b3 Nb5 15. Rc1 Rd8 16. Qe4 Rd5 17. Qc2 Bb7 18. Qf2 Nd6 19. g4 f5 20. c4 Rd3 21. g5 Rd8 22. Nc3 Bc8 23. Na4 Ne4 24. Bxe4 fxe4 25. Nb2 R3d4 26. Re1 Rf8 27. Bxd4 Rxf4 28. Rxe4 Rxe4 29. Rf1 Bd6 30. Be3 Bxh2+ 31. Kg2 Bd6 32. Qf3 Rh4 33. Rh1 Rxh1 34. Kxh1 Qf7 35. Kg2 Bd7 36. Qd1 Qe7 37. Qf3 e5 38. Qe4 Qe6 {[#] This game was played at the rate of one move per day over a period of about three months. 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. The phrase was evidently a standing joke at the time. CHESS magazine (July 1952) has a good account of Klein's bad behaviour in this matter contrasted with Barda's sportsmanship. Barda annotated this game in CHESS Aug 1952 pp. 222-3, saying Klein offered to continue by post, which would have been no good for the BBC.} 0-1

"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".

""Klein bottled out of continuing".

Very good!

From The Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer - Friday 03 November 1950 p.3

Many thanks for that.

The current home for the article is

https://web.archive.org/web/20250210191 ... viii-1990/

until I can recover BCN properly back to health.

and the article has been restored:


https://britishchessnews.com/2020/08/22 ... viii-1990/