Historical knowledge and information regarding our great game.
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John Saunders
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by John Saunders » Mon May 06, 2024 4:55 pm
John Townsend wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2024 4:13 pm
John, regarding the "thrilling encounter", the name "Dr. H. Fraenkel" must contain an error because Dr. H.L. Fraenkel had a middle initial (L), and Assiac was not a doctor!
I would suggest the answer lies in the sentence, "He played with distinction in the premier reserve tournament in the recent Kent Congress."
Surely, Margate is being referred to, and Assiac's performance there. Therefore, I suggest that the "Dr." part of "Dr. H. Fraenkel" needs to be deleted.
Yes, that is what I was hinting at.
Since writing the above post, I've been browsing Assiac's
Adventure in Chess and found an almost identical score on page 68 (Turnstile Press 1951 edition) with Assiac's comment: "Here, to show that sacrificial orgies are by no means restricted to master practice, is a little game won by a player, who wishes to remain nameless, against an equally obscure opponent." I think we can assume he was the winner of the game. I give the book's version of the score as a variation:
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Jon D'Souza-Eva
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by Jon D'Souza-Eva » Mon May 06, 2024 6:21 pm
Heinrich Fraenkel was from Germany.
Well he seems to have been born in Lissa (Leszno), which was indeed in Prussia when he was born in 1897, but became part of Poland after WWI
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John Townsend
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by John Townsend » Mon May 06, 2024 6:25 pm
I was just about to make a similar comment to Jon's about his birth in Lissa, since that is the place given in the information on Assiac's birth certificate in Edward Winter's C.N. 10360.
However, if The Observer gave White's name as "Dr. Hersch Lazar Fraenkel", there's no uncertainty.
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John Saunders
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by John Saunders » Mon May 06, 2024 7:29 pm
The inevitable confusion between the two H Fraenkels was not confined to EGW, Gaige and me. BH Wood published the following match result...
1952-03-11-birmingham-post-london-v-birmingham.png
... in the
Birmingham Daily Post of 11 March 1952, some four years after Dr. H L Fraenkel had died.
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James Pratt
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by James Pratt » Mon May 06, 2024 8:21 pm
I saw Assiac at a book launch at Pergamon's Headington Hill Hall in probably 1978. I think Tony Miles had succeeded him as NEWSTATEMAN columnist by then. Nunn and Speelman gave simuls and Robert Maxwell appeared and said - he was good at this - that he should be elsewhere adding, as if we cared, that he'd met Brezhnev and also Karpov on a recent Moscow visit. He had a girl, presumably hired, pulling at his sleeve the whole while, seemingly tearful. Later I spotted Assiac on my return train a drop of whisky in hand.
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Kevin Thurlow
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by Kevin Thurlow » Mon May 06, 2024 10:05 pm
The inevitable confusion between the two H Fraenkels was not confined to EGW, Gaige and me. BH Wood published the following match result...
1952-03-11-birmingham-post-london-v-birmingham.png
I'm feeling old - I've played six of the London team...
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John Clarke
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by John Clarke » Tue May 07, 2024 1:46 am
Re that London v Birmingham match result: P H Clarke (no relation, btw) at Board 9 in a "poor team"?? Only 18-19 at the time of course, but still makes peculiar reading.
"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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John Clarke
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by John Clarke » Tue May 07, 2024 1:56 am
A highly important field too! Thanks for drawing our attention to this, Jon. I've been saying for years that Britain needs to make more of its natural geographical advantages in this way.
"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.)