English Chess Forum

Moscow 1967, very detailed look at the players on stage. Here, Keres looms large:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcKouHIVIvI&t=354s
James

The old masters at work.

James Pratt wrote: ↑

Sun May 11, 2025 11:56 pm

Moscow 1967, very detailed look at the players on stage. Here, Keres looms large:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcKouHIVIvI&t=354s
James

Nostalgic to see the smokers, including Spassky. Did he smoke at the board during the 1972 match v Fischer?

As a teacher at the school where Bedfordshire often used a couple of classrooms for home county matches I used to bring ash trays down from the staff room. I recently mentioned this in a car on the way to a match and a twelve-year-old passenger asked, "What's an ash tray?"

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Mon May 12, 2025 12:07 am

The old masters at work.

"Old" is the operative word here. Several of those guys (Petrosian and Stein especially) look noticeably more than their chronological ages. Sobering too to recall how so many of them didn't live to make old bones. Stein, gone at 39; Petrosian and Tal both at 55; Keres at 59 (he doesn't look too bad here, but is noticeably overweight); Gipslis at 63; Bobotsov at 68. All the huff-puff-stuff referred to by Paul certainly wouldn't have helped.

Though some did live to a fair age nonetheless - indeed two participants (Gheorghiu and Portisch) are still alive.

Where it gets even trickier is ascertaining whether this does indeed qualify as a misnomer, as is so often stated in the west. This avoids the realization that the Soviets used more than one calander and weren't always depedent on the Gregorian calander but also the Julian Calendar which precedes it, which clearly states the October revolution began in October and not November, as the Gregorian calendar suggests, therefore, its not really a misnomer.