| Jul-25-04 | | WMD: A Kingpin tribute by John Hawkes:
J V Kellner 1931-1988
John Kellner was a stylist, some would say eccentric. He was born on the 12th of December 1931 in Blayney NSW, Australia. He married Narelle Jorgensen (born 18.10.34) who was also a very good chessplayer. John had failed to qualify for the 5th World Championship but won his next preliminary section with eleven wins from 14 games. He finished in joint fifth place in the 6th World Championship, rumour having it that he gave up work to devote all his time and energy to the title chase. He beat the higher finishing Estrin with a King's Gambit, bamboozled Theile with 1 e4 e6 2 b3!?, his Reti-inspired favourite against the French, drew comfortably against the formidable Zagorovsky and narrowly failed to upset the tournament winner Rittner using his speciality 3...Be7 in the French, a line of play he pioneered before Romanishin rolled it out in the mid-70s. However, with the White side of the Sicilian his closed system fell flat and the world title was to rest a dream for a player who could put together some of the most original, profound and complex games to be found in the world of postal chess. Our tribute to a wonderfully talented player, a staggering example of his variante preferee in the French: Sevecek vs J Kellner, 1968 We will not be seeing any more games by John Kellner, nor by his wife Narelle. He had been suspended from driving his taxi after an accident in which two young people had been killed. He was suffering from an incurable illness and awaiting trial. Narelle took his life, and a few days later her own. |
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| Jul-25-04 | | HailM0rphy: woah.
*Marks off another tally for another chess player gone crazy/killed themselves* |
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Jun-23-10
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| Mar-26-12 | | wordfunph: <WMD: Narelle took his life, and a few days later her own.> sad fate.
rest in peace, IMC Kellner.. |
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| Mar-26-12 | | optimal play: I recall that I used to enjoy reading his chess column in the paper each Sunday. It usually had an interesting game with useful comments and news. |
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| Mar-27-12 | | twinlark: Me 2. Used to be the Mirror wasn't it? Not that I ever read such a smutty rag... |
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| Mar-27-12 | | ozmikey: <twinlark> Mirror is probably right, that was before the Telegraph and the Mirror combined (and the Sunday paper became the Sunday Telegraph). Those days in Sydney it was the late and much missed Terrey Shaw in the Bulletin (the best Australian chess column of all in my view), Phil Viner in the Australian (still going), Peter Parr in the SMH (still going) whose contribution was and is not so much a column as a news roundup, and Kellner. I don't think Ian Rogers had his regular Sun-Herald column (which remains excellent, by the way) at that time, but I may be wrong. I never knew John Kellner but Narelle was a bit of a mother figure to many of the Sydney juniors of my era. She was no mean player herself (she nearly beat Gaprindashvili at one Olympiad in the seventies), and she was a deeply respected coach and arbiter. I remember being devastated at the news of her suicide. There were some very insensitive and inaccurate accounts of their deaths in the subsequent days, too. |
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| Mar-27-12 | | twinlark: <ozmikey>
It sounds like a really tough time was had by them both, and I must admit I don't know the whole story; what I did read at the time sounded bad - is there a decent account somewhere I can read, or is it pretty much summed up in one of the comments below? Hope that doesn't sound morbid. I do remember seeing them in the Doeberl a few times back in the day, and I always enjoyed John's columns as much as I hated the Mirror. BTW, do you remember the inaugural story of the merged Mirror and Telegraph, when they actually called it the "Telegraph Mirror"? Ironically its first headline reported Kerry Packer's near fatal heart attack. |
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| Dec-04-14 | | ljfyffe: Keelner placed 6th (5th =) in the World CC
Championship VI Final (1968-1971). |
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| Jun-12-17 | | Kashew: Nice to see my Kingpin tribute, WMD |
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Kibitzing
