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Feb-19-02
 | | Sneaky: One of the greatest opening theoreticians of all time. I've heard that Samisch once said, "I'd be perfectly happy to play the first dozen moves and let somebody else finish the game for me." |
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| Aug-24-03 | | sleepkid: A great theoretician, but not a great player unfortunately. In fact, I'm almost tempted to start a games collection called "Samisch: Whipping Boy of the Stars" simply because he's been on the losing end of some brilliant games and lovely combinations. (A fact which we must be thankful for.) He had a lousy record against Alekhine, Nimzovitch, Bogoljubow, Rubinstein, etc. They owned him. However, he surprisingly has an even score with Capablanca. For example:
Alekhine vs Samisch, 1923
Alekhine vs Samisch, 1937
Samisch vs Nimzowitsch, 1923
Keres vs Samisch, 1935
Rubinstein vs Samisch, 1925
...these are just the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. However, I think there's another brilliant one that he lost, but I can't remember it. On the other hand, he did win a heck of a long game against Maroczy. Queen and pawn endgames. . . oh boy. . . Samisch vs Maroczy, 1929 |
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| Aug-24-03 | | slimslam: “In 1969, playing in the Anderssen Memorial Tournament in Busum, he created an unusual record by losing every game on time.” |
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| Aug-24-03 | | Benjamin Lau: In a strange paradox however, Friderich Samisch was a very good blitz player. |
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| Sep-20-03 | | Benjamin Lau: Might as well elaborate on my old post. Samisch was very well known for his blitz skills. At age 61, he managed to win two lightning chess tournaments. Strangely though, he played very slowly in normal time controls. In team events, his frustrated friends, noticing that dear old Samisch was addicted to tobacco, would take his pipe and only return it after he had made his move. |
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| Oct-23-03 | | MoonlitKnight: Samisch must be regarded as one of the "great losers" of the game, which places him in the company of Dufresne, Kieseritzky (did I spell right?), the Byrnes brothers and so on. All strong players, who lacked the last brilliant touch of their opponents. |
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| Oct-23-03 | | MoonlitKnight: However, Samisch has a good record against Reti in this database; +4 -3 =3. |
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| Oct-30-03 | | Resignation Trap: Everybody knows about Nimzovich and his famous line: "Why must I lose to this idiot?" Samisch was the idiot in question! The Republic of Djibouti issued a stamp featuring Samisch (right) playing Romanovsky at Moscow, 1925.
http://www.tri.org.au/chess/Djibout... |
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| Mar-21-04 | | ruylopez900: Samisch is a great contributioner to modern day hypermodern theory. He has variations upon variations named after him in all the Indian Defences I do believe. Busy person =D. |
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| Mar-21-04 | | Benjamin Lau: He was actually more of a contributor to specifically anti-hypermodern theory I believe. The Nimzo Samisch and the Samisch KID are all choiecs that *white* makes. They're also the most aggressive IMO of each opening. Today though, the Samisch KID still gets played a lot, but the Nimzo Samisch has faded, replaced by the Rubinstein, the Classical, and the Three Knights. |
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| Mar-21-04 | | ruylopez900: Too right Lau, I should have been more specific =D. |
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May-01-04
 | | Gypsy: Pachman befriended Samisch during a WWII tournament in Prague (Pachman's first tournament). "...Once, someone pounded on my door at 6AM. When I opened, I found Fritz Samisch: 'Quick, go to the postoffice and send a telegram home!' was the stern order. Sleepy and confused, I wanted to know what telegram. 'Send cigarets immediately!' Samisch replied. 'But, master, I do not smoke!' but Samisch immediately retorted to my weak and illogical rebuttal that, in contrast to me, he did smoke and that he had ran out of cigarets. "We all knew that Samish was addicted to chain-smoking. During a game, he always had a cigarete in his hand. When he contemplated his position, ashes fell on his pants, on the chess board; he blew it off absentmindedly at his oponent and thought anward. "Samisch was permanetly in time trouble. Two and half hours for forty-five moves (that was the tempo) was not enough for him. He lost one of his Prague games on time in twenty moves, one in thirteen. That must be the world record. "Once I saw him think for an hour in a well-known position on his 4-th move. I asked him about it after the game. "'You know, I recalled one game of Bogolubov, where he sacrificed a piece on his 23-rd move. I started to wonder whether it was realy correct, so I started to examine the various possibilities.' "I conveyed my suprise at such a tight connection between Bogolubov's 23-rd and Samisch's 4-th move. Samisch explained that he always pondered exactly what he desired to contemplate at that moment. "Shortly after the day he woke me up at 6AM, he joined me at my table in Prague coffeehouse Luxor. This was not exactly welcome for me; in those days I did not want to be seen buddying up to a German. "'Isn't Hitler a fool? He thinks he can win the war with Russians!' Samish said completely alloud. Prague of those days was full of Gestapo and Samisch had to be overheard at least at the next few tables. I asked him to speak quietly. 'You don't agree that Hitler is a fool?' was Samisch unconcerned retort. "Samish stayed 'afloat' till the Summer of 1944. Then he let his mouth run off at the closing banquette after the Madrid tournament. Upon his return, Samisch was arrested right at the German border and shipped to a concentration camp. In Apr, 1946 I asked Samish in Switzerland what was his internment like. 'Unglaublich, uberhaupt nichts zu Rauchen!' Samish replied; and immediately added: 'Noch schlimmer ist es, dass ich jetzt volkommen frankelos bin!'..." (Ludek Pachman) |
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| May-01-04 | | meloncio: <Gipsy> Thanks for the interesting story, but please translate it until the end! I know it's something about smoking (Rauchen), but no much more. By the way, the Madrid tournament was celebrated in October 1943 and Paul Keres was the winner. Sämisch didn't play well, his final position was 12/15. (+4,-8,=2). |
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| May-01-04 | | vonKrolock: a free quicky tranlation: "incredible, in fact nothing to smoke!" <...> "And worst - now i'm absolutelly penniless!" |
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| May-01-04 | | WMD: Bent Larsen relates a few anecdotes about Sämisch in the book How To Get Better At Chess: Chess Masters On Their Art. Frankly, they aren't very interesting. "I got all my Sämisch stories from Sämisch himself. I remember him sitting me down and saying 'Young man, young man, I must tell you this because I could die at any moment and it would be a pity if all of this were forgotten', and then he started to tell me of his life." |
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| May-01-04 | | WMD: <Then he let his mouth run off at the closing banquette after the Madrid tournament. Upon his return, Samisch was arrested right at the German border and shipped to a concentration camp.> Pachman's account differs from that of Larsen. He has Sämisch on a Berlin train explaining to a fellow passenger that the war was lost and being arrrested after his journey for defeatist talk. "At this time the main judge in Berlin often had people executed for far less but Sämisch was such a nice person that he had many friends and they managed to get him a sentence of only eight months in prison. As it turned out he spent the rest of the war in jail. After the war was over a friend asked if he would go after the man who turned him in. Sämisch said, 'That man is a Swinehund but if I turn him in then I would also be a Swinehund!'" |
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May-01-04
| | Gypsy: Pachman's memoar, <meloncio>, is in Czech with German (or English or Spanish) sentences used here and there in the dialogs. I contemplated translating it all, but decided to keep faithful to the original. Part of my decision was simply because my German is worse than rudimentary, and I figured someone like <vonKrolock> for instance (thank you, sir!) could translate it in an eye blink. (I would have to labor with a dictionary.) |
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| Feb-04-05 | | rKa: I just wanted to add - because it wasnt pointed out enough imho - that Sämisch lost a good share of his matches because of Zeitnot, earning him some neat nicknames. Apparently he could have spent hours on the board just to reflect every single aspect of a given game, therefore losing a lot more games than his skills would have had promised. I have uploaded a picture of him i found in one of my old chess books:
http://img159.exs.cx/img159/674/sam...
The text may be translated to: "Fritz Sämisch, one of Germany`s best players ever, after a hard-fought match at the Chess Olympiad 1936 in Munich. His face is marked with his efforts (GM Sämisch only had 5 Minutes for the alst 6 moves)".Maybe someone can move the pic from imagehosting to a better server. I have no webspace:/ |
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| Feb-04-05 | | mcgee: I am not entirely sure that Saemisch frittered away a lot of time simply thinking about all the variations of a game. I believe that Lothar Schmid, during his first ' thinking aloud ' slot on the first international BBC Master Game in 1977-8 (replying to 1 c4 by Miles), brooded on how Saemisch could just spend an indefinite amount of time thinking about the person to whom he was married, the weather etc. I think Schmid blew a draw in that game due to time trouble!!! |
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| Apr-26-05 | | Runemaster: Great photo at the top of the page. As with some other old players, such as Maroczy, I had imagined that Samisch would look much more bohemian. |
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| Apr-26-05 | | azaris: "This is the idiot I must lose to?" |
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Aug-19-05
 | | WannaBe: To rephrase today's quote, "If I can have the first 20 moves. I can beat anybody." |
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| Feb-05-06 | | Timothy Glenn Forney: White to move mate in 3-Saemisch-Menzinger 
click for larger view |
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| Feb-05-06 | | Holden: 1.Nf8++ Kh8 (1...Kh6 Qg6#) 2.Qh7+ RxQ 3.Ng6#
Beautiful! |
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| Feb-06-06 | | who: User: sleepkid your example of Samisch's brilliance certainly isn't the best, as in his game against Marcozy the final position is a tablebase draw. |
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