Chain smokes a pipe?

He sits there with a pile of pipes lighting up one after another. No wonder he got into time trouble.

Hi perfidious,

I too have a Morphy 4 (Reshevsky is a 3) due to Oliver Penrose who I've played 3 times.

Oliver played John Littlewood at the Edinburgh Congress in 2002.

Big deal?

The only time they had played each other before was at the Cambridge Open in 1952! A gap of 50 years. (Oliver won both games.)

<Reshevsky was unable to speak English when he first arrived (his only words of English that he knew were “check” and “checkmate”). His parents never did learn English. However, Reshevsky was speaking fluent English within a year of arrival to the United States. He also mastered difficult texts and math problems on sight.>

http://www.chessmaniac.com/samuel-r...

Similarly, his NYT obit says:

<In a year's absence he had learned to speak English fluently. When his teachers expressed amazement at his ability to master difficult texts and math problems on sight, there was speculation about his future as a scholar or financier. But he continued to play chess.>

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/07/n...

On the other hand, both of the above sources say that Reschevsky was taught chess as a 5-year old boy by his father. Yet, Reschevsky himself says the following:

<Hanon W. Russell: You were born in Poland; whereabouts in Poland? Sam Reshevsky: Ozorkov, about a mile from the second largest city in Poland, Lodz.

HWR: How large was your family?

SR: I was one of six children. I was the youngest of the boys.

HWR: When did you learn to play chess?

SR: When I was five years old.

HWR: How did you learn? Did your father teach you?

SR: Nobody taught me. My father used to play with his neighbors and after watching for about two weeks, I saw him resign. When he did that, I popped up and I said, "Dad, let me take over your position." He said, "OK." I took over the position and I won the game. That was the beginning.

HWR: How long was it before you or somebody realized you had a talent for the game?

SR: Well, they took me to the best players in the town and when I had no difficulty against them, they took me to the large city of Lodz. They took me to one of the best chess clubs there. I played against some of the best players and I did well.>

https://web.archive.org/web/2011060...

The reason I was wondering, specifically, was this very astute comment by <Dr Nooooo> at Reuben Fine.

<Who can really say how Fine would have fared had he played. Not I, for sure. Not many have a whopping 71 per cent against some of the best players of his era. As Casey Stengal says, "You can look it up." However, <just for fun let's say the match would have been held in New York. A stones throw from his apt. Then what.

<My hunch is he would have said yes. Notice the distance and otherness of Russia did not matter to Reshevsky.>> Probably it was no single factor that kept him from playing, though what's most interesting for me is that Fine had nothing much to say in 48, just a kind of whimpering dissembling.

At least Reshevsky DID play, to his credit, but hardly to rest the notion that the Russians could cheat their way to the top.>

So I was wondering - in the Moscow half of FIDE World Championship Tournament (1948) was Sammy able to converse in Yiddish or Russian or whatever with Muscovites?

Biographer Bistro (kibitz #12110)

Biographer Bistro (kibitz #12111)

Here is a little announcement of it, before the cancellation:

<

Before play got under way (in a simul R was giving -ed), we asked Reshevsky about his plans for the near future. It seems the only project in the works now is the proposed match with Soviet grandmaster David Bronstein. After his stunning victory over world champion, Botvinnik last Spring, Reshevsky, working with the American Chess Foundation, issued a challenge for a world title match. Following much hemming and a similar amount of hawing, the Soviet chess moguls rejected Sam's bid on the usual grounds: i.e. so sorry, but the F. I. D. E. controls all champlonship matches and F. I. D. E. rules say the challenger must be chosen by elimination tournaments in which Reshevsky has refused to play. This is, of course, sophistry in its purest form.

However the Russians offered a consolation prize the possibility of a match with the little giant, David Bronstein. All the details have not yet been worked out, but the match will probably take place before the Fall. It will be a 24-game affair, the full world Championship distance. But, as Sam sald, "Those Russians are clever. If I beat Bronstein, I have nothlng. And if I do lose to Bronsteln, I'm definitely eliminated."

Another little item-mentioned, just in passing, is that Bronstein is perhaps a better match-player than Botvinnik. So Reshevsky is in the position of possibly working harder for "nothing" than he would have to work for the elusive world title. And what is more elusive than a prize in the hands of an evasive man surrounded by disappearing artists?

The match should produce excellent chess and, while that may not be enough to satisfy the world masters, it's all that Joe Woodpusher really cares about.

Half the Bronstein--Reshevsky match will be played in Russia and half in the United States.

>

<In the international field Chess Life reports that Reshevsky has accepted the invitation to compete in the big Alekhin Memorial tourinament in Moscow next October. Following the tournament will come the long-awaited match with Bronstein. This match was originally scheduled to be played in Russia and the U.S.A. Well, Lenningrad and Moscow will be the sites of the first 12 games, but the last half of the match probably will be housed in Stockholm and Amsterdam. The reason: State Department difficulties. Our officialdom has been unwilling to waive certain regulations (fingerprinting, etc.) and the Soviet deleigation refuses to comply.

Whether the U.S.A. has a team in the big international team tournament in Moscow next-month is doubtful. The American Chess Foundation has said it probably will not finance the trip and the U.S.C.F. seems to have no funds for such a venture.>

In view of disturbed conditions in Eastern Europe, Samuel Reschevsky has decided not to go to Moscow. His match with Russian Grandmaster David Bronstein, scheduled to start Dec. 1, has been called off. >

Bisno spoke in behalf of the American Chess Foundation, with headquarters in New York, which financed the trip of the American chess team to Russia in the Summer of 1955. >

A 24-game (!!!) match between Reshevsky and Bronstein in 1956?! Wow!! Never heard of this! What a great shame it did not take place. :(

It's fun to read about it as it played out though.

As mentioned on the Bistro by <Olavi>, the cancellation might be connected to this:

Hungarian Revolution (Oct 23-Nov 10, 1956)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunga...

Indeed, that would have been a fantastic match. Reshevsky just a year or two past his peek according the Chessmetrics in 1955-6.

That wouldn't matter, as both players would be sitting.

I suspect the match was nixed when the <HUAC> made the connection between Trotsky and the name David Bronstein.>