Boris Spassky

Spassky was considered an all-rounder on the chess board, and his adaptable "universal style" was a distinct advantage in beating many top Grandmasters. In the 1965 cycle, he beat Paul Keres at Riga 1965 with careful strategy, triumphing in the last game to win 6-4 (+4 =4 -2). Also at Riga, he defeated Efim Geller with mating attacks, winning by 5½-2½ (+3 =5 -0). Then, in his Candidates' Final match (the match which determines who will challenge the reigning world champion for the title) against Mikhail Tal the legendary tactician (Tbilisi 1965), Spassky often managed to steer play into quieter positions, either avoiding former champion Tal's tactical strength, or extracting too high a price for complications. He won by 7-4 (+4 =6 -1). This led to his first World Championship match against Tigran Petrosian in 1966.
Spassky won two tournaments in the run-up to the final. He shared first at the Chigorin Memorial in Sochi in 1965 with Wolfgang Unzicker on 10½/15. Then he tied for first at Hastings 1965-66 with Wolfgang Uhlmann on 7½/9.
Spassky lost the final match in Moscow narrowly, with three wins against Petrosian's four wins, with the two sharing 17 draws. However, a few months after the match, Spassky finished ahead of Petrosian and a super-class field at Santa Monica 1966 (the Piatigorsky Cup), with 11½/18, half a point ahead of Bobby Fischer. Spassky also won at Beverwijk 1967 with 11/15 ahead of Anatoly Lutikov, and shared 1st-5th places at Sochi 1967 on 10/15 with Krogius, Alexander Zaitsev, Leonid Shamkovich, and Vladimir Simagin.
As losing finalist in 1966, Spassky was seeded into the next Candidates' cycle. In 1968, he faced Geller again, this time at Sukhumi, and won by the same margin as in 1965 (5½-2½, +3 =5 -0). He next met Bent Larsen at Malmö, and won by 5½-2½. The final was against his Leningrad rival Viktor Korchnoi at Kiev, and Spassky triumphed with 6½-3½.
This earned him another challenge against Petrosian, at Moscow 1969. Spassky's flexibility of style was the key to his eventual victory over Petrosian by two points in the 1969 World Championship. Spassky won by 12½-10½.
During Spassky's three-year reign as World Champion, he won several more tournaments. He placed first at San Juan 1969 with 11½/15. He won a very strong tournament at Leiden 1970 with 7/12. Spassky shared 1st-2nd at Amsterdam 1970 with Lev Polugaevsky on 11½/15. He was third at Goteborg 1971 with 8/11, behind winners Vlastimil Hort and Ulf Andersson. He shared 1st-2nd with Hans Ree at the 1971 Canadian Open Chess Championship in Vancouver.
Spassky's reign as a world champion only lasted for three years, as he lost to Bobby Fischer of the United States in 1972 in the "Match of the Century". The contest took place in Reykjavík, Iceland, at the height of the Cold War, and consequently was seen as symbolic of the political confrontation between the two superpowers. Going into the match, Fischer had never won a game from Spassky in five attempts, while losing three times. In addition, Spassky had secured Geller as his coach, and Geller also had a plus score against Fischer. However, Fischer was in excellent form, and won the title match convincingly, by 12½-8½. Although Spassky did lose the title match, he performed much better than had the three other Candidates (Mark Taimanov, Bent Larsen, and Tigran Petrosian) whom Fischer had defeated convincingly on his approach to the finals.

Alexander Alekhine

Top-level grandmaster (1914–1927)
In April–May 1914, another major St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament was held in the capital of the Russian Empire, in which Alekhine took third place behind Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raul Capablanca. By some accounts, Tsar Nicholas II conferred the title of "Grandmaster of Chess" on each of the five finalists (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall). Chess historian Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known sources that support this story are an article by Robert Lewis Taylor in the June 15, 1940 issue of The New Yorker and Marshall's autobiography My 50 Years of Chess (1942).[14][15][16] Alekhine's surprising success made him a serious contender for the World Chess Championship.[10] Whether or not the title was formally awarded to him, "Thanks to this performance, Alekhine became a grandmaster in his own right and in the eyes of the audience."[17] In July 1914, Alekhine tied for first with Marshall in Paris.[18]

Emmanual Lasker

Emmanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years. In his prime Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players ever.It is often said that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. However recent analysis indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. While it is often said that Lasker spent little time studying the openings, he actually knew the openings well but disagreed with many contemporary analyses. Although Lasker also published chess magazines and two chess books, later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods.He demanded high fees for playing matches and tournaments, which aroused criticism at the time but contributed to the development of chess as a professional career. The conditions which Lasker demanded for world championship matches in the last 10 years of his reign were controversial, and prompted attempts, particularly by his successor José Raúl Capablanca, to define agreed rules for championship matches.Lasker was also a talented mathematician, and his Ph.D. thesis is regarded as one of the foundations of modern algebra. He was a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about this and other games, including Go and his own invention, Lasca.

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John Jaques

Broadbase Sheesham Staunton & Teak & Maple Board

Broadbase Pieces - Sheesham
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Executive Club Set & Black Anegre & White Erable Board

Zagreb Chess Set

An adaptation of the most popular Chess set used at major international Chess tournaments throughout the 1950s and 1960s, most notably the World Championship Candidates Match that was held in Bied, Zagreb in 1959. The Chess set has been designed to withstand years of use (and abuse), as it lacks many of the ornate details commonly found on Chess Sets that can be susceptible to damage in the heat of battle. For example, the Chess set features reinforced Pawn collars, stylized Knights and minimal Queen crenellations for unmatched durability. The Zagreb '59 Series Chess set is ideal for those that are interested in both the historical importance of the game of Chess, as well as those looking for an attractive Chess set that is very durable.

American Staunton

Executive Luke Staunton

Executive Luke Staunton Chess SetKing Height 3.75 inch. Base Diameter 1.6 inch. Triple Weighted 79g. Balance 20% Not called 'Executive' without reason. These chess pieces combine workmanship and style with a heavy weighting that creates a result that almost demands a seat on the board! And if you don't believe that then take a look at the Knights. They are all talking at once! Traditional Staunton, carved from solid Boxwood wood with an attention to detail often only seen in our luxury sets, the chess pieces proclaim 'class'. The dark chess pieces have been blackened to achieve their ebony appearance. While all pieces have their individual charm, it is the open mouthed Knights that draw the eye. If only we could hear what they are saying! Buy? Sell? Merge? The King is 3.75 inches with a 1.6 inch base

Chess

Chess is infinite: There are 400 different positions after each player makes one move apiece. There are 72,084 positions after two moves apiece. There are 9+ million positions after three moves apiece. There are 288+ billion different possible positions after four moves apiece. There are more 40-move games than the number of electrons in our universe. There are more game-trees of Chess than the number of galaxies (100+ billion), and more openings, defences, gambits, etc. than the number of quarks in our universe!

Jose R Capablanca

Havana-born, on the 19th of November 1888, José Raúl Capablanca was the second surviving son of an army officer. At four years old, he learned the moves of Chess by watching his father play. He once giggled during a game that his father was playing with a friend. When asked why he giggled, the young boy replied "because you moved your knight to a wrong square." Soon, his father took José to the Central Chess Club of Cuba in Havana, where they had to pile books on the chair so he could reach the Chess board.At the age of 11, he became the Chess Champion of Cuba in 1900 beating Juan Corzo. Capablanca declined to study Chess and he never read any Chess books or studied Chess openings. Yet, he won the World Championship in spite of this. He was possibly the greatest natural Chess player that ever lived. In 1905 at the age of 17 he entered the Columbia University and played at the Manhattan Chess Club and beat the club's Champion.In 1906 the World Chess Champion, Dr. Lasker, played a simultaneous exhibition there and Capablanca won an individual lightning game against him. In 1908, Capablanca went on a tour of the USA for the first time and broke all records both by results and the speed of his simultaneous play. He played 168 games in ten consecutive sessions before losing his first game. Altogether, his score was 703 wins, 19 draws, and 12 losses. In 1909, Capablanca shocked the Chess community World:

He played the American Champion Frank Marshall, and won 8-1, with 14 draws.Capablanca exploited some good opportunities early in his Chess career which strengthen his position on the Chess scene. His victory against Frank Marshall, which he won so convincingly, was a brilliant stepping stone into the Chess limelight.

Capablanca was invited to play in theSan Sebastian Tournament of 1911. This was historic for two reasons: 1). Only at the final hour was Jose Capablanca invited to the Tournament, (this was his first International Chess Tournament.) 2). Bernstein complained that such a weak player as Capablanca should not have been included.Capablanca not only defeated Bernstein in the first round, but won the Tournament! This made Capablanca the most serious contender to challenge Lasker's world title. In November 1911, Capablanca challenged the World champion Lasker. Lasker replied with 17 conditions. Some of these conditions were that the match should be for the 1st player to win six games, draws not counting, and to consist of no more than 30 games in total.If after 30 games, either play should lead by 3 point (e.g. 3:2, 2:1, or 1:0,) then the match should be declared a draw and Lasker would retain the title. Lasker would give four weeks notice for the date of the start of the match and two weeks notice if he decided to change the venue. The time limit to be 12 moves an hour, and the playing sessions to be no longer than two and a half hours. Capablanca didn't like some of the proposed conditions, and Lasker broke off and refused to renew negotiations.In 1913, he obtained a post in the Cuban Foreign Office, thus taking the pressure from him for the need to earn a living from playing Chess. He was simply to be a figurehead for his country, which he fitted the part very well. On Capablanca's way to the Consulate at St Petersburg, Capablanca did a European tour. He visited London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Riga, Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, and Vienna demonstrating an astonishing skill at simultaneous Chess, usually with a record crowd of spectators.Twenty four games were played against the best masters of Europe: Alekhine, Bernstein, Bogoljubow, Bogatirchuk, Levenfish, Duz Hotimir- sky, Mieses, Nimzovich, Reti, Salwe, Tartakower, Teichmann and others. At the St. Petersburg tournament of 1914, Dr. Lasker won the match, Capablanca came second, and was therefore, one of the five initial Chess Grandmasters named by Czar Nicholas. In the eight years between 1916 to 1924 the first game that José Raúl Capablanca lost was to Richard Reti at the great New York International Tournament of 1924.The loss to Reti was a game that went around the world. In 1920, Capablanca challenged Lasker again for a World championship match. Lasker not wanting to play, "resigned" his title to Capablanca, but the public wanted a match. Finally in 1921, the World championship match vs. Dr. Emanuel Lasker is held in Havana, Cuba. The match was scheduled for 30 games, but after 14 games, Dr. Lasker resigned the match on the grounds of ill-health. Jose Capablanca becomes the World Champion.At the Great Moscow Tournament in 1925, in a simultaneous exhibition, Capablanca won every game except a draw against a 12 year old boy who he told after the game, "One day you will be champion". That boy was Mikhail Botvinnik. Botvinnik not only beat Capablanca at AVRO 13 years later, but eventually did become World Champion. In 1927 the great non-studying Chess genius, Capablanca, lost his world championship title to the ever-studying Chess genius Dr. Alekhine.With a record breaking twenty five draws, Alekhine won six-four, it was the longest world championship match in the history of Chess. Although Jose Capablanca was the obviously entitled challenger to the world championship, Alekhine refused to play Capablanca and instead played Bogoljubov and Euwe for the title. Jose Capablanca lost only 36 games out of 567 in his whole career.He did not lose a single game from 1916 to 1924 and won 7, drew 35, and lost 6 world championship games, for a total score of 24½ points out of 48 games played. Capablanca never had a Chess set at home. On March 7, 1942, he suffered a stroke while analyzing a Chess game in the Manhattan Chess Club. He died the next day at Mount Sinai hospital, the same hospital that Emanuel Lasker died in a year earlier.Capablanca was buried with full honors in Havana, Cuba. General Batista, President of Cuba, took personal charge of the funeral arrangements. He was the shortest lived world champion, dieing at age 53 years, 109 days. He was world Champion for six years and was never given a chance for a re-match. His historical Elo rating has been calculated to be 2725. In 1951 Cuba issued a 25¢ stamp with a portrait of Capablanca on it. It was the first stamp issued which portrayed a Chess master.

Harold Nelson Pillsbury

Harry Nelson Pillsbury (b. Massachusetts, USA December 5, 1872 - June 17, 1906), was a leading chess player. At age 22, he won one of the strongest tournaments of all time, but his illness and early death prevented him from challenging for the World Chess

Early life
Pillsbury was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, moved to New York City in 1894 and then again to Philadelphia in 1898.
By 1890, having only played chess for two years, he beat noted chess expert H. N. Stone. In April 1892, Pillsbury won a match two games to one against World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz, who gave him odds of a pawn. Pillsbury's rise was meteoric, and there was soon no one to challenge him in the New York chess scene.

Hastings 1895
The Brooklyn chess club sponsored his journey to Europe to play in the Hastings 1895 chess tournament, in which all the greatest players of the time participated. The 22-year-old Pillsbury became a celebrity in the United States and abroad by winning the tournament, finishing ahead of reigning world champion Emanuel Lasker, former world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, recent challengers Mikhail Chigorin and Isidor Gunsberg, and future challengers Siegbert Tarrasch, Carl Schlechter and Dawid Janowski.
The dynamic style that Pillsbury exhibited during the tournament also helped to popularize the Queen's Gambit during the 1890s, including his famous win over Siegbert Tarrasch.

St. Petersburg 1895
His next big tournament was in Saint Petersburg the same year, a six-round round-robin tournament between four of the top five finishers at Hastings (Pillsbury, Chigorin, Lasker and Steinitz; Tarrasch did not play). Pillsbury appears to have contracted syphilis prior to the start of the event. Although he was in the lead after the first half of the tournament (Pillsbury 6½ points out of 9, Lasker 5½, Steinitz 4½, Chigorin 1½), he was affected by severe headaches and scored only 1½/9 in the second half, ultimately finishing third (Lasker 11½/18, Steinitz 9½, Pillsbury 8, Chigorin 7). He lost a critical fourth cycle encounter to Lasker, and Garry Kasparov has suggested that had he won, he could well have won the tournament and forced a world championship match against Lasker.[1]

U.S. Champion 1897
In spite of his ill health, Pillsbury beat American champion Jackson Showalter in 1897 to win the U.S. Chess Championship, a title he held until his death in 1906.

Decline and death
Poor health would prevent him from realizing his full potential throughout the rest of his life. The stigma surrounding syphilis makes it unlikely that he sought medical treatment. He succumbed to the illness in 1906.
Pillsbury is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Reading, MA.

Lifetime records
Pillsbury had an even record against Lasker (+5-5=4). He even beat Lasker with the black pieces at Saint Petersburg in 1895 and at Augsburg in 1900 (however this was an offhand game, not played in a tournament):
The position after 16. Bxg4
1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. exd5 e4 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Qe2 Bd6 6. d3 O-O 7. dxe4 Nxe4 8. Nxe4 Re8 9. Bd2 Bf5 10. O-O-O Bxe4 11. Qg4 f5 12. Qg3 Nd7 13. Bc3 Nf6 14. Nh3 Ng4 15. Be2 Be7 16. Bxg4 (see diagram) Bh4 17. Bxf5 Bxg3 18. Be6+ Rxe6 19. dxe6 Qe8 20. hxg3 Bxg2 21. Rhe1 Bxh3 22. Rd7 Qg6 23. b3 Re8 24. Re5 Bxe6 25. Rxc7 Qxg3 26. Kb2 h6 27. Rxb7 Rc8 28. Bd4 Qg2 29. Rxa7 Rxc2+ 30. Kb1 Qd2 0-1
Pillsbury also had an even score against Steinitz (+5-5=3) and Tarrasch (+5-5=2), but a slight minus against Chigorin (+7-8=6) and surprisingly against Joseph Henry Blackburne (+3-5=4), while he beat David Janowski (+6-4=2) and Geza Maroczy (+4-3=7) and crushed Carl Schlechter (+8-2=9).

Blindfold skill
Pillsbury was a very strong blindfold chess player, and could play checkers and chess simultaneously while playing a hand of whist, and reciting a list of long words. His maximum was 22 simultaneous blindfold games at Moscow 1902. However, his greatest feat was 21 simultaneous games against the players in the Hannover Hauptturnier of 1902—the winner of the Hauptturnier would be recognized as a master, yet Pillsbury scored +3-7=11. As a teenager, Edward Lasker played Pillsbury in a blindfold exhibition in Breslau, against the wishes of his mother, and recalled in Chess Secrets I learned from the Masters:
But it soon became evident that I would have lost my game even if I had been in the calmest of moods. Pillsbury gave a marvellous performance, winning 13 of the 16 blindfold games, drawing two, and losing only one. He played strong chess and made no mistakes [presumably in recalling the positions]. The picture of Pillsbury sitting calmly in an armchair, with his back to the players, smoking one cigar after another, and replying to his opponents' moves after brief consideration in a clear, unhesitating manner, came back to my mind 30 years later, when I refereed Alekhine's world record performance at the Chicago World's Fair, where he played 32 blindfold games simultaneously. It was quite an astounding demonstration, but Alekhine made quite a number of mistakes, and his performance did not impress me half as much as Pillsbury's in Breslau.

American Master Staunton Chess Set

Boxwood American Master Staunton Chess Set - King Height 3.75 Inches Or 96 mm -

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