Views: 28

John Curdo many not have been a grandmaster, or even an international master but he dominated New England Chess for decades. During his prime, he almost never left New England. Had he played more widely, he almost certainly would have earned the international master title and possibly the grandmaster title. When he did play grandmasters, he had his share of wins. For example, he crushed Kudrin at the Pillsbury Open in 1998 at the age of fifty (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Qxd4 Nf6 5. Bb5 a6 6. Ba4 b5 7. Bb3 Nc6 8. Qd3 Bg7 9. O-O O-O 10. Nc3 d6 11. Bg5 Bb7 12. Rfe1 Na5 13. Nd5 Nxd5 14. exd5 Re8 15. Re2 h6 16. Bh4 g5 17. Bg3 Bxb2 18. Rae1 Bf6 19. h4 Qd7 20. hxg5 hxg5 21. Re6 Nxb3 22. cxb3 Kg7 23. Nd4 fxe6 24. Nxe6+ Kh6 25. f4 g4 26. Kf2 1-0). Here he beats a future grandmaster who, at the time, was a regular invitee to the US Closed Championships.

Views: 35

Views: 35

Views: 38

Today would be Lothar Schmid‘s 92nd birthday. He probably best remembered as the arbiter of the 1972 World Championship match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer but he was also a strong grandmaster who played in 11 Olympiads. I had the good fortune to meet him in 1992 when he was arbiter at Bobby Fischer’s return match against Spassky in Yugoslavia. One story he told stuck with me. When he was a teenager and the war was going badly for Germany such they were so desperately short of manpower, he was drafted into some sort of local guard duty in a forest near his home. One night the sky was ablaze and he thought there was a massive forest fire. It was the firebombing of Dresden some 70 kilometers away.

Schmid’s career included wins against Bogolyubow, Keres, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Benko. Reshevsky, Browne, and many others. But since this feature is limited to games that you won’t find on ChessBase’s MegaBase, I won’t show you any of those games. Instead, this week’s game is an interesting struggle against International Master Antonio Medina García from the 1963 Malaga tournament.

Views: 33

Views: 36

My apologies for missing last week.

Views: 45

Views: 39

Views: 24

Views: 57