Chess Trivia

Cable Match
The first cable match (moves transmitted by telegraph) was between the British Chess Club and the Manhattan Chess Club in 1895. In 1897 a cable match between the British House of Commons and the U.S. House of Representatives resulted in a draw.

Caissa
The muse or goddess of chess, originally a wood-nymph, in a poem by Sir William Jones in 1763.

Calabrese, The
Nickname of Gioacchino Greco, 17th century Italian player.

Calvo, Ricardo (1943- )
Spanish journalist and International Master who was censured by FIDE for writing a letter in 1991 to NEW IN CHESS, a letter that was interpreted by many Latin American readers as racist. He wrote of an unnamed South American journalist who "corrupted" young people.

Cambridge-Oxford match
Longest running annual match in chess. The traditional series began in 1873.

Camel
The name used for the bishop in Tibet and Mongolia.

CAMPOMANES, FLORENCIO (1927- )
First non-European elected FIDE President. He played Board 2 for the Philippines in the 1956 Olympiad in Moscow, the 1958 Olympiad in Munich, and was the top board for the Philippines in the 1960 Chess Olympiad. When he was elected FIDE President in 1982 the entire FIDE staff and FIDE secretary resigned in protest. He graduated from Brown University.

CANADA
The Canadian representative to an international chess event got to the tournament by a Track and Field Club that raised the money through bingo.

CANAL, ESTEBAN (1896-1981)
Peruvian chessplayer who got his Grandmaster title in 1977 at the age of 81. Canal lived in Venice, Italy since 1923, yet represented Peru as late as 1950 in the chess olympiad.

CANUTE
King of Denmark and England in the 11th century. He learned the game of chess during a pilgrammage to Rome. The king had a Danish earl murdered when the earl overturned a chessboard after the King made a bad move and tried to take it back.

CAPABLANCA Y GRAUPERA, JOSE RAOUL (1888-1942)
Sent to Columbia University from Cuba in 1906 to study chemical engineering, he spent most of his time at the Manhattan Chess Club. Two years later he dropped out of Columbia University and dedicated most of his time to chess. In 1908-09 he toured the U.S. and lost only one game in hundreds of games played during simultaneous exhibitions, winning all the others. He was New York State champion in 1910.

In 1913 Capablanca obtained a post in the Cuban Foreign Office with the title of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary General from the Government of Cuba to the World at Large. After his divorce from his first wife, her family had him demoted to the post of Commercial Attache. He once had the mayor of Havana clear a tournament room so that no one would see him resign a game (against Marshall in 1913). He once refused to pose with a beautiful film star, saying, "Why should I give her publicity?"

Capa lost only 36 games out of 567 in his whole life. He did not lose a single game from 1916 to 1924. Capablanca never had a chess set at home. He died while watching a chess game at the Manhattan chess club. General Batista, President of Cuba, took personal charge of the funeral arrangements.

CAPTURE
The longest delay of a capture of a piece or pawn is 57 moves, played by Chajes-Grunfeld, Carlsbad 1923. The game took over 15 hours and lasted 121 moves.

CAREW, LADY JANE (1797-1901)
First chessplayer to live in three centuries.

CARR, NEIL (1968- )
Youngest player to beat a grandmaster in a clock simultaneous exhibition. In 1978 at the age of 10 he beat a grandmaster.

CARROLL, CHARLES
The last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. At age 89 he played the Turk at Baltimore in 1827 and won.

CARTIER, GEORGES
Pseudonym for Dr. Savielly Tartakower during World War II when he was a lieutenant in the Free French army.

CASTLING
As late as 1561 castling was two moves. You had to play R-KB1 on one move and K-KN1 on the next move. The longest delayed castling is believed to be in the game Bobotsov-Ivkov, 1966 when White castled on the 46th move.

CAXTON, WILLIAM (1422-1491)
Publisher of the second book to be printed in English, THE GAME AND PLAYE OF THE CHESSE, in 1475. The book consisted of 72 pages, with no illustrations and printed in Bruges, Belgium. The book was dedicated to George, Duke of Clarence, oldest brother of King Edward. It is a translation of a book by Jacobus de Cessolis. An original book is worth over $100,000. The first printed book in English is THE RECUYELL OF THE HISTORYES OF TROYE, published by Caxton in 1474.

CCA
Continental Chess Association, founded by Bill Goichberg.

CCLA
Correspondence Chess League of America. It is the oldest postal chess organization in America and second oldest in the world. It was founded in 1909 by three correspondence players. It publishes the largest correspondence chess magazine in the world, THE CHESS CORRESPONDENT, the oldest national magazine in the US. The CCLA had the first numerical rating of players in 1940.

CENSORSHIP
In 1935 the US played England a 1002 board correspondence match. It was stopped in 1941 when the British Government's Board of Censors thought that the chess notation was some kind of code which offered too much opportunities for secret messages. At the time, there were 562 games finished. The US had won 223, lost 203, and drew 100 games.

CESSOLIS, JACOBUS DE
Dominican monk who wrote De Moribus Hominum ed de Officiis Nobilium Super Ludo Scaccorum (On the Customs of Men and Their Noble Actions with Reference to the Game of Chess). This is the best known of all chess moralities. The parables deal with all sorts and conditions of men, allegorically represented in their various ranks by chess pieces.

CHADWICK, STANLEY (1870-1943)
CCLA's first president and considered the "Father of CCLA." He served as President of the CCLA from 1909 to 1917.

CHAIRS AND CHESS
During the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match in Rekjavik, the Russians linked Spassky's erratic play with Fischer's chair. The Icelandic organization put a 24-hour police guard around the chair while chemical and x-ray tests were performed on the chair. Nothing unusual was found.

CHANG, ALEX AND ANGELA
In 1986 Alex Chang won the National Elementary School Championship. His sister, Angela, took 2nd place.

CHARLES, RAY
Ray Charles, the legendary Genius of Soul, learned chess in 1965 after being busted and hospitalized for heroin addiction. He learned chess in the hospital where he went cold turkey. He uses a peg set made for the blind.

CHATURANGA
The earliest chess precurser that can be clearly defined, dating back to the 7th century. The Sanskrit name means quadripartite.

CHAUCER
His poem Book of the Duchesse, written in 1369, described the invention of chess to the King of Pergamon in 200 B.C.

CHECK
Up until the early 20th century, it was mandatory to announce a check. Up until the late 19th century, it was mandatory to say 'check to the queen' or 'gardez' when she was attacked. At one time, if the King and other piece were simultaneously attacked by a piece, it was customary to announce the fact by saying check to both pieces. Up until the early 19th century, an unnanounced check could be ignored. In 1969 in Tallinn, the Westerinen-Tal game had 38 checks in a row.

CHECKERS
In 1851 the world checker champion was A. Anderson. The world chess champion was A. Anderssen. Newell Banks was the only American master of checkers and chess. He could play 10 games of chess, 10 games of checkers, and a game of billiards simultaneously. The first checkers column appeared in the New York Clipper in 1856 alongside the chess column. The record for simultaneous blindfold checkers games is 28.

CHECKMATE
The medieval custom of checkmate entitled the winner to a double stake.

CHERNOBYL
The purse from the Karpov-Kasparov 1986 London-Leningrad match ($900,000) was donated to the victims of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. The USSR Championship has being played in Kiev at the time of the Chernobyl accident.

CHERON, ANDRE (1895-1980)
One of the great endgame analysts and study composers of all time. He played Board 1 for France in the 1927 Olympiad. He created the longest problem solution to have all checks in it, taking 69 moves.

CHESS THE MUSICAL
Most expensive musical play ever put together, costing over $4 million in 1986. The musical was written by Tim Rice and music by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (formerly of ABBA).

CHESSBOARD
The first chessboard of alternating light and dark squares appear in Europe in 1090.

CHESS CITY OF THE YEAR
In 1985 the Chess City of the Year was Foxboro, Massachusetts. It has no chess club.

CHESS IS MY LIFE
Title of an autobiography by both Karpov and Korchnoi.

CHESS LIFE
CHESS LIFE magazine first appeared as the official publication of the USCF in 1946.

CHESS MACHINE
Nickname of Capablanca.

CHESS OSCAR
Awarded to the outstanding player of the year and decided by votes of the International Association of Chess Journalists. The Oscar is actually a statuette of a woman under an umbrella. The 1988 chess oscar went to Anand.

CHESSPLAYERS
The World Chess Federation estimates there are 550 million chessplayers.

CHESS SETS
In 1971 a chess set landed an antiques dealer, Trevor Stowe, in court in London for indecent exhibition while on display in the window. Each of the 32 pieces showed couples in sexual positions. The dealer had to pay $132 in fines and court costs.

CHIKVAIDZE, ALEXANDER (1932- )
Replaced former cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastionov in 1986 as President of the Soviet Chess Federation. He was a Georgian career diplomat who served as former Ambassador to Kenya and assigned to the Soviet consulate in San Francisco and embassies in London and New Delhi.

CHINA
The Chinese Emperor Wen-ti executed two foreign chessplayers after learning that one of the pieces was called "Emperor." He was upset that his title of Emperor could be associated with a mere game and forbade the game. Chinese chess is played on a board 9 squares by 8 and the pieces move on the intersections of the lines rather than the squares, so that the actual playing area is 10 by 9. One of the pieces as a cannon, unknown anywhere else. Chess was not listed as a competitive sport in China until 1956. The Chess Association of China was formed in 19662. It didn't have its first championship tournament until 1974. The first international tournament ever held in China was in 1980.

CHRISTIANSEN, LARRY (1956- )
The only player to become an International Grandmaster without ever being an International Master. In 1977 he was awarded the title. He is also the first junior high school player to win the National High School Championship in 1971. He is a past winner of the US Championship (1980, 1983).

CHURCHILL, LORD RANDOLPH (1849-1895)
Winston Churchill's father was elected vice president of the British Chess Federation in 1885. Lord Tennyson was the President of the British Chess Federation. He took chess lessons from Zukertort and Steinitz. He was the co-founder of the Oxford University Chess Club.

CIOCALTEA, VICTOR (1932-1983)
Romanian chess player who became an International Master in 1957 and took 21 years to become a Grandmaster in 1978. He won the Romanian championship 8 times during 1952-1979.

CLEAN SCORE
A perfect 100% score. Capablanca achieved perfect scores three times: New York 1910 (7-0), New York 1913 (13-0), and New York 1914 (11-0). Fischer won the 1963 US Championship 11-0, defeated Taimanov 6-0 and Larsen 6-0 in the Candidates matches.

CLOCK, CHESS
The first mechanical chess clock was invented by Thomas Wilson in 1883. Prior to that, sandglasses were used. Sandglasses were first used in London in 1862. The present day push-button clock was first perfected by Veenhoff in 1900. The first electronic chess club was manufactured in Kiev in 1964.

CLUB, CHESS
The world's first chess club was organized in Italy in 1550. The first chess club in England was Slaughter's Coffee House, founded in London, England in 1715. The oldest chess club in Europe is the Zurich Chess Club, founded in 1809. The oldest chess club in the U.S. is the Manhattan Chess Club, founded in 1877. Russia's first chess club was organized by Tchigorin in 1880. The largest chess club in the U.S. is the Labate Chess Centre in Anaheim, California with about 400 members.

CODEBREAKERS AND CHESS
During World War II some of the top chessplayers were also code breakers. British masters Harry Golombek, Stuart Milner-Barry and H. O'D. Alexander were on the team which broke the Nazi Enigma code. In September 1939, the British chess team had just qualified for the finals in the Buenos Aires Olympiad. When war broke out, they were ordered home on the next ship out. During one watchkeeping at night, Milner-Barry sent out an alarm to the rest of the ship when he thought he spotted a U-boat. It turned out to be a porpoise.

COHEN, LEWIS
Lewis Cohen never lost a game in the National Elementary Championships, scoring 40-0.

COLLEGE
The first international tournament restricted to college students was held in Liverpool, England in 1952. The first official college student Olympiad chess tournament was held in Oslo in 1954.

Collins, Jack
Former US Postal champion and New York State champion. He contributed to the chess development of Bobby Fischer, Bill Lombardy, and the Byrne brothers.

COLUMN, CHESS
The first newspaper chess column was that in the Liverpool Mercury in 1813. The oldest column still in existence is that of the Illustrated London News, which first appeared in 1842. The first American chess column appeared in 1845 in the New York Spirit of the Times.

COMPUTERS
The first chess effort on the part of a computer is a mate in 2 programmed in 1949 on a Ferranti digital machine. The first computer program that played proper chess was written at MIT by Alex Bernstein in 1959. The Massachusetts Amateur Championship marked the first time a chess computer played chess against human beings under tournament conditions in 1967. MacHack VI, from MIT, ended up witha 1239 provisional rating.The first chess tournament in which the only players were computer programs was held in New York in 1970. The first world computer championship was held in Stockholm in 1974 and won by the Soviet program, Kaissa. Cray Blitz was the first chess computer to win a state chess championship when it won the Mississippi Championship in 1981. 1983 was the first time a microcomputer beat a master in tournament play. 1983 was the first time a computer gained an established master's rating.

CONSECUTIVE MOVES
There were 72 consecutive Queen moves in the Mason-Mackenzie game at London in 1882.

COOK
A composition term for an alternative key not intended by the composer. Named after Eugene Cook (1830-1915) who was so expert a solver, and found second or more solutions to so many problems, that his name came to signify the act.

COOK, NATHANIEL
Designer of the Staunton chessmen in 1835. He registered his design in 1849. Howard Staunton recommended the use of these chessmen six months later. Cook did not renew his registration, valid for only three years. In 1852 Staunton made a deal with Cook to authorize Staunton's signature as a trademark to attach to the boxes in which his sets were sold. Cook's firm was absorbed by John Jaques and Son, Ltd in 1900.

CORRESPONDENCE CHESS
The first reputed correspondence game of chess was played in 1119 by King Henry I of England and King Louis VI of France. The earlist postal game was between players in Brada and The Hague in 1824. In 1870 the first correspondence chess club, the Caissa Correspondence Club, was founded. In 1888 the first international correspondence tournament was held. Most correspondence games played at once is 1000 by Robert Wyller.

In 1883 Cambridge University played a correspondence match with the Bedlam insane asylum. Bedlam won. The only two U.S. Correspondence Grandmasters are Hans Berliner and Victor Palciauskas. Both have been world correspondence champions.

The highest rated USCF correspondence player was Penquite at 2927 (won 49 games straight, no losses, no draws).

COUNSELOR
Name of the Queen in Borneo, China, Iran, and Turkey. Name of the Bishop in Java.

Cox, James R.
First offical New York State chess champion (1878).

CRACOW POEM
A Latin poem in a manuscript dated 1422 in the Jagellonne Library in Cracow. The poem attributes the invention of chess to Ulysses.

CRAY BLITZ
The first computer to win a state championship (Mississippi in 1981).

CRITTENDEN, KIT
In 1948 Kit Crittenden won the North Carolina state championship at age 13, becoming the nation's youngest state champion. The year before, he finished in last place in the state championship.

CROTTO, RACHEL (1958- )
In 1971, she was the youngest girl ever to play in the U.S. Women's championship, at age 13. Irina Krush broke that record when she played in the US Women's championship at age 11.

CROWN PRINCE OF CHESS
Nickname of Aaron Nimzovich.

CUBA
In 1952 there was an international tournament in Havana. During the event, there was a revolution in Cuba. The President who sponsored the tournament was deposed. The Mexican entrants were recalled by their government. Finally, the Cuban champion, Juan Quesada, playing in the event died of a heart attack. His funeral was attended by all the masters participating.

In 1965 Cuba linked up to the Marshall Chess Club in New York by telex to allow Fischer to play in the Capablanca Memorial tournament being held in Havana. Each game lasted up to seven hours. After the event, Cuba had to pay the bill of over $10,000. Dr Jose Raul Capablanca, son of the late World Champion, transmitted the move in Havana. Cuba spent over $5 million on the 1966 Olympiad held in Havana. Castro played several exhibition games including a draw with Grandmaster Tigran Petrosian. The first open international tournament held in Cuba took place in 1992 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Havana as the capital of the island.

CUSTOMS ACT OF 1876
This act was specifically created to prevent imports of indecent and obscene chessmen.

CYPRUS
In 1960 the Cyprus Chess Association was founded and the first Cyprus chess championship took place. In 1962 Cyprus scored the worst score of any Chess Olympiad team. At Varna the team went 0 for 20 and one of their players, Ioannidis also went 0 for 20. Their team only won 2 games, drew 2 games, and lost 76 games. In 1964 at the Tel Aviv Olympiad. Ionnidis lost all his games (4) and Cyprus, again, took last place, drawing 1 and losing 13. Their team won 5 games, drew 4 games, and lost 47 games.