Chess Trivia

Gambit
A wrestling term for tripping up the heels. Ruy Lopez was the first to use it as a chess term for traps in 1561. Greco introduces the term into England and France in 1623.

Gambling
The police raided a chess tournament in Cleveland in 1973, arrested the tournament director and confiscated the chess sets on charges of allowing gambling (cash prizes to winners) and possession of gambling devices (the chess sets). This incident was repeated in Los Angeles in 1989. L.A.P.D. vice officers raided a nightly chess tournament at Dad's Donuts. The cited three men for gambling after finding $1.50 on the table. The plainsclothes detectives staged the raid after one tried unsuccessfully to join a blitz game. The detective then pulled out his badge and said "you are under arrest," and the others swooped in.

Game of the Century
Game between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer in 1956 when Fischer was 13 years old.

Gaprindashvili, Nona (1941- )
The first woman to achieve the men's International Grandmaster title, in 1978. She became the first woman to win a "men's" chess tournament when she tied for first place at Lone Pine in 1977. She has had a perfume named after her in the USSR.

Garcia, Guillermo (1954-1990)
Three-time Cuban champion who took 2nd place in the 1988 New York Open. His $10,000 prize was confiscated by the Department of Treasury, invoking the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, because he was Cuban. He died in an automobile accident near Havana.

Gens Una Sumas
(We are all one people). The motto of FIDE.

Georgia, USSR
From 1963 to 1969 Georgia had the distinction of being the birthplace of both World Chess Champions (Petrosian and Gaprindashvili).

Gilbert, Ellen (1837-1900)
Perhaps the strongest woman player ever. In 1879 she played a correspondence match with one of the strongest correspondence players in the world, George Gossip, and announced mate in 21 moves and mate in 35 moves in their two games. She was known as the Queen of Chess.

Giuoco Piano
First known chess opening, according to the Gottingen manuscript (1490).

Gligoric, Svetozar (1923- )
Yugoslav Grandmaster who became Yugoslavia's Sportsman of the Year in 1959, the first chess player in Yugoslavia to be so honored. He is also considered one of Yugoslavia's best war heroes and the best soccer-playing Grandmaster.

GMA
Grandmasters Association, formed on February 16, 1987 in Brussels by Kasparov. It organized the World Cup Series in which the top 24 players in the world were invited to compete for the title of 'World Tournament Champion.'

Goebbels, Paul Joseph
In 1933 Goebbels, Minister of Propoganda and Enlightenment, wanted an "All-German Chess League." He barred all Jewish chessmaster from official tournaments of the German Chess League. Goebbels sought out players who were of strong National Socialist persuasion. Otto Zander, President of the new league, said all Jews would be excluded unless they proved themselves at the front line of a war.

Golden Knights
The first Golden Knights postal chess tournament started in 1943 and was won by John Staffer.

Golombek, Harry (1911- )
Three times British Champion (1947, 1949, 1955). Awarded the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in 1966 for his services to the game of chess, the first one so honored. He was a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He represented England in 9 Olympiads. He has officiated 6 World Championship matches.

Gothenburg Trilogy
Triple massacre of Argentine Grandmaster Najdorf, Panno, and Pilnik by Keres, Geller, and Spassky in round 14 of the 1955 Gothenburg Interzonal.

Gottingen Manuscript
The earliest known work entirely devoted to modern chess. Supposedly written by Lucena in 1474.

Graf, Sonja (1914-1965)
Winner of four U.S. Women's Open and two Closed Championships (1957, 1964). She was woman champion of her native Germany until the outbreak of World War II. At the chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires in 1939, she was prevented from playing on the German team by a Nazi edit. She went on to play at large under the banner of "Liberty."

Grandmaster
First used in connection with chess as a player of highest class in 1838. The title of grandmaster was first used in 1907 at the Ostend tournament. In 1914, Nicholas II, the Czar of Russia, conferred the title 'Grandmaster of Chess' on Emanuel Lasker, Alekhine, Capablanca, Tarrasch, and Marshall after they took the top 5 places in the St. Petersburg tournament. These are the five original Grandmasters. In 1950 FIDE awarded 27 players the first official Grandmaster title. These players were: Bernstein, Boleslavsky, Bondarevsky, Botvinnik, Bronstein, Duras, Euwe, Fine, Flohr, Grunfeld, Keres, Kostic, Kotov, Levenfish, Lilienthal, Maroczy, Mieses, Najdorf, Ragozin, Reshevsky, Rubinstein, Samisch, Smyslov, Stahlberg, Szabo, Tartakower, and Vidmar. In the 1960s the United States had more Grandmasters than International Masters. In 1998 there were 565 Grandmasters in the world, 5 with the honorary GM title, and 102 women GMs.

Grasshopper
A Fairy chess piece that moves along Queen lines, but when it meets a man of either color along one of these lines, it must hop over that man to the square next beyond. If there is an enemy man on that square, then the Grasshopper captures him.

Great Stone Face
Nickname of Mikhail Botvinnik.

Greco, Giachino (1600-1634)
Best known of the wandering chessmen in the early 17th century. He made a living selling chess manuscripts of openings and traps to wealthy patrons. He was taken to the West Indies by a Spanish nobleman where he died, leaving his fortune to the Jesuits.

Grefe, John (1947- )
Tied for first in the 1973 U.S. Chess Championship in El Paso, Texas. He attributed his success by his complete devtion to the Guru Maharaj-Ji, a 15 year-old prophet from India.

Grenada
In 1408 Prince Yusuf of Grenada was ordered slain by his brother, Muhammad VII, but was granted his last request - permission to finish a game of chess. The monarch died while the game was in progress, and his condemned brother became Yusuf III, King of Grenada.

Gresser, Gisela (1906- )
Winner of the U.S. Women's Championship 9 times. She first won the title in 1944. She won the 1969 U.S. Women's Championship at the age of 63. Second place went to 55 year-old Mona Karff (6 times former Champion). She was the first woman in the U.S. to achieve a master's rating. She was awarded the International Woman Master title in 1950. She was the Women's World Chess Championship Challenger in 1949-50.

Grigoriev, Nikolai (1895-1938)
Soviet endgame analyst. In 1936 the French magazine, La Strategie, promoted an end-game competition. Of the 12 awards he shared 1st and 2nd prizes, won 3rd, 4th and 5th prizes; shared 1st and 2nd honorable mentions, and was awarded 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th honorable mentions.

Groningen 1946
First international chess tournament after World War II. Botvinnik won, receiving 1,500 Dutch guilders and a silver cigarette box from the Queen. A tablecloth was given to the best non-prizewinner. A picture of the Martini Tower in Groningen in a silver frame was given to the last place finisher. 12,000 spectators paid for admission to the event. 21 invited players showed up but only 20 players were allowed to play. The tournament did not want to turn away any foreign player, so it was between Prins and Euwe to drop out. One of the Russian players promised to invite Prins to an international tournament if he dropped out. He agreed, but the promise was never met.

Grundy, James (1855-1919) Responsible for the most infamous scandal in U.S. championship history. Grundy needed a win in the last round to tie for first place at the 5th American Chess Congress in 1880. Grundy bribed his opponent, Preston Ware, $20 during the game to let Ware's advantage slip into a draw so that Grundy could make sure of second place. When Ware agreed and took the money, Grundy tricked him and played for a win which he did.

Guatemala
In 1986 Guatemala was represented by four brothers named Juarez at the chess Olympiad in Dubai. Their women's team had a 10-year old, Heidi Cueller, as a member of their team. She was the youngest person to play in an Olympiad.

Gulko, Boris (1947- )
Former Soviet champion (1977) who tried to emigrate from the Soviet Union for over 7 years and was finally allowed to do so in 1986. We went on a 40 day hunger strike. His wife is one of the strongest women chessplayers in the world, Anna Akhsumarova. She won the Soviet women's championship twice and was cheated out of a third victory in 1982 when the result of a game she won was reversed. Boris refused to sign a form letter denouncing the defection of Victor Korchnoi in 1979. He was arrested for demonstrating in front of the Moscow Interzonal in 1982 and beaten up by KGB agents. He was denied entrance to the tournament even as a spectator. In 1991 Gulko had to be smuggled into Yugoslavia to act as a second to Irina Levitina in the 1991 Women's Interzonal. He was unable to get a passport from the tournament delegation so they smuggled him in from Hungary. He won the US Championship in 1994, making him the only man to win both the USSR and the US championship. He tied for 1st with Judit Polgar in the 1998 US Open.

Gumpel, Charles (1835-1921)
Inventor of the chess automation 'Mephisto.' He was a manufacturer of artificial limbs.

Gunsburg, Isidor (1854-1930)
Only British player who has ever played a match for the world championship. In 1916 he sued the Evening News for libel when they said that his chess column contained blunders. He won the suit after the British High Court accepted a submission that in chess matters, eight oversights did not make a blunder.

Gurevich, Ilya (1972- )
U.S. National Elementary Champion (1983), World Under-14 Champion (1985), U.S. Junior Champion (1990), and World Junior Champion (1990).