Author: Enrique Irazoqui
Date: 09:17:22 02/10/00
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On February 10, 2000 at 12:00:56, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On February 10, 2000 at 03:03:07, Ron Norris wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> >> Chess grandmaster, newspaper >> columnist dead at 96 >> >> ASSOCIATED PRESS >> >> SAN FRANCISCO - Chess grandmaster George >> Koltanowski, who wrote more than 19,000 columns on >> the game for the San Francisco Chronicle, is dead. He >> was 96. >> >> Koltanowski died Saturday in a San Francisco hospital >> after a brief illness. >> >> Koltanowski's column ran every day without a break >> for 52 years, a feat the newspaper said makes it the >> longest-running daily chess column in newspaper >> history. >> >> "Chess is an international language," he once said. >> "Everyone in the world can understand it, appreciate it >> and enjoy it." >> >> In a career that spanned 10 decades, Koltanowski was >> an international grandmaster, one of only 200 in the >> world, and the former chess champion of his native >> Belgium. >> >> He was also world champion of blindfold chess, which >> requires the player to memorize the game, then not look >> at the board again while the opponent plays in a normal >> fashion. >> >> In 1937, Koltanowski, a native of Antwerp, played 34 >> opponents simultaneously while blindfolded without >> losing a game. He wrote books on chess, ran >> tournaments, coached players, wore chess neckties and >> told endless chess stories. >> >> Koltanowski learned the game while watching his >> father play his older brother, taking up the game in >> earnest at the age of 14. Three years later, he was >> Belgium's champion. >> >> At that point, he gave quit being a diamond cutter to >> devote his life to chess. >> >> He served a short stint in the Belgian army. He always >> said his primary duty was peeling potatoes; he used the >> time spent in that mindless task to work out chess >> problems in his head. >> >> "Soldiers were going hungry," he said, "because I was >> peeling the potatoes into smaller and smaller cubes." >> >> Koltanowski said the game saved his life. When the >> Nazis invaded Belgium, he was on a chess tour in >> Central America. He immigrated to the United States >> after a chess-playing consul in Cuba enjoyed one of his >> demonstrations. >> >> He met his wife, Leah, in New York City in 1944. The >> couple moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1947. >> >> "George Koltanowski was a legendary member of the >> Chronicle family," said Managing Editor Jerry Roberts. >> "He was a great chess player, an outstanding journalist, >> a true gentleman, and he could beat any other >> newspaper's chess columnist with his eyes closed." >> >> Koltanowski was former president of the U.S. Chess >> Federation. He served during the years after the Bobby >> Fischer boom of 1972, when interest in chess soared to >> record highs. >> >> In 1960, in an exhibition sponsored by the Chronicle, he >> set a world's record by playing 56 opponents >> consecutively while blindfolded. He didn't lose a single >> game. >> >> "I don't know how he does it," Leah Koltanowski once >> said. "He can't even remember to bring home a loaf of >> bread from the supermarket." >> >> Koltanowski is survived by his wife, four nieces and >> two nephews. >> >> Plans for a memorial service in San Francisco are >> pending. > > >I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with him at an ACM event years ago. >He gave his famous blindfolded knights tour demo using bizarre numbers suggested >by the audience to identify each square. He also told an incredibly funny story >about playing a patzer on an airplane where the patzer promoted a pawn to a >king. After protesting to the patzer, he then promoted one of his own pawns to >an opponent's king and then checkmated all 3 with one move. :) > >Sad to see him go, although we all must at some point. > >Him memory was remarkable. According to his wife his memory was a disaster, something difficult to believe in the case of a player that has the record of simultaneous blindfolded games. In 1982 (Steve was there too, in Chicago), she told me quite charmed that he always forgot to buy many things that were in the shopping list, until she found the remedy: leaving the list on the chessboard. He never forgot anything ever since. :) >His memories will live on... I truly hope so. Enrique
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