1944

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January 01, 1944

• The Minneapolis Star Minneapolis, Minnesota Saturday, January 01, 1944 - Page 6 — (Column) The Pawn Pusher by O.A. Holt

• The Winnipeg Tribune Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Saturday, January 01, 1944 - Page 15 — (Column) Chess — Among the many great exponents of the game of chess, the place of Jose Raoul Capablanca, the Cuban is secure. Learning chess from his father at a very early age, Capablanca was, at 12 years of age, Cuban champion by a wide margin. After taking “time out” to complete his education, his chess career began in earnest in 1909, and with only very occasional setbacks, was a long record of triumphal progress until 1928—the year in which he lost the world's championship to Dr. Alekhine. As a player, Capablanca was gifted with great combinational genius, and extraordinary positional insight. He could grasp, almost at a glance, the implications of almost any chess position, and make the right moves, seemingly without effort. This ability caused him to be regarded almost as a “chess machine”—one with the mentality to produce the right moves in any situation. This extraordinary power carried with it the weakness of very occasional lapses. “What Capablanca does not see at once, he does not see at all,” was said of him. In his match with Alekhine in which he lost the world's championship won from Lasker in 1921, it is believed that the psychological shock of losing the first game, upset the equilibrium of the “machine” so that Capablanca was not himself again during the match. We give below a specimen of his combinational genius, awarded a brilliancy prize at the San Sebastian tournament in 1911. Read More

January 02, 1944

• The Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sunday, January 02, 1944 - Page 51 — (Column) Chess and Checkers by Isaac Ash — Chess players throughout the country will join in paying tribute to Herman Helms who this year celebrates his 50th year as a chess editor. Born in 1870 he learned chess at the age of 17 and from that time on his career has been a colorful one as a player, lecturer, arranger of matches, and winner of many championships. A accomplished player he is in close contact with the chess players of the world through his articles in the papers and the American Chess Bulletin. His untiring efforts in promoting the royal game have earned him the esteem of chess players everywhere and his gentlemanly character has endeared him to all with whom he comes in contact. Read More

• The Observer London, Greater London, England Sunday, January 02, 1944 - Page 2 — (Column) Chess by Brian Harley

February 17, 1944

• The Baltimore Sun Baltimore, Maryland Thursday, February 17, 1944 - Page 10 — Now a chess-playing friend of mine comes along with the remark that chess playing is also to be divided into two types, clean chess and dirty chess. He insists that by dirty chess he does not mean dishonest chess — cheating, and that kind of thing — but simply a definite style of play. Clean chess, he says, is chess that is based on scrupulous attention to the game itself, and nothing else — that is to say, the position of the men on the board. The character of the opponent does not enter into this kind of chess game. Dirty chess, on the other hand, is played with an eye to the weaknesses of the opponent rather than to the weaknesses in the position of his men on the board. In this kind of game, something like psychological warfare plays a very substantial part. It is a war of nerves, you might say. If, for example, one's opponent is known to be thrown into an unreasonable state of jitters by a certain type of move, that type of move should always be made, even though, according to the exponents of clean chess, it might be a “bad” move. Or if an opponent is known to be upset by rapid play, then moves are always made with the utmost speed, even though a better move might be worked out after a little more serious thought. My friend insists that dirty chess does not involve such “unfair” devices as tapping on the table, humming tunes, offering a cigarette when the opponent is obviously concentrating, and so forth, but is just as “fair” as clean chess. He confesses that he like to vary his play, sometimes playing a clean game and sometimes playing a dirty game. Read More