Chess Personalities

French player born in Vietnam. Correspondence player and International Arbiter. French national champion in 1945, 1950, 1954, 1955, 1959 and 1967. He has also won 6 times the championship of  Paris. A participant in seven Olympiads between 1956 and 1968. He was playing until he was 95 years old with a rating over than 2200

English printer who translated the master piece of Cessolis (Chess Morality renamed Game of Play of Chess) into English. The book, dated of 1474 and printed in Bruges,  is one of the first books in English. Leaf from the Game and Play of the Chess, with half-page woodcut of a king enthroned, a sceptre in

Russian-born, Paris-domiciled master. His great lucidity as a lecturer and writer had made him one of the greatest teachers the game has known. Such works as The Middle-game in Chess (a pioneering exposition of the fundamental concepts of time, space, and material), How Not to Play Chess, How to Play Chess Openings, and The Art

One of the strongest English players from 1910 to the 1930s. Chess man of letters. Yates worked as a chess correspondent of the Manchester Guardian; also, as the chess column editor of the Yorkshire Post from 1910 until 1932 and the Daily Telegraph from 1925 to 1932. He dealt with bookkeeping. Yates took part in

A British chess player, founder, publisher and editor of the periodical Chess from 1935 to 1989 and chess correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and the Illustrated London News. He was awarded the title of FIDE Life Member in 1953. A participant for the British Chess Federation in the Olympiad in Buenos Aires (1939) and represented

English editor of IM strength who won the British Championships in 1870 and 1872. He edited the Chess Player’s Chronicle during 1872-76. He also wrote a chess column in the Sporting Times. In 1877, he immigrated to Australia (hoping to cure his tuberculosis) where he wrote a chess column for the Australasian.

US lawyer, bibliophile and founder of the largest chess library in the world (32,568 volumes of books and serials, including 6,359 volumes of bound periodicals): the White Collection in the Cleveland Public Library, Ohio. He also left money to purchase new books and to keep the collection up to date.

Leading English chess player and writer on chess. In 1827, he was regarded as one of the strongest players in England. In 1831, he was one of the founders of the Westminster Club and eight years later, he founded the St. George’s Club. He was also the chess columnist of Bell’s Life from 1834 to

French chess amateur. General Secretary of the French Federation from 1924 until 1928. He was the organiser of the first Tournament of Nations (renamed later Chess Olympiad) in July 1924 in Paris and named the Father Founder of FIDE, a new international organisation representing 15 national chess federations which was created during the same event.

Italian humanist, a poet, Bishop of Alba since 1532. Author of the poem “Game of Chess” (Scacchia ludus, 1513 in Latin, was published in 1525 anonymously, later in 1527 under the author’s name. It tells about the chess game between Apollo and Mercury, in which new rules of chess were reflected, with a description of