Chess Personalities

Soviet chess organizer and author who was of IM strength. He was expelled from school at the age of 17 because of his radical ideas then was sent to Geneva to complete his education. After winning the championship of Geneva in 1914 he added the town’s name to his own. He returned to Russia, fought

Russian International Arbiter, Executive Secretary of the Soviet Federation (1982-1984), Chairman of the board of Arbiters of the Russian Chess Federation. Statistician and journalist. A member of Garry Kasparov’s team during few world championship matches vs. Anatoly Karpov, he developed also a new system of rating calculation, which was used for some time by the PCA.

U.S. chess amateur born in New York. A journalist and photographer and writer. A participant with the British Virgin Islands in 17 Olympiads (1968-2008). In 1980 Hook was awarded the Gold medal on board 1 for best percentage result. The British Virgin Islands postal authority even released a stamp to commemorate the exceptional achievement. The

American chess amateur and writer born in Scotland who was inducted into the Chess Hall of Fame in 1997. He made key contributions to the development of numerical rating systems for chess players and was a key figure in developing and proving the viability of the Swiss System chess tournament pairing system. He coauthored one of

Russian player. A lawyer. In the 1870s he participated in a local tournament in St.Petersburg where he beat strong players like Simon Alapin, Mikhail Chigorin, and few others. In 1891 he beat Raphael Falk by 5-2. He was mostly known as a correspondence chess player.

Austrian chess amateur, author and journalist (Arbeit und Wirtschaft, after 1946 Arbeiterzeitung). After been interned by the Nazis in 1938/39 in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, he emigrated to Belgium in 1939 then to France up to 1941 from where he managed to reach the USA where he was employed by the Office of War

British architect and author. British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1944. OTB winner of Blackpool in 1944 and of the London championship in 1958. He played five times in the British championship, perhaps coming closest to winning at Nottingham in 1954. He led in the early stages, but around 8 defeat by Gerald Abrahams seemed to

American chess player, International Arbiter (1954), chess author. One of the founders of the U.S. Chess Federation. The founder and editor of the famous magazine American Chess Bulletin (1904-63).  He was the editor of the chess column of the newspaper Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1893- 1954) and other chess columns. The author of The New York

German player of Grandmaster’s strength who was one of the top 3 or 4 players in the world during the 1850s. ‘The modern generation’, said Emanuel Lasker in 1932, ‘fails to do justice to him. He was a great player’. Harrwitz was born in Breslau and together with Adolf Anderssen, they were very famous in

Hungarian chess historian, journalist and engineer.  His first name was Khloyber. Foldeak was also an International Judge in Chess Compositions 1964. He was the author of the famous book about the history of the Chess Olympiads (1958) and also the book on Geza Maroczy and the monograph on Gedeon Barcza and Ein Vierteljahrhundert Turmendspiele, Theorie