1970 Palma de Mallorca Autographs

The postcard shown in the image is from eBay auction CHESS, Tournament in Palma De Mallorca, Bobby Fischer.

The auction description said, 'Chess, International tournament in Palma De Mallorca, original autograph, Chess masters: Bobby Fischer...' This was the 1970 Palma de Mallorca Interzonal Tournament, which Fischer won by 3.5 points and which launched him into the Candidate Matches that would eventually lead to the 1972 title match with Spassky.

Fischer's autograph is clearly visible in the top center of the card's message area. The other signatures are from other participants in the interzonal and are easily identified in the high resolution scan linked from the original auction. The card sold for US $462.88.

World Championship Bibliography

Following up World Championship Widgetitis, I had the idea to turn the Amazon.com widget into a bibliography. First I made a list of titles at hand, ordered by the year of the first event covered and the author.

• 1834: Gelo; Chess World Championship: All the Games, 1834-1984; McFarland, 1995
• 1834: Kasparov; My Great Predecessors [Vol. I to V]; Everyman, 2003
• 1834: Winter,E.G.; World Chess Champions; Pergamon, 1981
• 1883: Minchin; The Games played in the London International Chess Tournament 1883; BCM, 1973
• 1886: Kazic; International Championship Chess, A complete record of FIDE events; Batsford 1974
• 1886: Schroeder; Steinitz - Zukertort 1886; Chess Digest (?), [Published?]
• 1907: Schroeder; Lasker - Marshall 1907; Chess Digest, 1972
• 1908: Schroeder; Lasker - Tarrasch 1908; Chess Digest, 1970
• 1921: Capablanca; World's Championship Matches 1921 and 1927; Dover, 1977
• 1934: Reinfeld & Fine; A.Alekhine vs. E.D.Bogoljubow, World's Chess Championship 1934; Dover, 1967
• 1935: Purdy; Extreme Chess: World Championships 1935 - 1937 - 1972; Thinkers' Press, 1999
• 1937: Alekhine; The World's Chess Championship, 1937; Pitman & Sons, 1938
• 1937: Botvinnik; Alekhine vs. Euwe Return Match 1937; Chess Digest, 1973
• 1948: Euwe; Wereldkampioenschap Schaken 1948; De Tijdstrom, 1948
• 1948: Gligoric & Wade; The World Chess Championship [1948-1969]; Harper & Row, 1972
• 1948: Golombek; World Chess Championship 1948; Bell, 1949
• 1951: Winter,W. & Wade; The World Chess Championship: 1951 Botvinnik v. Bronstein; Turnstile, 1951
• 1954: Golombek; World Chess Championship 1954; MacGibbon & Kee, 1954
• 1957: Mohaupt & Machatscheck; Weltmeisterschaftturnier 1957: Botwinnik - Smyslow; Sportverlag, 1957
• 1958: Botvinnik; World Championship: The Return Match Botvinnik vs. Smyslov 1958; Chess Digest, 1973
• 1960: Tal; Tal - Botvinnik 1960; Bell-Lucas, 1970
• 1961: Flohr; Weltmeisterschaft 1961, Botvinnik - Tal; Wildhagen, 1960(?)
• 1963: Wade; The World Chess Championship 1963, Botvinnik v. Petrosian; Neville Spearman, 1963
• 1966: Flohr; Petrosjan bleibt Weltmeister [1966]; W. Ten Have, 1966
• 1966: Tal; World Championship: Petrosian vs. Spassky 1966; Chess Digest, 1973
• 1969: Clarke; The 1969 World Chess Championship Match; BCM, [Published?]
• 1969: Flohr; Spassky - Weltmeister [1969]; W. Ten Have, [Published?]
• 1972: Gligoric; Fischer v. Spassky [1972]; Fontana, 1972
• 1978: Edmondson & Tal; Chess Scandals: The 1978 World Chess Championship; Pergamon, 1981
• 1978: Hartston; The Battle of Baguio City: Karpov - Korchnoi 1978; Hutchinson, 1978
• 1978: Karpov & Baturinsky; From Baguio to Merano, The World Championship Matches of 1978 and 1981; Pergamon, 1986
• 1978: Keene; World Chess Championship, Korchnoi vs. Karpov [1978]; Simon & Schuster, 1978
• 1978: Larsen; Karpov vs. Korchnoi: World Chess Championship 1978; Unwin, 1978
• 1981: Karpov; Chess at the Top, 1979-1984 [includes 1981 Karpov - Korchnoi]; Pergamon, 1984
• 1981: Keene; Massacre in Milano, Karpov - Korchnoi [1981]; Batsford, 1981
• 1981: Pfleger & Borik; Schach-WM'81: Karpow - Kortschnoi; Falken, 1981
• 1984: Keene; The Moscow Challenge, Karpov - Kasparov [1984]; Macmillan, 1985
• 1985: Averbakh & Taimanov; The World Chess Championship, Karpov - Kasparov, Moscow 1985; Raduga, 1986
• 1985: Kasparov; Garry Kasparov, New World Chess Champion [1985]; Pergamon, 1986
• 1985: Keene & Goodman; Maneuvers in Moscow, Kasparov - Karpov II [1985]; Macmillan, 1985
• 1986: Kasparov; London - Leningrad Championship Games [1986]; Pergamon, 1987
• 1986: Keene & Goodman; The Centenary Match, Kasparov - Karpov III [1986]; Macmillan, 1986
• 1986: Pfleger et al; Die Schach-Revanche: Kasparow / Karpow 1986; Falken, 1986
• 1987: Birmingham & Verat; Championnat du Monde: Seville 1987, Karpov - Kasparov; Grasset, 1988
• 1990: Kasparov et al; Kasparov v. Karpov 1990; Pergamon, 1991
• 1990: Keene; Kasparov - Karpov, Battle of the Titans [1990]; Collier, 1991
• 1990: Seirawan & Tisdall; Five Crowns: Kasparov - Karpov 1990; International Chess Enterprises, 1991
• 1992: Davies et al; Bobby Fischer: The $5,000,000 Comeback [1992 Fischer - Spassky]; Cadogan, 1992
• 1993: Hartston; Short vs. Kasparov: The Hijack of the 1993 World Chess Championship; Hodder & Stoughton, 1993
• 1993: Keene; Kasparov - Short 1993; Batsford, 1993
• 1993: Lawson; The Inner Game [1993 Kasparov - Short]; Macmillan, 1993
• 1995: Keene; World Chess Championship, Kasparov v. Anand [1995]; Batsford, 1995
• 1995: King; World Chess Championship 1995, Kasparov vs. Anand; Cadogan, 1995
• 2000: Bareev & Levitov; From London to Elista [2000 Kramnik - Kasparov, 2004 Kramnik - Leko, 2006 Kramnik - Topalov]; New in Chess, 2007
• 2006: Topalov & Ginchev; Topalov - Kramnik: 2006 World Chess Championship; Russell Enterprises, 2007

It's not perfect, but it's a start.

World Championship Widgetitis

Maybe it's an infectious disease; maybe it's laziness; maybe laziness is an infectious disease. Last week I added a widget at the bottom of the page for Mahalo.com. This week I added a widget in the sidebar for an Amazon.com search on book titles having the words World Chess Championship.

The motivation for the two widgets is related. I wanted to add book titles about the World Championship to Mahalo, but their tool, which drags in everything related to the search phrase from Amazon, returned more junk than useful titles. Example: 'World Chess Championship Matches, Vol 2' and 'World Chess Championship Matches. Book 2', both by Berdichevsky, were two separate entries. Then there were three entries for the book on the 1951 Botvinnik - Bronstein match by Wade and Winter.

My problem with widgets is that they often slow down the loading of the page, sometimes to a crawl. If people are going to wait for a page to load, they might as well get something useful.

***

As long as I've touched on the subject of Berdichevsky, I've sometimes wondered what exactly are these books, spanning three volumes. Schachversand.de has pages on World Chess Championship Matches for Vol.1, Vol.2, and Vol.3, but the reviews are somewhat brief and in German. The preface for Vol.2, written by Smyslov, says,

Here, for the first time, have been collected together all the annotated games of all the matches for the world championship matches between 1886 and 1998. Apart from being an encyclopedia, this work also has considerable instructional value, since at all times people have learned primarily from the games of the champions.

'All the annotated games of all the matches for the world championship'; that's a lot of annotations.

Mahalo.com

A few days ago I noticed that Mahalo.com's World Chess Championship topic was available, so I signed up for it. I haven't done much with the page yet, except to clean and correct the info that was already there. See the new widget at the bottom of this page for links etc.

More info: Mahalo.com (Wikipedia) • Q&A with Jason Calacanis, Founder & CEO, Mahalo.com. (searchenginewatch.com) • Mahalo.com - An About.com/Wikipedia Hybrid (russellheimlich.com).

I also signed up for Mahalo.com's Fischerandom topic. Contributors are only allowed two topics each, so I've reached my limit. I'll update the Mahalo pages at the same frequency I update my related blogs, which is once a week.

***

Later: I worked on the two topics over a period of 2-3 weeks, became frustrated with the tools, and abandoned the effort. It took Mahalo about six months to open the topics for someone else.

World Championship Qualifiers 1946

There is a case to be made for including the tournaments at Groningen 1946 and Prague 1946 in any comprehensive list of World Championship qualifying events. From 'Najdorf: Life and Games' by Lissowski et al (p.27):-

The minutes of the Winterthur Congress [17th FIDE Congress, July 1946] stipulated:

If the winners of the tournaments in Groningen and Prague are not among the six above-mentioned masters [Botvinnik, Keres, Smyslov, Reshevsky, Fine, & Euwe], they shall play a match in Prague organized by the Czechoslovak Federation under the auspices of FIDE. The winner of that match shall be added to the list of participants. If one of the winners is already on the list of participants, the other shall automatically qualify.

Running ahead, we may say that this clause was of direct concern to Miguel Najdorf, and that it was virtually the only one to be repudiated later -- as a clear result of actions behind the scenes by the most influential countries in the chess world.

Botvinnik won at Groningen (see Groningen 1946 chess tournament [Wikipedia.org]), and Najdorf won at Prague (see Prague 1946 [TheChessLibrary.com]).