The Chess Heroes: Teodor Regedzinski
Posted by Webmaster on 02 May 2006
Teodor Regedzinski was born on April 28th, 1894 near Lodz. His biography is the field of calamitous conflict of allegiance and choices unfeasible to face in a way that would satisfy everyone. Born Polish, he was of German origin as his father, who was a blacksmith by profession, was a German named Reger. As a young boy stemming from a poor family he had to earn for a living very soon. He had lived in Lodz since 1908 enrolling in the Lodz Association of Devotees of the Game of Chess (Lodzkie Towarzystwo Zwolennikow Gry Szachowej), city's strongest chess club. In 1912 he came second (behind Salwe; Rubinstein did not play) in an unofficial city championship. During WWI he was temporarily detained by the Austrians but was released in 1916. In 1917 he came third in the club championship, behind Rubinstein and Salwe. However already in 1918 and 1919 he won, in the absence of Rubinstein though. He participated in all four pre-1939 editions of exceptionally tough Polish Championship. In its premier edition in Warsaw in 1926 he won third prize shared with four other players. On the next year in Lodz he was fourth, but the competition was much harder; Rubinstein won ahead of Tartakower and Makarczyk. Later on that year he won master tournament in Kecskemet, which happened to underlie the IM title that he was awarded a few decades later. In 1928 he was member of Polish team at the 2nd Chess Olympiad in The Hague, where he scored 10/13 receiving third prize for best individual result (no board order was known those days), he also won a bronze medal with the team. In 1930 he came 8th in an international tournament in Stubnianske Teplice (today's Turčianske Teplice, Slovakia) defeating a.o. Lilienthal and H.Steiner. In 1933 he went to Folkestone but fitness had always been his Achilles' heel and dry, matitime climate crippled him. He was not in the national team at the Warsaw Olympiad in 1935 because he did badly in the 3rd Polish Championship earlier on that year finishing 11th. In 1937 he came 8th in the 4th national championship which was a behemoth open tournament; Tartakower won ahead of Staahlberg of Sweden and Najdorf. At the Stockholm Olympiad he reached his all-time peak scoring marvellous 11/13 (+10=2-1) to win second prize for best result at his board and third best overall result. He also contributed greatly to Poland's bronze medal. In August 1939 he left for Chess Olympiad in Argentina where outbreak of WWII found him and his team-mates. Unlike other players of Polish team (Najdorf, Frydman, Tartakower) who profited hospitality of Jewish Diaspora in Buenos Aires and settled there for some years (or even forever), he decided to go aboard and come back to Europe, where his wife and his son were waiting.
As he came back to occupied Poland he decided to sign a volkslist, thus deeding over to his German roots and swearing off loyalty to Poland, which was considered to be a capital crime among Polish people. As Theodore Reger he had played in a number of chess tournament under Nazi patronage, including 7th German Championship in Bad Oeynhausen in 1940, where he finished 10th. In 1941 he played in the Generalgouvernement Championship in Cracow, won by Alekhine. Generalgouvernement was allocated part of pre-war Poland's territory to receive a smitch of autonomy, still under strict Nazi control anyway. Because of his linguistic skills (he spoke Polish, German, Russian, English and French) he was appointed by the German Army as an interpreter.
After the end of the War he came back to Lodz (it is a big mystery to me why he decided to leave Germany and confront new Polish reality) and was arrested by the newly appointed communist authorities and sentenced for collaboration with the facist regime to serve four years in a labour camp. Years spent in prison broke his health and his life. In late 1940's he came back to become active chess player once again, notwithstanding with the fact the he devoted most of his time spent on chess for work as a chess activist. In 1952 he even managed to win the championship of Lodz once again and came 5th in the national championship. His deteriorating health, however, made this his swansong. He passed away in 1954.
His chess career hasn't been dazzling, his Olympic record looks flash though. He played 46 games overall, of which he won 26 and lost 6 (71.7%). He won three individual and three team medals. He was also a member of Polish team which took silver medals in Munich, at the unofficial Olympiad.
His contemporaries recalled him as a humble and passionate person and chess addict. He did a lot for development of youth chess in his home town. His playing style was described as positional and incisive in defence. He was well-known from his wide theoretical knowledge.
See Teodor Regedzinski's all-time Olympic record.
See one of his games from 1937 Olympiad
Jiři Pelikan (CSR) - Teodor Regedzinski (POL) 0 - 1
Unzicker passes at 81
Posted by Webmaster on 24 Apr 2006
The chess world mourns as legendary German GM Wolfgang Unzicker died of heart failure during a holiday in Portugal on April 20, 2006.Anatoly Karpov called Wolfgang Unzicker the “world champion of amateurs”. He was born in Pirmasens, Germany, on June 26, 1925, and started to play chess at the age of ten.
Unzicker's career as an international tournament player began after the Second World War. He won the German championship seven times, from 1948 to 1965, and played in twelve Chess Olympiads, from 1950 to 1978 (on board one in ten of them). In 1954 he was awarded the grandmaster title. He represented his country on the national team nearly 400 times.
Unzicker's tournament victories include first place tie (+6 =9) with Boris Spassky at the Chigorin Memorial in Sochi 1965, first at Maribor 1967 ahead of Samuel Reshevsky, first at Krems, and first at Amsterdam 1980, tied with Hans Ree. In 1950, Unzicker shared the prize for best top-board score (+9 =4 -1) with Miguel Najdorf for his performance on first board for the West German team at the Dubrovnik Chess Olympiad. At the Tel Aviv 1964 Chess Olympiad Unzicker scored 13.5 points playing first board for the West German team that won the bronze medal on the strength of a 3-1 team victory over the Soviet Union. Unzicker also shared fourth place (+2 =14 -1) with Lajos Portisch in the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup in Santa Monica, California. Only Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, and Bent Larsen finished ahead of Unzicker. Unzicker placed ahead of world champion Tigran Petrosian, Samuel Reshevsky, Miguel Najdorf, Borislav Ivkov, and Hein Donner. At Hastings 1969-1970, Unzicker finished second (+4 =5) after Lajos Portisch and before Svetozar Gligoric and world champion Vasily Smyslov. Unzicker finished second (+3 =7 -2) to Viktor Korchnoi at South Africa 1979.
May he rest in peace.
/from chessbase.com/
See his all-time Olympic record: http://www.olimpbase.org/players/cmkmci2i.html
Watch his best games from the Olympiads:
Unzicker-Reshevsky 1-0, Munich 1958 Olympiad
Smyslov-Unzicker 0-1, Tel Aviv 1964 Olympiad
One of most common problems emerging at the round robin tournaments is what tie-break should be used to rank players (or teams) level on game points. Multitude of methods are in use but one called "The Sonneborn-Berger" or just "Berger" is by far the most popular. It is counted as a sum of scores of all opponents a player defeated plus half of scores of all players he has drawn with. I asked myself once why is it called "Sonneborn-Berger" and what was the origin of the system. I had to do some research on the issue in the dust-covered volumes of old chess magazines. As is happened (not only in this case, I believe) the history proved not to be the fair judge. 
Dear readers,
Only six men's and four women's teams came to Iranian city of Esfahan to take part in the 14th Asian Team Championship. China, gold medal winners in both categories from Jodhpur (2003) did not arrive this time. Former Asian champions like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the Philippines were missing as well. Because of limited number of participating teams the event was a double round robin.
Dear chess Friends!
Apart from the World Team Championship each of four continents has its own team championship. There is also separate competition for both Americas and every four years all of American chess nations are invited to take part. Unfortunately this looked more like South American Championship in the past because Cuba and the Netherlands Antilles are the only teams outside South America to ever appear at the Panamerican Team Championship.