>CALENDAR> >ARTICLES> >HOME>   >CLUB INFO> >LINKS> >BLOGS>

A History of the Kenilworth Chess Club

by Michael David Wojcio

1972-1980 | 1980-1990 | The Club Championship | Exhibitions | The Future

PART FOUR - EXHIBITIONS

Blindfold Play

In the Fall of 1991, NM Scott Massey gave the first of several blindfold exhibitions at the club, taking on two players at a time sequentially for three rounds, making a total of six players during the course of the night. Scott went 5-1. The winner was Ed Rodda.

NM Scott Massey during his blindfold exhibition (click left to open another photo). Ed Rodda is the player to the right (click right to open another photo).

What was most impressive about the event was that Scott had memorized all six games and went over each one afterward. Ed Rodda’s game was the last and towards the end Scott stated that he forgot that a pawn was on g4 or he would have taken the Bishop delivering check at f5, with at least a draw by perpetual check, which he was able to demonstrate from memory.

There have been a number of records in blindfold chess. Janos Flesch of Hungary, played 52 people successively in 12 hours, but he won 31, lost 18 and drew 3, so it is actually only rated somewhere in the best 5-10 performances of all time. The best two performances were in by Gorge Koltanowski in 1937. In one, he played 34 successive opponents in 13½ hours and won 24 and drew 10. In my opinion, the best performance of all time, though, was by Miguel Najdorf in 1945 playing 45 opponents simultaneously in San Paulo, Brazil. He won 39, drew 4 and lost 2.

Lectures and Simuls

When I was president anyone (including myself) could give a lecture. Scott’s lectures through the years have been excellent. He has given the club many lectures. Also worth mentioning was expert Jason Cohen’s lecture about corresponding squares on September 21, 1995. I wish that I had kept my notes on that one, since Jason explained it very well compared to some esoteric theory I’ve heard from others. Yet, the best lecture that I ever heard at the club (or for that matter anywhere) was when Scott talked about the history of Bobby Fischer in November 2004. He talked at length about this before going over some of Bobby’s games and it was both interesting and educational.

In 1990 I started simultaneous exhibitions and lectures and we had many GMs and Masters helping us create major club events up until the year 2000. Before every simul was a lecture. There were 18 Simultaneous Exhibitions at our club while I was president. I realize we never did get players like those famed GM’s Steve Doyle got at the Tom’s River Club, but we had good turn-outs and promoted chess too. Our policy was that the chess player had to be a master or better to give a simul. I always made the rules touch piece and playing your own game without anyone’s help. Also the last one playing had to end it with a timed 5-minute game. Simuls can take a long time and this always helped to speed it up at the end. We let the Grandmaster or Master make the decision about the color of their opponents. Accordingly, GM Arthur Bisguier contributed to some of our rules that we used later on. He suggested that anyone could play with the white pieces if they paid five dollars more. I liked Arthur’s idea very much.

I’m glad the newly elected Dean of US Chess gave us a lecture and simul back in 1993. I still remember in his lecture he told us the absolute value of castling with the kings on the board once a piece or pawn is taken. He further supported this by showing how talented GM Anand could have had better results in his match against Kasparov if he had castled early.

The only difficulty I had was to get the attention of the master or GM giving the lecture to stop it and start the simultaneous. Pat Mazzillo, Richard Faceltano, some others, and myself worked on making name cards for everyone. Sometimes Greg Tomkovich and some others donated refreshments. I took many pictures, did the publicity (by passing out flyers but by especially making many phone calls), and made sure a few latecomers could play as long as they promised to make about five to fifteen moves to catch up with everyone else. During the 1990’s we had 349 players during those 18 simultaneous exhibitions. It’s good to give some sort of incentive and if anybody ever won their game against the master or titled player they would get their money back or receive a prize (usually a chess book).

NM Scott Massey	NM Todd Lunna
GM Max Dlugy 1990	GM Ron Henley

I consider Max Dlugy’s performance in 1990 the best, although he lost a game. I realize Ron Henley played exceptionally well with a 24-0 performance and had a perfect score! Yet he took 4 hours and he made sure all of his opponents played with the black pieces. Amazingly, Dlugy played 26 people in 2 hours and gave everyone choice of color! Many people took white. In addition to that, when Max played the exhibition I remember that there were quite a few strong players that he faced that day. By the way, John Fedorowitz’s record in 1995 with 21 wins and 3 draws was in my opinion a great performance. “Fed” gave them all a choice of color and did it in 2 1/4 hours. Also the late GM Edgar Mednis’s 25-0-3 record was outstanding. He did actually win the most games and played 28 people.

During those 18 lectures and simultaneous exhibitions B-player Pedro Figueroa played the best with four wins! He was a well-liked gentleman at the club and was on my chess team the Chessaholics for five years at the U.S. Amateur team. Pedro then moved to Missouri. I wrote to him several times. He moved again and I lost touch with him. I remember the night in 1992 when we played a rated match (1/2 hour each) at the club. Pedro and I ended up going 3-3 and we finished at 4:00 a.m. It was hard staying awake teaching my students the next day. If anyone knows where Pedro is please tell him to contact us by e-mail.

Here are some of the better games by members of the club in the simuls we held.

Updated June 08, 2005