Bill Wall's Chess Blog

    Raymond Dennis Keene was born on January 29, 1948 in Wandsworth, London.  His parents were Dennis Arthur Keene and Doris Anita Leat. In 1954, at the age of 6, he learned how to play chess from his mother. Between 1959 and 1966, he attended Dulwich College and played top board for the school team.  His team won the Sunday Times National Schools’ Chess Tournament in 1965 and 1966.  In 1960, he started playing organized chess in British chess clubs, In January 1964, he won the London Under-18 Championship.  In August 1964, he won British Under-18 Championships (shared by Brian Denman. In 1965, he won the Surrey Chess Championship.  In August 1965, he represented England at the World Junior Championships, held in Barcelona.  In August 1966, he represented England at the Students’ Olympiad in Orebro, Sweden. In October 1966, he represented England at the 17 th Chess Olympiad in Havana.  He was 2 nd reserve board with 4 wins, 5 draws, and 1 loss.  Keene was able to get Fidel Castro’s a

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  Yuri Nikolaevich Sakharov ( Ю́рій Микола́йович Са́харо ) was born on September 18, 1922, in Yuzovka (Stalino since 1924, and now Donetsk, Ukraine since 1961).   Other sources have him born in the village of Vlasovka, Voronezh Oblast, Russia, over 300 miles away. His father, Nikolai Matveevich Sakharov (1881 – 1937), was an official in the Donbass mining industry in Ukraine.   Yuri was his only child.   His mother, Alexandra Afanasievna Yumashev, was a housewife and, later, worked in a sewing factory cutter.  In 1934, Yuri learned how to play chess from his father.  In 1938, Yuri took his first chess lessons from from Apollinary Nikolaevich Gaevsky (1897-1990), a physics and math teacher and strong chess player from Donetsk, Ukraine.  He played in the first Ukrainian chess championship, held in Kiev in 1924.  He also played in the second Ukranian championship, held in Kharkov in 1925. In 1938, Sakharov’s father was arrested, proclaimed as “an enemy of the people,” and executed

  Faneuil (Fan) Adams, Jr. (1923-1999) was a former senior executive with the Mobil Oil Corporation and former president of the American Chess Foundation (ACF) which later became the Chess-in-the-Schools.  He was also the Treasurer and Director of the Manhattan Chess Club.  He served as a delegate to FIDE, representing the USA.  He was an unpaid, full-time volunteer for chess.  He set up chess programs for 160 schools, mostly in inner-city areas, and helped send teams to national scholastic competitions.  He was a direct descendent of Samuel Adams.  When he died of a brain tumor, he bequeathed a donation of 80% to Chess-in-the-Schools, which he founded, and 20% to the Manhattan Chess Club.  His will stated that if the Manhattan Chess Club were to go defunct, this 20% would go back into the Chess-in-the-School for their general use.  A year after Adams’ death, Chess-in-the-Schools evicted the Manhattan Chess Club from its building.  After 124 years, the Manhattan Chess Club went defunct

  Carl Friedrich Andreyevich von Jaenisch (pronounced YAY-nish) was born in Vyborg, Russia (50 miles northwest of Petersburg, close to Finland) on April 11, 1813.   Carl had 6 siblings. His father, Andreas, died in 1832 and Carl was raised by his uncle, Karl, a surgeon.     He began a military career in Finland, and then moved to Russia to teach mechanics in Petersburg.  Jaenisch attended the Institute of the Corps of Railroad Engineers.  In 1837, he published Decouvertes sure le cavalier (aux echecs).   In 1838, he was an engineer and major in the Russian army.   He was professor of mechanics at the Railway Institute. In 1838-39, he played a correspondence match with Lionel Kieseritsky, winning 1 game and drawing 1 game.     In 1840, he left the Russian army to concentrate full-time on chess.   Unable to support himself fully through chess, he worked in the Russian Ministry of Finance.     In 1842, he visited Berlin an analyzed openings with Thassilo von der Lasa.