Bill Wall's Chess Blog

  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 b...

  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 vi...

  Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was born in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Soviet Georgia, on June 17, 1929 to Armenian parents.   His illiterate father, Vartan, was a refugee from Turkey.   [source: Chess Life & Review , May 1976, pp.271-273] He learned the game of chess from his parents when he was 8 years old (other sources say he learned at age 11 in the Young Pioneers). He won a few junior events and local tournaments in Tbilisi. At 12 years old, Petrosian began training at the Tiflis Palace of Pioneers.  His first coach was Archil Ebralidze (1908-1960), a chess master who won the Georgian Championship in 1938, 1939, 1941, and 1946.   Petrosian’s father discouraged him from playing chess, saying it was a waste of time.   His father warned Tigran and said to him, “Study!   You won’t earn your bread from chess.” In the June 1942, Petrosian was able to draw with Salo Flohr (1908-1983) in a simul.   That year he made friends with David Bronstein and ...

The best chess player in the 18 th century was François-Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795).  Before Philidor, the best player was Legall de Mermeur (1702-1792).  Legall was perhaps the strongest player in the world from 1730 to 1755.  By 1755, Philidor could beat Legall and dominated chess until he died in 1795. In the early 19 th century, Alexandre Deschapelles (1780-1847) was perhaps the strongest player in the world from 1800 to 1821.    Louis-Charles Mahle de La Bourdonnais (1795-1840) was perhaps the strongest player in the world after Deschapelles   He ruled chess from 1821 (when he defeated Alexandre Deschapelles) to 1840. From 1843 to 1851, the strongest player in the world was Howard Staunton (1810-1874).  Perhaps the second strongest player at the time was Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant, who Staunton beat in 1843. From 1851 to 1857, Adolf Anderssen (1818-1879) was the strongest player in the world.  He was the winner of th...