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Who Would Marry a Chess Master?

batgirl
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Here are some photos of various chess masters and their spouses:

 We'll start with one of the wives (he was married and divorced twice) of the 19th century Dutch polymath - and for our purposes, chess historian - Antonius van der Linde. I couldn't uncover her name.


from the Cleveland Public Library Special Collections



Soaring forward to the middle 20th century, below are photos of Mikhail Tal and his first and third wives. 23 year old Tal married a 19 year old singer/actress, Sallyi (Sally) Landau, in 1959. They divorced in 1970, after 11 years.They had a son, Gera.


Salli singing with Eddie Rosner's jazz band.

Salli on the Riga theater

 


Tal with Salli Landau on the day of their engagement.

Tal and Salli
Tal and Salli registering their marriage

same as above

Tal and Salli - day of engagement

Then he married another woman, from Tbilisi, whose name eludes me.  According to hearsay, the woman married Tal after a failed relationship. During the honeymoon, her former lover came to their hotel room and the woman returned to Georgia with him. Soon after, Tal married Angelina Petukhov, an employee of "Riga Shakhmaty," who was his wife until his death. They had a daughter Zhanna.

Tal with his third wife, Angelina, and daughter Zhanna.

 

Anatloy Karpov was twice married.

His first wife, Irina Kuimova


Irina, baby Anatoly, Anatoly


His second wife, Natalia Bulanova

 

Tigran Petrosian met his future and only wife, Rona Yakovlevna Avinezar, an English teacher and translator, in 1951 and they married the next year.  Rona was always considered the "woman behind the man." They had two sons, Mikhail and Vartan.


Tigran and Rona


Tigran, Rona and Mikhail Petrosian

Rona and Tigran


Like Petrosian, Viktor Korchnoi was married but once. 

Bella Korchnoi from the Icelandic "Morgunblaðið,"  June 20,1981

Bella Korchnoi with Angelina Tal


Mikhail Botvinnik was also monogamous. In 1935, the studious 25 year old Botvinnik married Gayane Anaova Davidovna, a ballerina with the Mariinsky Theater, trained at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, whom he met through her father, an instructor of mathematics. Their daughter, Olga, was born in 1942, during the great war.

Mikhail, Olga and Ganna (Gayane)

Gayane and Mikhail




Bent Larsen with his wife Lizzie in 1965








Boris Spassky was married three times. below is his second wife Larisa.


Boris Spassky shown signing the registry at the Moscow marriage office with his third wife, Marina Stcherbatcheff,  a secretary in the commercial section of the French Embassy.





Paul and Mary (Riives) Keres


Vassily Smyslov with his wife, Nadezhda in 1957



The following are well-known American players and their wives mainly from the first half of the 20th century:


Frank and Carrie Marshall

Herbert Seidman and his wife, Phoebe.
They had 2 sons, Richard and Peter.


Arnold and Nina Denker


Mr. and Mrs Reshevsky
Norma, baby, Sammy Reshevshy

Norma Reshevshy

Reuben and Emma Fine
Reuben Fine, according to his NY "Times" obituary, married 5 times. First to Charlotte Margoshes, ironically, a psychologist (according to the L.A. Times, in 1937). He married Emma Thea Kessing, the daughter of a Dutch publisher, in September of 1937. They divorced in 1944.  In 1946, he married Sonya Lebeaux. Later he married someone else and finally a woman named Marcia. Fine had 3 children, Benjamin, Ellyn and June.