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George Walker was the writer of the first chess column to appear in a magazine, the Lancet, in 1823. The column lasted less than a year. In 1831 he formed the Westminster Chess Club, which was the leading club in England. In...
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Jon Loftur Arnason, born Nov 13, 1960, is an Icelandic grandmaster (1986). He was winner of the first World Championship for juniors under 17, in 1977 (ahead of Jay Whitehead and Kasparov). He won the championship of Iceland in 1977, a...
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The muse or goddess of chess, originally a wood-nymph, in a poem by Sir William Jones written in 1763 (and published in 1772) called Caissa. It was inspired by Vida’s Scacchia Ludus (written in 1513 and published in 1535), the poem tha...
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Nescio Nomen, a Latin phrase meaning name unknown. It has been customary to use N.N. for the given name of an unknown person.
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Ludek Pachman (1924-2003) was a Grandmaster (1954) who was imprisoned twice in Czechoslovakia after openly protesting the Soviet occupation of his land in 1968. He had been editor of one of the daily underground newspapers published illegall...
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Ernst Falkbeer (1819-1885) was an Austrian player who contributed to the King’s Gambit (Falkbeer Counter Gambit - 1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 e4). In 1855 he gave the game between Anderssen and Kieseritzky played in 1851 its name of the Imm...
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Eugene Znosko-Borovsky (1884-1954) was a Russian player of International Master strength and chess author. He fought and was wounded in both the 1905 Russo-Japanese war and World War I. He also fought for the White forces during the Ru...
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Dawid Janowski (1868-1927) was a Polish chess player of Grandmaster strength and addicted gambler. In 1901 he won an international tournament at Monte Carlo and lost all his first place money in the casino the same evening the tournament end...
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George Newnes (1851-1910) was a newspaper and magazine publisher (Tit-Bits, Review of Reviews, and Country Life). In 1892 he published The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. He helped finance the early days of m...
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Manuel Aaron was India’s first modern master and first International Master. He was born in Toungoo, Burma (now Myanmar) on December 30, 1935 and became an International Master in 1961 (the next Indian International Master was V. Ravi in 1978...
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