Early Sammy

These are some 1922 photos of Sammy Reshevsky I'd never seen on the web.


a simul at Providence R.I in 1922




the mayor of Providence in a photo-op.

1922

Feb.1922

1922

1922

Another fantastic article, batgirl. Reshevsky has always been one of my favorite players. His “Reshevsky’s Best Games of Chess” was the book that got me started on studying chess back in 1970.

 I got to see Sammy once, though sadly did not get to actually meet him. It was in 1980 in Charlotte, NC, where I was playing in a weekend Swiss. He gave a simul one evening and I stopped by to watch. He played 40 opponents, winning 38 games and drawing 2.

He didn’t get a heckuva lot taller than he was in the pics you posted. He looked incredibly small, just about five feet tall. It was quite amusing that another person who came to watch the simul (and did get to meet Reshevsky) was Cedric Maxwell, a professional basketball player who loved chess. Maxwell was 6’8” tall so when they were talking it looked like Reshevsky was a small child. But at the same time Maxwell just exuded respect and humility toward the great one.

Thank you for bringing another slice of chess history to life.

Thanks for the article on Rzeschewski.

nice article

As you're undoubtably aware, Sammy was an Orthodox Jew who refused to play on the Sabbath, and many opponents accommodated him for the honor of playing against him.  What you might not be aware of is the various stories circulating about him that suggest that he was not a very nice person.  If you think that Bobby Fischer invented bad manners at the chessboard, you would be wrong; many players preceded him; the difference is between insanity and sane calculation.  I'm not a very nice person either at times, but I lack the chess skill to become the subject of a Batgirl post.     

From personal experience he was not a nice person, at least not in the 1980s.  I can only imagine what being a child prodigy did to his development.  Great pictures.  Thank you for posting.