One more point on Reshevsky. In several articles and interviews, it was pointed out be his wife and others that he did not have a chess set in his home. He had a small magnetic set that he might occasionally take out and look at a game, but that was it. He had no chess books except the ones he wrote in his library. Wierd. I met him in 1990 at the Kasparov-Karpov world ch match and tried to interview him about chess, but he said he wouldn't talk about chess and had nothing else to talk about. He hung around Hanon Russell and not with the other GMs in the press area.
Not From This Planet
Sort:
What planet is this, anyway?
Steve212000 wrote:
When I was in the Army,I was stationed at Nellis AFB. I went to the facility at area 51 many times.
Well, that's why you don't believe in little green men from outer space. They did some kind of mind control on you during one of your many visits. Scary stuff.
Anyway, even the President of the United States doesn't know what's going on at area 51. It's to ensure plausible deniability. They explain all of that in the movie Independence Day (1996). 
Steve212000 wrote:
When I was in the Army,I was stationed at Nellis AFB. I went the facility at area 51
many times. None of it was true, they worked on prototype aircraft there.
A likely story! I should believe you or the World Weekly News?
billwall wrote:
One more point on Reshevsky. In several articles and interviews, it was pointed out be his wife and others that he did not have a chess set in his home. He had a small magnetic set that he might occasionally take out and look at a game, but that was it. He had no chess books except the ones he wrote in his library. Wierd. I met him in 1990 at the Kasparov-Karpov world ch match and tried to interview him about chess, but he said he wouldn't talk about chess and had nothing else to talk about. He hung around Hanon Russell and not with the other GMs in the press area.
His magnetic chess set is pictured in Chess Life. I would think that he would enjoy having a high quality wood set at home to work on his opening theory. I have a nice plastic study size set, and a weighted plastic tournament size set. I got a bunch of this and that chess sets all over the house, and I'm not even a tournament player. 
I guess he didn't need a chess set at all, since he could see everything in his head. Physically moving the pieces probably just slowed his amazing brain down too much.
When the super GM's play, it doesn't look like the wood set is as big as my tournament size fold up. How big is the board? After playing a lot on my study set, I now prefer something in between study and tournament size.
[Makes unfunny Chuck Norris comment]
I read the November Chess Life article and was amazed that someone so great at chess would have to put so little effort into it (or did he secretly study when no one was looking).
eddiewsox wrote:
What planet is this, anyway?
All I know is, this is the unfashionable end of the Galaxy but it's all I could afford.
The brochure said it was called Galactic Arms...then when I get here I find out they've got me right next to a freakin' nebula.
The galaxy is on Orion's belt.
And here's the lame little star I'm orbiting:
So you're probably saying, "Gee Andy, where was that picture taken, like a light year out or something?" Nope, that's what the thing looks like from one of its own planets! lol
So yeah, welcome to Chez Terra. It's that marble on the right (I wonder if I can still get my money back)...
Yeah, I heard about that (and I've still got a mortgage to pay off).
I'd suggest refinancing.
Conquistador wrote:
oinquarki wrote:
Conquistador wrote:
What planet is Reshevsky really from?
I now believe in aliens, extraterrestrials, little green guys, all the above. After reading the article on Herman Reshevesky, I have concluded that everthing said about Area 51 and Cosmic Conspiracies is true. The National Enquirer, required reading of the Men In Black, keeps us well informed of what our alien friends are up to.
Example
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the leader of the southern region of Kalymkia, told Russkie TV host Vladimir Pozner on Channel One on April 26, that he was abruptly taken from his Moscow apartment in 1997 aboard a spacecraft and had an extraterrestrial confab of the third kind.
Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevesky is featured on the cover of Chess Life, November 2011.
"Szmul Rzeszewski, at eight and already in his trademark sailor suit, gives simultaneous exhibition in Paris in 1920, scoring 20-0."
“At eight, Samuel Reshevsky left his native Poland as a famous chess prodigy. He was stared at, poked, hugged by strangers, and psychoanalyzed. Even his cranium was measured.
He never studied chess and couldn’t explain why he played so well – and he tired of being asked. He just knew it came as naturally to him as his love of singing.”
“Even on the steamship voyage to America, Reshevsky gave exhibitions, including blindfold demonstrations. And while Sammy, his parents, and yet a different manager waited while the ship was still being held in routine quarantine in New York City’s harbor, Herman Helms subjected Sammy to a tricky test. Helms had set up a position on a pocket set from one of the hundreds of games Reshevsky had played in exhibitions around Europe, and asked the boy if he had ever seen the game before. After a moment, Sammy smiled and made the moves that had followed in his win of a mutually blindfolded contest against Richard Griffith, former British chess champion and editor of British Chess Magazine."
This kid is obviously not from our planet.
The blindfold game described above is published in Chess Life, and it isn’t easy chess! “Black prevents e5-e6, but Sammy ‘sees’ a combination that simplifies to an easily won pawn ending. Nifty play from a blindfolded eight-year-old who never took a lesson!”
During his college years, Reshevsky has this to say about tournament play, “These tournaments taught me a lesson. Lack of knowledge of the openings had been unimportant in my barnstorming days as a child, but at this stage it was crippling! I went home to study openings for the first time in my life!”
This wunderkind, yea right, more like E.T. kid, without chess lessons nor chess books, beats the entire planet of chess players as a boy? How do you explain that? Superman came from the planet Krypton, which explained everything he could do on tv.
O.K. A little bit of morning silliness. So, what other boy or girl comes to mind that defies all rational explanations for the impossible things that they can do, with an intelligence that points towards distant planets?