Christmas Trivia Quiz - Comments, answers & winners

Prize giving
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The first prize, a 1-year subscription to New in Chess Yearbook, was won by Joseph Dellaposta from Australia, who scored 92.6%. | The second prize: 1-year subscription to New in Chess Magazine, was won by Christian Sánchez from Argentina, who scored 91.8% | The third prize, a 1-year subscription to Internet Chess Club (ICC), was won by Jurgen Looijestijn from The Netherlands, who scored 89.4%. |
Congratulations to the winners!
Comments from participants
- "The quiz is challenging and time consuming.""Thank you and Rene Olthof for a fun contest. I am afraid I don't know much about music albums.""I really enjoyed the quiz, with some answers being very hard to find (and some even impossible for me, seeing that I left some blanks...). Hope you will continue this quiz for the following years to come!""Great job on this one - I liked the olympiad logo question especially. Devilishly hard until you find a research strategy. Keep up the good work in 2010!""What a fine quiz bringing me hours of joy. Searching the internet and looking up things in my chess library broadened my knowledge of the chess world and trivia. However you totally spoiled my wife's Christmas as I was only busy solving the quiz and not paying attention to her or our kids.""It was a wonderful christmas and enjoyed a great deal with such spicy tough questions."
The Big Christmas 2009 Trivia Quiz - All questions & answers



Pal Benkö | Amiens (FRA) |
Robert Fischer | Chicago (USA) |
Emanuel Lasker | Barlinek (POL) |
Alisa Maric | New York (USA) |
Cecil Purdy | Port Said (EGY) |
Yasser Seirawan | Damascus (SYR) |
Wilhelm Steinitz | Prague (CZE) |
Jan Timman | Amsterdam (NED) |
William Watson | Bagdad (IRQ) |
Natalia Zhukova | Dresden (GER) |


6. Of which Chess Olympiads are the following logos?
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6A - Dubai 1986 | 6B - Dubrovnik 1950 |
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6C - Havana 1966 | 6D - Manila 1992 |
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6E - Moscow 1994 | 6F - Thessaloniki 1984 / 1988 |
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6G - Yerevan 1996 | 6H - Buenos Aires 1978 |

8. What do the following artists have in common?
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Muddy Waters | Howlin' Wolf |
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"201","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","height":"188","width":"250","style":""}}]] | [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"202","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","height":"188","width":"250","style":""}}]] |
Chuck Berry | Bo Diddley |
Chess Records / The Chess Box

. 10A Openings and variations are often named after countries, cities or other geographical terms. One of the following, however, isn't. Which? Bled, Cheliabinsk, Donau, Kecskemet, Kemeri, Saragossa, Siesta, Steenwijk, Wilkes-Barre. Siesta - that's a sanatorium in Budapest 10B Another favourite source for nomenclature are the names of chess players. Which of the following names is not a chess player? Bogoljubow, Petroff, Kalashnikov, Makogonov, Panov, Smyslov, Sveshnikov, Taimanov, Urusoff, Veresov. Kalashnikov - that's a weapon 10C Some names are not well known. Which of the following variations or systems is not named after a chess player? Brentano, Canal, Cordel, Cozio, Damiano, Dilworth, Döry, Knorre, Muzio, Pin. Pin - Bb4 pins Nc3


Viswanathan Anand | Collado Mediano |
Levon Aronian | Berlin |
Fabiano Caruana | Budapest |
Vladimir Kramnik | Paris |
Joel Lautier | Moscow |
Yasser Seirawan | Amsterdam |
Alexei Shirov | Riga |
Nigel Short | Athens |
Veselin Topalov | Salamanca |

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14A - Nona Gaprindashvili | 14B - Fridrik Olafsson | 14C - Oscar Panno |
15 Four album covers. Name the albums and artists!
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15A - Peter Hammill - Fools Mate | 15B- B.Andersson, B.Ulvaeus, T.Rice - Chess, the musical |
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15C - Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts | 15D - The Enid - Six Pieces |

Jocha | Adorjan |
Kopelovich | Afek |
Fleischmann | Forgacs |
Grünfeld | Gereben |
Kardinaal | Van Laatum |
Weinstein | Kasparov |
Nenashev | Graf |
Foerder | Porath |


Men | Women |
Suat Atalik | Ekaterina Polovnikova |
Juan Manuel Bellon Lopez | Pia Cramling |
Pascal Charbonneau | Irina Krush |
Glenn Flear | Christine Leroy |
Laurent Fressinet | Almira Skripchenko |
Daniel Fridman | Anna Zatonskih |
Robert Fontaine | Kateryna Lahno |
Jonathan Grant | Ketevan Arakhamia |
Alexander Grischuk | Natalia Zhukova |
Boris Gulko | Anna Akhsharumova |
Gilberto Hernandez | Claudia Amura |
Lars Bo Hansen | Evgenia Peicheva |
Alexander Ivanov | Esther Epstein |
Sergey Karjakin | Katerina Dolzhikova |
Yona Kosashvili | Sofia Polgar |
Vadim Malakhatko | Anna Zozulia |
Mohamed al-Modiahki | Zhu Chen |
Sergei Movsesian | Petra Krupkova |
John Nunn | Petra Fink |
Georgy Orlov | Elena Akhmilovskaya |
Yasser Seirawan | Yvette Nagel |
Bartosz Socko | Monika Bobrowska |
Alex Yermolinsky | Camilla Baginskaite |

20A Who are the two men in the left picture? 20B Which chess player is chosen for the sculpture on the right?
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Rider Hotel, Cambridge Springs
Abazzia | Croatia |
Barmen | Germany |
Breslau | Poland |
Bugojno | Bosnia & Herzegovina |
Cambridge Springs | United States |
Merano | Italy |
Petropolis | Brazil |
Semmering | Austria |


Utut Adianto | member of parliament |
Simen Agdestein | soccer player |
Nona Gaprindashvili | chairman national Olympic committee |
Alexander Grischuk | poker player |
Robert Hübner | papyrologist |
Bozidar Ivanovic | minister |
Cenek Kottnauer | water polo player |
Kenneth Rogoff | economist at the IMF |
Mark Taimanov | pianist |
Sir George Thomas | badminton & tennis player |
Milan Vidmar | electro technician |

Alexander Alekhine | Paris |
Marcel Duchamp | Rouen |
Max Euwe | Amsterdam |
Bobby Fischer | Selfoss |
Emanuel Lasker | New York |
Geza Maroczy | Budapest |
Paul Morphy | New Orleans |
Aaron Nimzovich | Copenhagen |
Rudolf Spielmann | Solna |
Wilhelm Steinitz | New York |




Espen/Simen Agdestein | John/Paul Littlewood |
Georgy/Viacheslav Agzamov | Turkan/Zeinab Mamedjarova |
Daniel/Rafael Fridman | Alisa/Mirjana Maric |
Krum/Kiril Georgiev | Predrag/Nebojsa Nikolic |
Ilya/Dmitry Gurevich | Boris/Ruslan Ponomariov |
Mikhail/Vladimir Gurevich | Nigel/Philip Short |
Csaba/Jozsef Horvath | Igor/Alexander Zaitsev |
Edward/Emanuel Lasker | Andrei/Sergei Zhigalko |
28. In this video you can see one of the most successful table tennis players today (red shirt). But what is his name? 28A Bu Xiangzhi 28B Ni Hua 28C Wang Hao 28D Wang Yue |

Alexander Beliavsky (URS-UKR-SLO) Erich Eliskases (AUT-GER-ARG) Boris Gelfand (URS-BLR-ISR) Mikhail Gurevich (BEL-TUR) Viktor Kortchnoi (URS-SUI) Zdenko Kozul (YUG-BIH-CRO) Ivan Sokolov (YUG-BIH-NED)

Leonard Barden | Columnist The Guardian |
Frederic Friedel | Editor Chessbase (English) |
Leontxo Garcia | Columnist El País |
Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam | Editor New in Chess Magazine |
Mark Gluhovsky | Editor 64 |
Dirk Poldauf | Editor Schach |
John Saunders | Editor British Chess Magazine |
Jennifer Shahade | Editor Chess Life Online |
Yuri Vasiliev | Photographer Sport-Express |
Nadja Woisin | Editor Chessbase (Spanish) |