Personalia

This month our first greetings go to Hungary where Tamás Erdélyi celebrated his 55th birthday on 7th of March. He is already known to many of our members since he visited our annual meetings at Amsterdam 2005 and La Tour-de-Peilz 2006 as well as the chess olympiad at Turin. The owner of Caissa Kft. has been working for many years in selling chess literature, furthermore as the manager of the Pension Caissa where monthly tournaments are held. At the beginning of the year he found his way back to the tournament board, the International Master entered both challengers tournaments of the 6th Gibtelecom Chess Festival and took a shared second place each time. He has shortly been introduced on the tournament page (Gibraltar Chess Congress) and recorded in an additional photo on the challengers page.

The same age reached Hans-Jürgen Fresen from Bochum on March 15th, certainly it is common knowledge that he is one of the most eminent German chess collectors. Otherwise you may read something about him and his "chess museum" in the easily available chess press as in KARL 1/2004 [see Harry Schaack’s contribution "Mir machen alle alten Dinge Spass" ("All old things give me a lot of pleasure")].

Hans-Jürgen Fresen (on the left) with his lodger Lothar Nikolaiczuk at the original chess board of Adolf Anderssen, next to it the Prague Vesely chess clock from 1908. (photo: Johannes Groß)

Apart from his club activities which we have already mentioned in this column (2004) he has also appeared as an author: We have already acknowledged his research on Die vergessenen Schachbücher des Peter Heinrich Holthaus (The Forgotton Chess Books of Peter Heinrich Holthaus; published as offprint as well) – about this see our former online item; his commemorative publication 80 Jahre Schachbezirk Bochum 1926-2006 (80 Years of Chess District Bochum) – written together with Norbert Fieberg – was published last year; and soon our joint effort Obliged to Tradition ... will see the light of day. He has delivered an additional nice contribution to KARL 3/2007 by his photo report "Ströbeck in Bildern" ("Ströbeck in Pictures") offering quite a lot of rare photos from his own collection.

Ulrich Schädler celebrated his special day on Easter Monday, he looked back then on exactly five decades. As a visitor and speaker at Amsterdam 2005, as the organizer of our general meeting at La Tour-de-Peilz 2006 and as the curator of the Ken Whyld library, the name of the director of the Swiss Museum of Games should be known to all members. [See also U. Schädler’s article in SSZ 3/2004 (p. 28) "Die Bibliothek Ken Whylds gastiert am Genfer See" ("Ken Whyld’s Library as a Guest on the Lake Geneva").] But he has also made a name for himself in the world of chess and games as an organizer of exhibitions, as the (co-)editor of the magazine Board Game Studies and not least as an author: he has been included in the Publications of our Members with his Globusspiel und Himmelsschach (Globe Game and Heavenly Chess), the latest work Spiele der Menschheit (Games of Mankind; edited by him) was recently brought out in German by Primus publisher. As a co-author and co-editor he is involved in the first volume of the series chess FEE-NIX history – Scacchia Ludus – Studien zur Schachgeschichte which will hopefully be published soon. Still eagerly awaited however is his translation of the Codex Alfonso (made together with the late Ricardo Calvo) which had already been announced for the last year. You will find further details on Ulrich Schädler among the Referenten der mitSPIELtagung 2007 (circa in the middle of that large page), surely a peak of his academic career was his last year’s qualifying as a professor at the University of Fribourg.

Robert (Bob) van de Velde from Amsterdam appears for the first time in our column, he turned 71 on March 26th. He started playing chess as a schoolboy but already as a student he turned to bridge and remained faithful to this game. He made his decision to join the KWA parallel to his agreement to take on the contribution "Lasker & Bridge" for our great Lasker biography. At that time (beginning of 2007) he had already given the University of Amsterdam his private bridge library as a present. You will learn more about Bob van de Velde from his own account he has sent us.

Davide Berra now makes his debut as well, only one day later he celebrated the 41th return of his birthday. Together with his family he lives in the Italian town of Abbiategrasso (Province Milano), in his working life he is a hospital pharmacist in Mantova; in his chess life he was above all active as a player (until 2005) when he developed a passion for collecting chess literature and chess memorabilia. Therefore becoming a member of the KWA at the beginning of this year seems only logical!



Congratulations!



PS: You will find all previous birthday greetings in our archives!