Personalia

Alex Crisovan (Photo from Henry Grob's Calendar, 1946)

Our Swiss senior member Alex Crisovan is in the first place of this monthly selection, he reached imposing 89 years on October 2nd. To complete our tributes of the last two years (2006 and 2007) we would like to add still a few chess facts, so Alex was president of his chess club Pfäffikon ZH from 1967 to 1973 and he became Swiss champion in correspondence chess in 1989. Even today he still seems to be active at the association level, at least the corresponding internet pages quote him as a member of the committee "Popular Chess" of the Swiss Chess Federation and as a committee member in the board of the Zurich Chess Association as well.

We present here two photos of Alex from different phases of his life, you will find a third more current photo at the web site of the Swiss Correspondence Chess Federation if you move a little downwards on their page. Photo on the right from: S. Joksic & A. Crisovan, 54th Russian Championship 1987 Original legend: "Alex Crisovan was born on October 2, 1919 in Bekescaba (Hungary). Since 1958 [he] has lived in Pfaeffikon (Switzerland). He learned to play chess when he was 8 years old. In 1946 he was awarded the title Swiss master in chess. Since 1950 he has written books and newspaper columns about chess."

Alain Biénabe

Alain Biénabe, our French country’s representative, could celebrate his anniversary only one day later, at that time he had gone half a century on his journey through life. He had used our October 2004 column as an opportunity to send us a more current photo of himself which we willingly reproduce here. Those who have a little command of French may also read his self-portrait which appeared 1985 in Caissas Schloßbewohner 2 – for that please click on the small preview picture below.

As a new member Poul Bang Nielsen from Copenhagen is for the first time in our column, he celebrated his 56th birthday on October 18th. On a group photo of this year’s Manhem auction at Gothenburg our Danish collector friend could only be traced in the background, we are pleased to welcome him soon at our general meeting in Dresden. The Danish KWA group is still growing steadily!


Our concluding greetings go to the South Welsh town of Cowbridge where Leonard M. Skinner celebrated a great anniversary – on October 29th he looked back on full eight decades. Without doubt his name will forever be associated with the incomparable Alekhine biography he has written together with Rob Verhoeven - only seldom a chess book has received so much unanimous praise and enthusiasm after its publication as this outstanding work (awarded Historical Book of the Year - United States Chess Federation. Runner-up, Book of the Year - British Chess Federation).
You will come across quite a lot of snapshots of Leonard if you go once more through our photo report London 2007, picture galleries included.


For a postscript to Gunnar Finnlaugsson see our June 2008 column.



Congratulations!




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