KWA Meeting at Bolzano 18 to 20 May, 2011

Text by Luca D’Ambrosio; pictures by Michael Negele unless otherwise noted.

The KWA meeting started on Wednesday afternoon with the visit of Daniel Harrwitz’ grave at the Jewish cemetery of Bolzano. Owing to the recently found grave and the associated investigations the biographical data of this eminent 19th century master who played – inter alia – matches against Anderssen, Staunton, Horwitz, Löwenthal, Williams, Morphy and Kolisch, have to be corrected.

Links:
C.N. 6286. Daniel Harrwitz
Luca D'Ambrosio on Daniel Harrwitz' track
Südtiroler Sport Magazin - Ein gelüftetes Schachrätsel (PDF)
Cultura & Spettacoli - Lo scacco matto allo scacchista (PDF)

After the visit of the cemetery the group walked to the Benedictine Monastery of Muri-Gries at Bolzano, in front of the abbey Michael Negele noticed the below undertaker.

The guided tour of the library which is not open to the public was conducted by Father Plazidus to whom the chess world owes the hint of the entry on Daniel Harrwitz in the register of deaths of the cathedral parish Bolzano.

The participants were especially interested in a 1581 edition by Marci Hieronymi Vidae Cremonensis, Albae Episcopi Opera, with the chess poem Scacchia Ludus.

After this tour the group walked to the Franciscan Monastery in the old town of Bolzano. There Father Willibald provided a still older Vida edition as well as a chess book published in December 1945 in Italy by a German POW of the Allies.

According to a mail by Alessandro Sanvito the framed sentence in the owner’s stamp comes from Sallust and means "Concord will make small things flourish".*) So the erudite owner doesn’t refer (and limits himself) to chess but gives a thought of general validity; he means, what is done in unity will also turn out well.

*) The full Sallust quotation is "concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur" - "concord will make small things flourish, discord will destroy great things." See for instance Unity makes strength. [RB]

You will find a selection of further pictures from the first day in this gallery.

Part 2 – The Second Day

On Thursday, May 19th, 2011 the lectures began at the Kolpinghaus – after a minute’s silence in commemoration of Professor Carlo Alberto Pagni.

• Luca D'Ambrosio: Looking for traces in the chess history of South Tyrol from 1300 to 1945
• Friedrich-Karl Hebeker: Ludwig Engels in Brazil
• Alessandro Sanvito: The Anglo-Norman chess manuscripts
• Guy Van Habberney: Ingredients for a definitive Bobby Fischer biography

You can optionally download Luca D'Ambrosio's lecture (in German) as a Powerpoint presentation (15.5 MB) or as a pdf file (3.2 MB) (both in the member section only!).

The presentation slides of Friedrich-Karl Hebeker are linked below:

Information on Ludwig Engels:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Engels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Engels
and sources given there.

You can read Alessandro Sanvito's paper here: The Anglo-Norman Chess Manuscripts (as PDF; again in the member section!).

With his talk Guy Van Habberney gave a critical assessment of Frank Brady's Fischer biography.

After the lunch break our group took a short look at the cloister of the Dominican church and afterwards went by bus to Meran.

The highlight of the day was the presentation of Dr. Ing. Siegfried Unterberger, organizer of the Candidates final 1980 (Hübner – Kortschnoi) and of the Chess World Championship 1981 (Karpov – Kortschnoi).

Dr. Unterberger captivated the audience with his fascinating report on the two chess events, showed a wide variety of pictures and provided a great many of anecdotes, among others about his game against the Italian president at that time, Sandro Pertini.

You will find more about Dr. Unterberger at sammlung-unterberger.com/... and the sites linked there.

The international chess congresses of Meran 1924 took place at the small kursaal. In the first tournament Grünfeld won ahead of Spielmann and Rubinstein, in the second Colle ahead of Canal, Przepiórka and Spielmann.

After our return we enjoyed the rest of the evening at the Bolzano restaurant Zum Bogen where our participants could also inspect some local papers (with mentions of our event):

Part 3 – The Third Day and the Open Tournament

On Friday morning, 20th of May the presentations were given at the Mehrzwecksaal of the Premstallerhof where the chess club ARCI Bozen (www.arciscacchi.it) is based and where the 6th international Open tournament was planned for the afternoon. For this day also Tamás Erdélyi and Michael Ehn had arrived from Budapest and Vienna respectively. The following lectures were held in the morning:

• Antonio Rosino: The golden age of chess in Venice: 1929-1953
• Michael Negele: My finds on Antonius van der Linde
• Toni Preziuso: "Odysseus" meets Alekhine. The encounter between a (still) unknown journalist and Alekhine at Lisbon 1946. Presentation and open questions about a find from the Schweizerische Allgemeine Volkszeitung 03/06/1950.

Michael Negele has provided his quite extensive presentation slides:

• original powerpoint (pptx) file (ca. 40 MB)
• as pdf file (ca. 4.4 MB)

- both in the member section.

On Toni Preziuso's contribution we can offer a pdf file as well (>> member section).

After the lectures our group visited the library of the chess club ARCI-Bozen which is based in the building - in all likelihood it is the biggest collection of chess books of a club from the Brenner to Verona. The book list is online at www.arciscacchi.it/....
In 2009 a commemorative publication appeared about the still very young chess club.

Links:
www.arciscacchi.it/Sito01/Bollettini/Bollettino21presentazioneparte1.pdf
www.arciscacchi.it/Sito01/Bollettini/Bollettino21estratti.pdf
www.arciscacchi.it/Sito01/Bollettini/Bollettino21recensioni.pdf

With a short speech Guy Van Habberney thanked the organizer of the Bolzano KWA meeting, handed him a book present (Bogoljubow, Moskau 1925) and opened the book market.

The KWA meeting ended with the book market, and in the same room the 6th international Bolzano Open started at 4 pm where 63 chess players from seven different countries entered, among them Michael Negele, Calle Erlandsson, Toni Preziuso, Guy Van Habberney and Luca D’Ambrosio. In the first round all KWA members emerged victorious, and in the second round they all played side by side, at the tables 5 to 9.

Toni Preziuso sent us two annotated games from the Open, here his elaboration as pdf file.

On Saturday evening the tournament participants met at the restaurant Stiegl.

The 5-round tournament ended on Sunday afternoon with the young Bolzano player Patrick Scharrer as winner. Toni Preziuso placed 11th scoring 3½/5 - so winning the internal "KWA championship". There followed Michael Negele (15th), Calle Erlandsson (18th), Luca D’Ambrosio (22nd) - all 3/5 - and Guy Van Habberney (33rd) with 2½.

Several links to the Bolzano Open:
www.chessclub.it/turniere/bz2011/standing.html
arciscacchi.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-internazionale-di-bolzano-2011...
arciscacchi.blogspot.com/2011/05/open-internazionale-di-bolzano-2011...

Finally some impressions of Bolzano:

A photo gallery with some further sights of Bolzano as well as a photo selection of a classic car parade (on 21-22 May at Bozen) is offered in this Gallery.