News archive
May 2025
CHLS General Assembly 2025 in Valencia!
In 1475, Francesco Vicent wrote his famous manuscript about chess with the modern rules in Valencia. Our member José Garcon has organised an exhibition to celebrate the 550 anniversaries thereof! Our society will visit the town and hold its general assembly from 5.-6. September 2025 with a first-class programme. We will hear lectures about different phases in the Spanish chess life, visit the old town and enjoy the exhibition. Details of the programme are enclosed.
Members and non-members are invited to register with our Secretary-General, Claes Løfgren (claes.lofgren54@gmail.com). We would look forward to numerous participation!
Frank Hoffmeister, President
Chess in the Philippines
by Frank Hoffmeister
Introduction
The Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7.000 islands in South East Asia, offers a stunning array of landscapes, cultures, and experiences that captivate travelers from around the world. It is probably most known for its pristine beaches, rich history, and diverse wildlife. But the country has quite some attractions to offer as well or the chess historian, albeit less visible and hard to find without connections.
From 13 – 24 April 2025, I had the chance to discover some of those hidden treasures during my family vacation in the Philippines. Thanks to the amazing help of Joan Joy, an excellent free lance tourist guide from the “Blue Horizon” travel company, I was able to meet the living legend GM Eugenio Torre in Manila and the life-long friend of FIDE President Campomanes Leonides Bautista in Baguio City, a co-organiser of the world championship between Karpov and Korchnoi in 1978 in his home town. The present report tries to present to our society the hidden chess beauties of this amazing country.
The origins of chess in the Philippines
The origins of chess in the Philippines are obscure. What can be said with certainty that the Spaniards, who colonized the islands in the 16th century, had chess in their baggage. The impressive San Augustin Church in Manila can serve as a good example. Located in Intramuros, it is one of the oldest stone church complexes in the Philippines. It was built by Spanish friars of the Order of St. Augustine in the late 16th century and completed in 1607. In the recreation rooms of the first floor, I could detect an old wooden chess board. The guide confirmed that the inhabitants played chess and billiard as their pastime. It can therefore be assumed that the game found its way into the Philippines at least through this Spanish avenue.
Photos of Alexander Alekhine's death
Mr Terje Kristiansen (Norway) has written to us with a very interesting question about Alekhine and photos taken after his death.
Mr Kristiansen writes:
On 24 March 1946 Luís C. Lupi sent a letter to Robert Bunnelle of the Associated Press in London with “four (4) negatives and three prints of EXCLUSIVE ASSIOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS taken by me [Mr Lupi]. They are ALEXANDER ALEKHINE last photographs … Pixs show ALEKHINE lying dead in his hotel room.”
Note that the text of the letter appears in an article on Edward Winter's website here:
https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/alekhine3.html
And the question from Mr Kristiansen:
Only two of these four photos have been published. Is there any way to locate the other two photos?
Please send your reply to Jean Olivier Leconte lecafedelaregence@free.fr who will forward it to Mr Kristiansen.
Chess in the Jewish Refugee camp Landsberg am Lech (1946) and in the Ghetto Terezín/Theresienstadt (1942-1944)
by Frank Hoffmeister
I. Introduction
When our member Siegfried Schönle read the autobiography of the Jewish painter Samuel Bak (“Painted in Words”, Boston 2001) he noted that the author refers to the second husband of his mother as a “chess player”. Mr. Nathan Markowski hailed from Lithuania and was interned in the Conzentration Camp in Dachau (near Munich) during the second world war in 1944-45. After his liberation, he had no home anmore, and stayed in the Jewish refugee camp Landsberg am Lech, located west of Munich (1946). During his research about Markowski Schönle also received a number of chess related documents from the Ghetto Terezin/Theresienstadt (near Prague). During Nazi occupation of Czechia, a great number of the Jewish population of the region was transported there. Most interestingly, Schönle found that a certain Isidor Schorr organised chess activities in the Ghetto from 1942 to 1944. The present book presents the outcome of his meticoulous research on both Markowski and Schorr, as well as associated persons. The book is written in the German language and contains many pictures and documents, printed as facsimiles, which have never been published before.
Following up on the first laudatory reaction from Konrad Reiss, published in November 2024 on our webpage (Schach im DP-Lager Landsberg und im Ghetto Terezín / Theresienstadt [Chess in the Landsberg DP camp and in the Terezín / Theresienstadt ghetto]), the low number of copies has already been sold out. As the book is thus not anymore publicly available, it is all the more important to sum up the main points in English. In my view, some substantive points made in this original and high-quality research deserve particular attention among international chess historians.