Persons celebrating an Anniversary in February 2007
This month we start our birthday greetings in South America, Juan Sebastian Morgado is quite familiar to us as one of the few KWA members and the only country representative of this subcontinent – some of us even met him personally as he already joined in our foundation meeting at Brunswick 2003: now - on February 2nd he could look back on whole 6 decades. We had already introduced him in our 2004 column, meanwhile Juan is working (together with his coauthor G. Gomez) on the Argentine chess history whose first volume (history till 1925) is in preparation. Our correspondence chess Grandmaster (GMC title 1983) finished second in the CC World Championship 1978-1984 – certainly this was his greatest tournament success, and in the Massow Memorial 2001 – referred to as the strongest CC tournament of all times – he took an honourable fourth place (without any loss). In the past years he has also distinguished himself several times as author of articles on opening theory (for instance in some NiC Yearbooks) and as a translator of chess books into Spanish.
We welcome our new member "Jimmy" James Bernard Adams from the English town of Hoddesdon, he completed the 6th decade of his life as well (on February 7th). Apart from a first introduction after joining the KWA we have also recently appreciated his extensive work in chess literature (see the Publications of our Members), those who will visit the regional meeting of the UK members this June in London will have the chance to meet him personally.
A Russian chess legend now follows in our birthday list, Yuri Lvovich Averbakh celebrated his 85th birthday on February 8th. Many an homage on his special day has already been published in the Internet, we will refer here only to the eulogy at ChessBase: Yuri Averbakh turns 85. In addition to our own greetings from the past years we would like to point to the interesting entry at Wikipedia and to recall some interviews Yuri has given in the course of time: such as in Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam’s The Day Kasparov Quit (2006) and the interview by Dagobert Kohlmeyer "Wir erleben einen Generationswechsel im Weltschach" (in German only) as well as by Taylor Kingston at chesscafe.com "Yuri Averbakh: An Interview with History", Part 1 / Part 2.
We wish our active senior member: ad multos annos!
One of the youngest KWA members, Udo Güldner is probably remembered by many from our first general meeting 2004 in Forchheim where he managed an entertaining guided tour of the town. He celebrated his birthday at the same day like Yuri Averbakh but he only reached the whole "30" (certainly he will be pleased with that). Three years ago in this place we already mentioned his chess journalistic work (see the Publications of our Members too), as a board member (press officer and 1st youth leader) of the Forchheim chess club he was and still will be intensively integrated in club activities: so he has organized – together with his club companion (and our member) Rudolf Glenk – the XII International German Problem Solving Championship (simultaneously 29th German Championship), and he also contributed to the preparation of the 54th Middle-Franconian Chess Congress shortly before (March 2005) as well as to the corresponding commemorative publication.
On this occasion we would like to announce to our problem friends this year’s Schwalbe meeting taking place in Forchheim probably at the first October weekend - once again the organizational skills of our Forchheim friends will be in demand ...
Our next birthday greetings go to Wellesley, Massachusetts, as Calvin G. Hori who turned 53 on February 11th makes this time his debut in our column. In his working life he is managing Hori Capital Management, Inc. (investments for private clients), we know about his chess activities that he tries above all to increase his collection of chess books [even at the risk to drive his wife crazy :-)]. Moreover he is probably still a little active as a player and member of the MetroWest Chess Club - at its website we found his report on a simul evening with G. Kasparov An Evening with Garry Kasparov as well as an accompanying picture gallery.
Our member from Milan, Carlo Alberto Pagni, is for the first time included in our greetings too, he celebrated his 76th birthday on February 13th. The Curriculum vitae written by himself provides some key figures of his life as well as a list of his chess publications, only few of the non-Italian KWA members have met him personally (see the meeting in Turin 2006 on the occasion of the chess olympiad). Correspondence chess and the historical research about the same is still his preferred job as is also confirmed by the entry in the Publications of our Members. You will still find his Correspondence Chess Bibliography 1822-2005 in our Member’s Area – Information for collectors.
A further last year’s new member is John Derek Beasley, known to come from the British Isles (Harpenden, Hertfordshire): he turned 67 on February 15th. The mathematician and computer consultant (meanwhile retired) has principally dedicated himself (as already emphasized in the Publications of our Members) to artistic chess and to chess variants, but he also wrote two books about recreational mathematics [The Ins and Outs of Peg Solitaire (1985); The Mathematics of Games (1989)]. In the field of chess his activities were and still are so extensive that we are presumably not able to list all of them: as a study columnist of the British Chess Magazine and of the French problem magazine diagrammes for many years; as the author and editor of the British Endgame Study News, as well as of quite a lot of problem books [mentioning here only A Selection of Chess Problems by Philipp Klett (1978)], also connected with historical research [Some Problems by Auguste d’Orville ... (2nd edition 2005)]; as a translator of problem literature from the Czech (!) [for example Depth and Beauty. The chess endgame studies of Artur Mandler (ARVES Book of the Year / 2003)]; as a contributor, editor and secretary of the magazine Variant Chess (its website is maintained by his wife Sue); as an expert and promoter of Losing Chess, see alone his A first survey of Losing Chess endgame material ... (1999) [this booklet is linked online (at the site of Fabrice Liardet)], but John Beasley has also published numerous articles on this and other chess variants; additionally his commitment as the librarian of the British Chess Problem Society (> Catalogue); and last but not least he has undertaken the problem historical section of Vlastimil Fiala’s Quarterly for Chess History (since QCH Spring 9/2004). Besides he was a member of the British team in the World Solving Championship in 1977 and 1978 as well as a director of the same event in 1994.
In particular we were pleased to welcome John and his wife just at the beginning of his membership in La Tour-de-Peilz, for this please look back at May 18/19, 2006.
After three years our Grandmaster from Ireland is here again, Alexander Baburin celebrated his 40th birthday on February 19th. His recommendable homepage is still a source of information and a forum of communication, and his "baby", the daily "e-zine" Chess Today is in the best of health. You will learn nearly all about him by reading his Profile as well as by a further autobiography. Additional instructive reading matter is offered by Hanon W. Russell’s Interview with Alex Baburin, by another contribution On FIDE President and Forthcoming Elections Alex tries to shed some light on the dark channels of chess politics.
A further anniversary will conclude our February column, my friend and our incumbent chairman Michael Negele joined the community of the fifty-year-olds on February 22nd – but as far as I know him he will take it calmly. On the other hand his time is short to think about it as his business demands have noticeably grown last year (due to the merger Bayer – Schering). All the more amazing to me is therefore the enormous quota of work he incessantly achieves in the field of his hobby (= chess): as a chairman he has been in charge of the fortune of our association for 1½ years, an occupation turning out to be unsatisfactory now and then; in his club Bayer Leverkusen he is regularly active as a player and youth trainer and he has always contributed to the club magazine Tschaturanga; moreover he has distinguished himself with numerous publications: for 3 years (since No 1/2004) he has enriched each KARL issue by an article and in addition he has supplied a series of high-quality contributions [Echolot I-II; Erlesene Geschichte(n) I-III] to the magazine Schach – Deutsche Schachzeitung since 10/2005. His popular Excursions were recorded at his own member site, here some nice additions are to be noted as well. Michael’s latest successful "coup" was the due update of the Sonja Graf biography – certainly already noticed by many, it was even promptly linked by ChessBase (German pages). It remains to mention that Michael has also undertaken the leadership of the Lasker book project, the publication of this ultimate biography is to be expected at the next chess olympiad.
Dear Michael, as you are sufficient familiar owing to many pictures at our pages I would like to add a photo of more rarity value here: it shows a promising young talent having been active in the "SG Turm Trier 1877" at that time ... (- also lifting now your origin from the oldest German town, the former Augusta Treverorum).
I think I can include all KWA members if I wish you above all the best of health for the coming years and decades as well as the preservation of your creativity and enthusiasm, the latter too is not always easy to conserve. It would surely be helpful if you could get the support from our KWA ranks which is indispensable both to continue your work satisfactorily and to guarantee the surviving of our association in its entirety.
(R.B.)
Congratulations!
PS: You will find all previous birthday greetings in our archives!