Saturday, March 29, 2014

Kinazer's 120th Anniversary?


Our frequent correspondent, Moshe Roytman, who is especially interested in anniversaries of chess players, notes -- based on Raafi Persitz's book about him, Ha'Derech Le'Nitzachon Be'Sachmat [The Way to Victory in Chess], which we often mentioned in this blog -- that Kniazer was probably born ca. 1894. Update: exact birth date found -- see post from 5/4/2014 about Kniazer's dates. 

In particular Mr. Roytman found the above note from Doar Ha'Yom (March 14th, 1926, p. 4) which notes that Kniazer was Egypt's (!) chess champion, and -- in particular -- a 'few years ago' was the only winner in a simultaneous game against Capablanca (40 boards), as well as noting a recent Haifa simul he gave (+18 -1 =1).

Kniazer was probably born ca. 1894, based on the book. But even Gaige's Chess Personalia has no exact  birth (or, for that matter, death) date for Kniazer ('Keniazer' in Gaige's spelling -- perhaps a better transliteration from the Hebrew than 'Kniazer').

Why? Roytmann also notes [link in Hebrew] that, in a (justifiably positive) review of Persitz's book about Kniazer, Shaul Hon quotes Persitz as saying that he found little biographical data about Kniazer because... 'he would never speak about himself'. The complete review -- in Hebrew -- with a game fragment, more biographical detail, Persitz's comments, etc. -- is here (Maariv, Oct. 2, 1959, p. 15).

No comments:

Post a Comment