Chess Bunkers + Fischer & Tal + The 25 Year Itch

[b]There will one or two reading this who went to school in the early 60’s.
Do any of you remember the Atomic bomb drills at school?

The janitor would blow a whistle and we would all crouch down
under our desks with our fingers in our ears and eyes shut tight.
Anyone who got caught peeking would get thrashed.

The school had a cellar and originally that was to be used in case
the Russians came. However on the first trial run it was discovered the
place was full of spiders and girls (and some boys) fled the place screaming.

Recently whilst looking for something else I found some old
American Chess Reviews from 1961 and in one some lad was wondering
what would happen if you found yourself in a bomb shelter and there were
no fellow chess players present.

(Then you were expected to spend up to 4 months in a shelter.)

He advocated they build chess bunkers and chess players are told which
shelters to run to so you can be sure of finding an opponent.

Maps of the chess bunkers located around the country will shown to readers
of Chess Review. These bunkers were for chess players only and on application
you could be sent a universal key that opened up any chess bunker.

If you were travelling about you would have to be aware of your closest
chess bunker. Mind you the Russians did not need to drop Atom bombs to
take over, a jar full of spiders would have caused panic.



Fischer fans will know of the famous incident where Fischer looks at Tal’s
palm to predict the next World Champion.

Chess Review March 1961 has ‘before and after’ pictures.






















“The Next World Champion will be…..”





















“Bobby Fischer.”

The lady in the picture is Smylov’s wife.


Now we come to the 25 year itch and in the May 1961 issue.

Leonard Klugmann from New York City writes in to warn the readers about a
“…gruesome pitfall.” in a book mentioned in the March 1961 issue of Chess review.
The book in question was ‘New York 1924’ by Alekhine.

“After a quarter of a century I’m still smarting from a loss…”

Alekhine disliked the just played 8.Be3



saying Black can now simply play 8…Ng4.

It appears 25 years before the letter was written Mr. Klugmann trusted Alekhine
and as Black played 8….Ng4 and lost.

Now here I insert a game played on RHP with 8...Ng4 and we all have a laugh...
...nobody has played 8...Ng4.

I have over 200 examples of this postion but no 8...Ng4. Most Black's just castled.

I can only summise that everyone has the book and everyone
has noted the Alekhine mistake. Well Done Boys.

So we are reduced to a few lines from Mr Klugmann to show that White
can simply take the Knight. This is the most charming variation.



Quite a nice line. Mind you he has had 25 years to work it out


I leave you with this from Chess Review 1961.
Botvinnik doing his own bit of predicting about who will become a World Champion.