The Importance of Being Earnest

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna’s name is recorded on the Club Argentino de Ajedrez’s back pages. Photo: Clarín.

• Marcelo Maller, El Che ajedrecista: fue socio del Club Argentino y hasta ganó dos partidas, Clarín, October 2, 2015

In 1947 Ernesto Guevara de la Serna entered the Faculty of Medicine, and the following year participated in the 1st Universiade, competing in chess and athletics. He jumped 2.80 meters in the pole vault race. Rosario-born student came back to chess the following year, when, as Juan Sebastián Morgado found out through the old lines of the magazine El Mundo, he played seventh board for his team and won two games in a Inter-University team tournament organized by the Club Argentino de Ajedrez. In one game, he defeated with White an opponent named Arola, thus helping his team to beat Pharmacy 6 to 1. In the other, with Black, he won against Blázquez, but, nevertheless, Medicine lost to Engineering 5 to 2. [Read more].

Ernesto Che Guevara (right) playing a partie sans façon with Mexican FIDE Master Armando Acevedo Milán in Havana, Cuba, on May 26, 1964. Photo: Armando Acevedo Milán.