Monday, March 6, 2017

The Last Metro

In other ways (except that with Soviet players), Clarice Benini’s play in the Women's World Chess Championship Tournament at Moscow in 1949-1950 was quite uneven:

Benini, however, was happy. She won several lost games and lost several won or drawn ones, and thought she had a correct score. This rare woman possessed a flair for tactics, but was constitutionally incapable of using more than half-an-hour of clock. (Everybody else found 40 in 2½ hours far too fast!). One Sunday she decided to learn the openings — and did so! — but it was too late to help her score. It is worth observing that Benini was the only woman capable, before the war, of giving opposition to Menchik and Graf.

British Chess Magazine, Volume 70, 1950, p. 75

The newly opened Kaluzhskaya station in Moscow, shown here in December 1949. Photo: AP.

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