Second Act

A group photo from the 8th Women’s World Chess Championship Tournament, which took place in the winter of 1949–1950 in Moscow, Russia after the title was vacant since the death of Vera Frantsevna Menchik in 1944. Seated (from left to right): Ingrid Larsen, Róża Maria Herman, Viacheslav Vasilyevich Ragozin, Vera Sergeevna Chudova, Gisela Kahn Gresser, María Teresa Mora Iturralde, and Fenny Heemskerk; standing (left to right): Chantal Chaudé de Silans, Eileen Betsy Tranmer, Clarice Benini, Elisaveta Ivanovna Bykova, Vera Nikolaevna Tikhomirova, Mona May Karff, Józsa Lángos, Nina Hrušková-Bělská, Lyudmila Vladimirovna Rudenko, Edith Keller-Herrmann, Kira Alekseyevna Zvorykina and Olga Nikolaevna Rubtsova. Among the participants, only Valentina Mikhaylovna Borisenko-Belova is not portrayed in the picture. For International Master Clarice Benini — who had finished second in the Women’s World Championship Tournament at Stockholm 1937 — it was a long-awaited rentrée after the war years, miserably frittered away in the farcical tragedy of Italian fascist regime. Though youth was gone and she had been threatened by the new post-fascist Italy with losing her job had she dared to put her foot in the Soviet Union, this time “Benini girl” (as she was dubbed by her fellow club members for being unmarried) didn’t think twice: she undertook a fifteen-day train trip and finally challenged herself to do the things she wanted to do. Photo: start33.ru.

Tutti Frutti

Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian – Evgeni Andreyevich Vasiukov
47th Moscow City Chess Championship; Moscow, 1956
English Opening A16

The Russian Chess Federation announced the death of Russian Grandmaster Evgeni Andreyevich Vasiukov (born in Moscow on March 5, 1933), who passed away in Moscow on May 10, 2018. During his prime, from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, Vasiukov scored wins in individual games over many world’s top players. 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. 0-0 0-0 5. c4 d6 6. Nc3 Nc6 7. d3 Nh5 8. Rb1. Robert James “Bobby” Fischer recommended 8. d4 e5 9. d5 Ne7 10. e4 c5! 11. Ne1 Kh8 12. Nd3 f5 13. Rb1 Nf6= T. V. Petrosian – Boleslavsky, Semifinal of 24th Championship of USSR, Kiev 1957. 8. ... f5! 9. Qc2 a5 10. a3 f4. “Black obtains an excellent aggressive setup. I was as impressed by that game as Petrossiàn must have been, since he got crushed”, Bobby Fischer writes in his book “60 partite da ricordare”, Milano, Mursia, 1972, p. 18. 11. b4 axb4 12. axb4 Bg4 13. e3 e5 14. b5 Ne7 15. Ne4 Qd7 16. Bd2 h6! 17. Bc3 g5 18. exf4 gxf4. Black is dominating the board. 19. Qe2 Ng6 20. Ra1 Rxa1 21. Bxa1 b6! 22. Bc3 Qf5 23. Bd2 Kh8! 24. Bc1 Bf6 25. Kh1

25. ... Ng7! Black’s Knight heads to g5 with devastating effect. 26. Bb2 Ne6 27. Qc2 Qh5 28. Ned2 Ng5 29. Nxg5 Bxg5 30. Be4 Be2 31. Kg1 f3! Evgeni Andreyevich finishes in grand style. 32. Re1 Bxd2 33. Rxe2 Bg5 34. Re1 Qh3 35. Bxf3 Rxf3 36. d4 Nf4! 37. gxf4 Bxf4 0 : 1. Mate cannot be avoided.

The members of the winning team in the 3rd World Student Team Chess Championship in Uppsala, 1956; from left: Anatoly Stepanovich Lutikov, Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky, Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal, Evgeni Andreyevich Vasiukov, Viktor Lvovich Kortschnoi, and Vladimir Sergeyevich Antoshin. Photo: Shakhmaty v SSSR.

The Last Sunday

Honourary Professor of Russian Philology at the University of Tartu, Estonia and literary critic Larisa Ilinichna Volpert died on Sunday, October 1, in New York, United States at 92 years of age – she was born in Leningrad, Russia on March 30, 1926. As a chess player, Mrs. Volpert earned the Woman Grandmaster title in 1977, and was three times USSR Women’s Chess Champion (1954, 1958, and 1959).

Larisa Ilinichna Volpert
Photo: Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR)

Larisa Ilinichna Volpert – Milunka Lazarević
Match Leningrad – Belgrade; Leningrad, August 19, 1964
Dutch Defence A97

1. d4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. Nf3 d6 5. c4 Be7 6. 0-0 0-0 7. Nc3 Qe8 8. Re1 Qh5 9. b4 Ne4 10. Qb3 c5 11. bxc5 dxc5 12. Be3 Nxc3 13. Qxc3 Nc6 14. Rab1 Bf6

15. Ne5 Rd8 16. Nxc6 bxc6 17. Qa5 cxd4 18. Bxd4 Rxd4 19. Bxc6 Bb7 20. Bxb7 Rad8 21. Bf3 Qh6 22. c5 Bg5 23. e3 Rd2 24. c6 Rc2 25. c7 Rf8 26. Rb8 1 : 0.

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.

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

As maybe you know, International Master Clarice Benini – who finished second in the Women’s World Championship at Stockholm 1937 – did not participate in the 7th Women’s World Chess Championship at Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1939 and, as a matter of fact, she did not take part in any remarkable tournament until the end of World War II, because of her “volunteering” in the farcical and tragic wargames of Italian fascist regime. She even served as a nurse on the Russian front, and when coming back home on a short leave, she could always rely upon the regime’s fanfare about its colonial triumph, as, for instance, quoted in Firenze: Rassegna del Comune, which listed her among “the six valiant Ladies of the Red Cross who gave their fraternal care to the wounded on the battlefields. Their names are: Maria Rita Orzalesi, Maria Teresa Caccia, Bianca Bargioni, Clarice Benini, Lidia Sequal Baldasseroni, and Laura Parelli. The Florentine fascist women offered them wonderful bouquets of flowers”. Curiously enough, when several years later Miss Benini decided to participate in the 8th Women's World Chess Championship in the winter of 1949-1950 in Moscow, Russia, the same Comune di Firenze (for which she worked) did not give her the permission to leave to Soviet Union and threatened to fire her if she ventured to disobey its order. Arcovazzi’s ghost in the postwar Italy. But this time the middle-aged Florentine spinster – everyone in Florence called her “Benini girl” – found the courage she never had before and took a fifteen-day train trip to Moscow. It will be her last participation in a Women’s World Chess Championship Tournament. Her prime was behind her, but once again her brilliant attacking style did not go unnoticed. She particularly played like a tiger with the four Soviet players, winning against Elisaveta Ivanovna Bykova and Valentina Mikhaylovna Borisenko-Belova, drawing (a won game) with Olga Nikolaevna Rubtsova, and losing (a dramatic and furious fight) only to the Women’s World Chess Champion in fieri Lyudmila Vladimirovna Rudenko.