On Feb 13, 6:46 am, RookHouse wrote:
Name the five chess players in this photo:

http://www.rookhouse.com/blog/?p=124

I've instantly have recognized the three WChs,
they were with me virtually throughout all my life,
but I never confined to my memory the faces
of the other two great grandmasters.

I still have Boleslavky's "Selected games"
(exactly 100 of them), published in Russian,
in 1957, and that's the year I'd bought the book,
alas it has no picture of Boleslavsky.

It's amazing how modest and unassuming Boleslavsky
was. The book has an intro just a page and one third
long, the commented 100 games, the index of games
and openings, and nothing else. If you want to learn
from this book about Bleslavsky's chess tournament
achievements, you will not. His authobiographical
record, half a page long, ends in 1939, when he
got the master title. By that time his experience
was unubelievably limited to 2 meetings of masters
(perhaps just 2 games), and up to 20 games
against A-players (Soviet 1st class players - but
most likely they were as good as USCF masters).

Bleslavsky was as profound chess thinker as any
but he was otherwise an opposite of Fischer -
"Oh, you need a draw? Ok, I will not checkmate you
in two, I agree to draw." I am exaggerating but very
slightly. Boleslavsky indeed was like that. If you were
attempting to overcome him in the tournament, in
the last round, he would still assist you in
analyzing the ending of your adjourned game
against another player.

Regards,

Wlod