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Date: 24 Jul 2008 13:40:35
From: samsloan
Subject: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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Why I hate Edward Lasker
The Flea House, the commonly known name for The Chess and Checker Club
of New York, which was next to the New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd
Street near the south-west corner with Broadway, closed in about 1970,
although nobody can remember exactly when, and then the main chess
scene moved up to Charlie Hidalgo's Chess House on 72nd Street between
Broadway and Columbus on the north side of the street.
This was a better neighborhood and several wealthy stockbrokers and
important people lived nearby. Edward Lasker and Reuben Fine also
lived near there. Lasker came to the club almost every day. Reuben
Fine visited there too, but rarely.
I had the greatest respect for Edward Lasker, because when I was a
little boy, the very first book I had read in my entire life was not
Fun With Dick and Jane, but was Chess for Fun and Chess for Blood by
Edward Lasker.
One day in about 1971, while hanging out at the Chess House on 72nd
Street, Edward Lasker challenged me to a game of chess. I sat down to
play him. Facing the front door, I was sitting at the first table near
the front door on the left hand side of the central corridor.
Some months before this, I had spotted Reuben Fine standing on the
second floor near the top of the stairways. I had approached him and
asked him if he would like to play a game of chess. =93Are you Browne?=94,
asked Reuben Fine. I replied that I was not Walter Browne, I was just
an expert. Reuben Fine responded that he was not interested in playing
me.
So, on this occasion, I was playing Edward Lasker. Lasker had been a
great player and had won the US Open Chess Championship seven times
before 1920. However, he was born in 1885, so by 1971 he was 86 years
old and no longer the player he once was.
So, I was playing Edward Lasker with the black pieces, but he was
really no match for me. Soon, I was a piece up with queens off the
board and my pieces were swarming in for checkmate.
Then, Edward Lasker stopped moving. He just sat, and sat and sat,
staring at his busted, hopeless position. He would still move
occasionally but only once every ten minutes or so, even though this
was a skittles game.
Now, at just this moment, who should walk in the door but Reuben
Fine!!! Standing at the front door, Reuben Fine declared that he
wanted to play chess with anybody, anybody at all.
I had never seen Reuben Fine do this before. Here was my big chance to
play the great man, one of the strongest chess players in the world.
Unfortunately, I was stuck in this never-ending game with Edward
Lasker.
The people at the front door knew who Reuben Fine was, so they went
looking for Charlie Hidalgo, the owner of the place. Charlie was an
expert. I feel that Charlie was slightly better than me, but we were
about equal. The problem was that Charlie was crazy. By this, I do not
mean to say that Charlie was nuts. Rather, I mean to say that Charlie
was INSANE.
The building in which the Chess House was located was owned by his
brother, Otto Hidalgo. Otto Hidalgo was a big time Wall Street real
estate broker with Ely Cruikshank Co. Otto had done me a favor by
renting me my first securities broker-dealer office at 120 Liberty
Street. Otto was letting Charlie Hidalgo operate a chess club in the
building owned by Otto.
Charlie Hidalgo was found in the back of the club, probably babbling
to himself in one of his schizophrenic tirades, and brought to the
front and sat down to play Reuben Fine.
They were playing on the same row as me. Just across the center isle,
only two boards away from where I was still playing Edward Lasker, who
still had not yet moved.
A big crowd gathered around the game to watch. I could not see
anything. I could see that they were playing five minute chess and
punching the clock, but I could not see through the crowd any of the
actual moves.
Finally, after about 20 minutes or so, after they had played several
games, Reuben Fine got up and walked out the door.
Meanwhile, Edward Lasker still had not moved.
Finally, I got angry. Eventually, Edward Lasker moved and I replied
instantly. After a few more instant moves, I started blundering and
lost the game.
I then went looking for the players who had witnessed the games. I
asked them what the results of the games were, who had won, what
openings had been played and so on. Unfortunately, it turned out that
the actual spectators had been so weak at chess that they did not even
who had won the games, much less what openings had been played or
anything else about the games.
So, finally, I found Charlie, sitting in the back of the club. =93Who
won the games, Charlie?=94, I asked.
Charlie just sat their babbling in his incoherent style, =93Yea Yea Yea
Yada Yada Yada=94, said Charlie Hidalgo. It was impossible to get any
information out of him at all.
That was the last time I ever saw Reuben Fine come to the club.
The significance of this? After famously declining to play in the 1948
World Chess Championship tournament in The Hague and Moscow, Reuben
Fine had played in only one more tournament, that being in 1951. He
has one skittles game he played against Bobby Fischer in 1963 which is
in the book =93My 60 Memorable Games=94 by Bobby Fischer. If I had played
those games against Reuben Fine on that day in 1971 or even seen him
playing Charlie Hidalgo, I would have remembered the games, written
them down, published them, and then they would have become part of
chess history.
Instead, I did not get to play Reuben Fine or even to see him play,
because Edward Lasker refused to move.
Now you understand why I hate Edward Lasker.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 27 Jul 2008 10:00:53
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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On Jul 27, 11:29 am, Tobias Heidelmann <[email protected]
dortmund.de > wrote:
> samsloan schrieb:
>
> > This picture illustrates my game against Edward Lasker. Here is a
> > picture of the Chess House on 72nd Street.
>
> >http://www.chessgraphics.net/wa.htm
>
> > I was sitting at the left hand front table on the right end of table
> > facing the door.
>
> > When Reuben Fine and Charlie Hidalgo started playing, they were right
> > across the aisle from me at the middle of the three boards.
> > Unfortunately, with a crowd gathered to watch the games and me still
> > playing Edward Lasker, I did not get to see any of the moves.
>
> > Of course, had I known that Fine was going to leave so quickly, that
> > Lasker would take so long to move and would never resign and that this
> > would be the one and only chance for me ever to play Reuben Fine in my
> > entire life, and had I thought about it, I would have resigned by game
> > against Lasker so that I could play Reuben Fine.
>
> > Sam Sloan
>
> do you have a record of your game against lasker?
I played many games against Lasker as he was always at the club at
that time. I did not write them down nor do I remember them as it was
not a big deal at that time.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 27 Jul 2008 05:39:08
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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On Jul 26, 2:41 pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> This picture illustrates my game against Edward Lasker. Here is a
> picture of the Chess House on 72nd Street.
>
> http://www.chessgraphics.net/wa.htm
>
> I was sitting at the left hand front table on the right end of table
> facing the door.
>
> When Reuben Fine and Charlie Hidalgo started playing, they were right
> across the aisle from me at the middle of the three boards.
> Unfortunately, with a crowd gathered to watch the games and me still
> playing Edward Lasker, I did not get to see any of the moves.
>
> Of course, had I known that Fine was going to leave so quickly, that
> Lasker would take so long to move and would never resign and that this
> would be the one and only chance for me ever to play Reuben Fine in my
> entire life, and had I thought about it, I would have resigned by game
> against Lasker so that I could play Reuben Fine.
>
> Sam Sloan
I just realized that Woody Allen is in this picture on the top.
http://www.chessgraphics.net/jpg/wa2.jpg
Woody is sitting on the right hand side wearing a tan jacket with his
back to the camera. This is the actual layout of the real Chess House
on 72nd Street. When Reuben Fine played Charlie Hidalgo, they were
sitting at the board immediately to the right of where Woody is
sitting now.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 26 Jul 2008 11:41:42
From: samsloan
Subject: Re: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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This picture illustrates my game against Edward Lasker. Here is a
picture of the Chess House on 72nd Street.
http://www.chessgraphics.net/wa.htm
I was sitting at the left hand front table on the right end of table
facing the door.
When Reuben Fine and Charlie Hidalgo started playing, they were right
across the aisle from me at the middle of the three boards.
Unfortunately, with a crowd gathered to watch the games and me still
playing Edward Lasker, I did not get to see any of the moves.
Of course, had I known that Fine was going to leave so quickly, that
Lasker would take so long to move and would never resign and that this
would be the one and only chance for me ever to play Reuben Fine in my
entire life, and had I thought about it, I would have resigned by game
against Lasker so that I could play Reuben Fine.
Sam Sloan
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Date: 27 Jul 2008 17:29:33
From: Tobias Heidelmann
Subject: Re: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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samsloan schrieb:
> This picture illustrates my game against Edward Lasker. Here is a
> picture of the Chess House on 72nd Street.
>
> http://www.chessgraphics.net/wa.htm
>
> I was sitting at the left hand front table on the right end of table
> facing the door.
>
> When Reuben Fine and Charlie Hidalgo started playing, they were right
> across the aisle from me at the middle of the three boards.
> Unfortunately, with a crowd gathered to watch the games and me still
> playing Edward Lasker, I did not get to see any of the moves.
>
> Of course, had I known that Fine was going to leave so quickly, that
> Lasker would take so long to move and would never resign and that this
> would be the one and only chance for me ever to play Reuben Fine in my
> entire life, and had I thought about it, I would have resigned by game
> against Lasker so that I could play Reuben Fine.
>
> Sam Sloan
do you have a record of your game against lasker?
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Date: 26 Jul 2008 03:39:34
From: Ray Gordon, creator of the \pivot\
Subject: Re: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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Like you couldn't have resigned?
--
--
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Finding Your A-Game:
http://www.cybersheet.com/library.html
Includes 29 Reasons Not To Be A Nice Guy (FREE!)
The book Neil Strauss and VH-1 STOLE The Pivot From
Click HERE: for the ORIGINAL pivot chapter:
http://www.cybersheet.com/pivot.pdf
Here's my Myspace Page: And Pickup Blog (FREE advice)
http://www.myspace.com/snodgrasspublishing
Don't rely on overexposed, mass-marketed commercial seduction methods which
no longer work. Learn the methods the gurus USE with the money they make
from what they teach.
Thinking of taking a seduction "workshiop?" Read THIS:
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Beware! VH-1's "The Pickup Artst" was FRAUDULENT. Six of the eight
contestants were actors, and they used PAID TARGETS in the club. The paid
targets got mad when VH-1 said "there are no actors in this club" and ruined
their prromised acting credit. What else has Mystery lied about?
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Date: 25 Jul 2008 06:46:27
From:
Subject: Re: Why I hate Edward Lasker
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On Jul 24, 4:40=A0pm, samsloan <[email protected] > wrote:
> Why I hate Edward Lasker
>
> The Flea House, the commonly known name for The Chess and Checker Club
> of New York, which was next to the New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd
> Street near the south-west corner with Broadway, closed in about 1970,
> although nobody can remember exactly when, and then the main chess
> scene moved up to Charlie Hidalgo's Chess House on 72nd Street between
> Broadway and Columbus on the north side of the street.
>
> This was a better neighborhood and several wealthy stockbrokers and
> important people lived nearby. Edward Lasker and Reuben Fine also
> lived near there. Lasker came to the club almost every day. Reuben
> Fine visited there too, but rarely.
>
> I had the greatest respect for Edward Lasker, because when I was a
> little boy, the very first book I had read in my entire life was not
> Fun With Dick and Jane, but was Chess for Fun and Chess for Blood by
> Edward Lasker.
>
> One day in about 1971, while hanging out at the Chess House on 72nd
> Street, Edward Lasker challenged me to a game of chess. I sat down to
> play him. Facing the front door, I was sitting at the first table near
> the front door on the left hand side of the central corridor.
>
> Some months before this, I had spotted Reuben Fine standing on the
> second floor near the top of the stairways. I had approached him and
> asked him if he would like to play a game of chess. =93Are you Browne?=94=
,
> asked Reuben Fine. I replied that I was not Walter Browne, I was just
> an expert. Reuben Fine responded that he was not interested in playing
> me.
>
> So, on this occasion, I was playing Edward Lasker. Lasker had been a
> great player and had won the US Open Chess Championship seven times
> before 1920.
False. Lasker won the forerunner of the US Open, the Western
Championship, a total of five times, not seven, and only three of
those were before 1920. In all, he won in 1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, and
1921. Check it out here: http://www.usopenchess.org/old_opens.html
> However, he was born in 1885, so by 1971 he was 86 years
> old and no longer the player he once was.
>
> So, I was playing Edward Lasker with the black pieces, but he was
> really no match for me. Soon, I was a piece up with queens off the
> board and my pieces were swarming in for checkmate.
>
> Then, Edward Lasker stopped moving. He just sat, and sat and sat,
> staring at his busted, hopeless position. He would still move
> occasionally but only once every ten minutes or so, even though this
> was a skittles game.
>
> Now, at just this moment, who should walk in the door but Reuben
> Fine!!! Standing at the front door, Reuben Fine declared that he
> wanted to play chess with anybody, anybody at all.
>
> I had never seen Reuben Fine do this before. Here was my big chance to
> play the great man, one of the strongest chess players in the world.
> Unfortunately, I was stuck in this never-ending game with Edward
> Lasker.
>
> The people at the front door knew who Reuben Fine was, so they went
> looking for Charlie Hidalgo, the owner of the place. Charlie was an
> expert. I feel that Charlie was slightly better than me, but we were
> about equal. The problem was that Charlie was crazy. By this, I do not
> mean to say that Charlie was nuts. Rather, I mean to say that Charlie
> was INSANE.
>
> The building in which the Chess House was located was owned by his
> brother, Otto Hidalgo. Otto Hidalgo was a big time Wall Street real
> estate broker with Ely Cruikshank Co. Otto had done me a favor by
> renting me my first securities broker-dealer office at 120 Liberty
> Street. Otto was letting Charlie Hidalgo operate a chess club in the
> building owned by Otto.
>
> Charlie Hidalgo was found in the back of the club, probably babbling
> to himself in one of his schizophrenic tirades, and brought to the
> front and sat down to play Reuben Fine.
>
> They were playing on the same row as me. Just across the center isle,
> only two boards away from where I was still playing Edward Lasker, who
> still had not yet moved.
>
> A big crowd gathered around the game to watch. I could not see
> anything. I could see that they were playing five minute chess and
> punching the clock, but I could not see through the crowd any of the
> actual moves.
>
> Finally, after about 20 minutes or so, after they had played several
> games, Reuben Fine got up and walked out the door.
>
> Meanwhile, Edward Lasker still had not moved.
>
> Finally, I got angry. Eventually, Edward Lasker moved and I replied
> instantly. After a few more instant moves, I started blundering and
> lost the game.
>
> I then went looking for the players who had witnessed the games. I
> asked them what the results of the games were, who had won, what
> openings had been played and so on. Unfortunately, it turned out that
> the actual spectators had been so weak at chess that they did not even
> who had won the games, much less what openings had been played or
> anything else about the games.
>
> So, finally, I found Charlie, sitting in the back of the club. =93Who
> won the games, Charlie?=94, I asked.
>
> Charlie just sat their babbling in his incoherent style, =93Yea Yea Yea
> Yada Yada Yada=94, said Charlie Hidalgo. It was impossible to get any
> information out of him at all.
>
> That was the last time I ever saw Reuben Fine come to the club.
>
> The significance of this? After famously declining to play in the 1948
> World Chess Championship tournament in The Hague and Moscow, Reuben
> Fine had played in only one more tournament, that being in 1951. He
> has one skittles game he played against Bobby Fischer in 1963 which is
> in the book =93My 60 Memorable Games=94 by Bobby Fischer. If I had played
> those games against Reuben Fine on that day in 1971 or even seen him
> playing Charlie Hidalgo, I would have remembered the games, written
> them down, published them, and then they would have become part of
> chess history.
>
> Instead, I did not get to play Reuben Fine or even to see him play,
> because Edward Lasker refused to move.
>
> Now you understand why I hate Edward Lasker.
I can understand why you might be annoyed, but hate seems rather
more than a bit much.
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