Saturday, January 10, 2009

Najdorf-Czerniak Match: Conclusion


Moshe Czerniak and Miguel Najdorf during the 1954 Olympiad in Amsterdam. From the collection, "Portraits of Chess Grandmasters", by Phocas Fokkens (1888-1965). Owned by the National Library of the Netherlands.

All of the match's games were interesting, hard-fought, and instructive. Not a single "grandmaster's draw" (to use the modern term). Whatever the games might lack in opening expertise compared to modern players, they more than make up for in excitement, combinations, and instructive endgame play.

As said before, Yochanan Afek had kindly let me copy Moshe Czerniak's notebook of his games in Poland in the 1920s. Marek Soszynski had kindly agreed to transcribe the games and the annotations into 'Chessbase' format. He, together with Tomasz Lissowski, encouraged me to publish the work on my blog and contact others about it. As a result Chessbase is going to add these games to its next database.

Thanks again to all who helped!

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