AFebruary 03 1965
The Montreal Star, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Wednesday, February 03, 1965
International Chess Master Whips 37 City Opponents
International chess master Frank Anderson defeated 37 members of the Canadian National Chess Club simultaneously during an exhibition held at the CN building last night.
Mr. Anderson, the former Canadian chess champion and Canadian Olympic chess team member, awarded a “complimentary draw” to Miss Louise Guay, chosen Canadian National Recreational chess queen before the start of the exhibit.
Although it was apparent that Miss Guay would lose her match to Mr. Anderson, the master chess player awarded a draw to the only female competitor.
The CN Chess Club holds an annual exhibition where internationally known players are invited to play anywhere from 20 to 40 club members simultaneously.
Mr. Anderson, who at the age of 20 won the Toronto Chess Championship, has played as many as eight games simultaneously while wearing a blindfold.
He holds the world record for simultaneous tandem play jointly with Dr. G. Berner playing on 100 boards and making alternate moves with Dr. Berner.
July 07 1965
The Brantford Expositor, Brantford, Ontario, Canada, Wednesday, July 07, 1965
CHESS MASTER ON TRIP—Frank Anderson, 37, of Montreal, international chess expert and hobbyist par excellence, is on a three-year round-the-world honeymoon with wife Sylvia.—(CP Photo).
Around the World For Three Years
Montreal(CP)—Somerset Maugham once wrote: “Every human being is an adventure to me.”
“The same goes for me,” says Frank Anderson.
A more appropriate slogan for the 37-year-old adventurer might read: “Everything is an adventure to me.”
Anderson overcame a crippling childhood ailment which left him with a severe physical handicap to immerse himself in a variety of fascinating hobbies including the sport of gliding.
Despite his small stature and the fact that he used crutches until two years ago, when he underwent a series of operations, he has led an intensely active life, following the motto, “Keep moving so no rust will accumulate.”
This philosophy has enabled Anderson, a specialist in all types of electronic computers, to become a self-taught expert in chess, gliding, professional magic and handwriting analysis.
Is he wearying of adventure after years of intense intellectual and physical activity? No.
“I've just discovered a new career,” he says. “Marriage.”
Recently he left on his honeymoon — “a three-year trip around the world touching 80 countries.”
Became Chess Expert
A native of Edmonton, Frank Anderson moved to Toronto where he spent almost 11 of his first 21 years in bed battling acute rheumatoid arthritis.
During these years he learned to play chess, long his first love, and progressed from regional and provincial championships to a share in 1953 of the Canadian closed title which he won outright two years later.
He has competed for Canada in two chess Olympics, the most recent at Tel Aviv, Israel, last November when Canada placed 12th among 50 countries, its highest standing ever.
Anderson, who now lives in Montreal, is rated among the world's better players and holds the coveted title of international master.
“Chess has affected my whole life and taught me the virtues of patience, perseverance, logical reasoning and modesty in victory.”
Always seeking a new challenge, Anderson has moved on from the championship matches and exhibitions in which he plays up to 40 games simultaneously against 40 opponents, to adapting chess to computers.
With a Toronto partner, one of four such teams in the world, he is trying to discover how a computer may be programmed to play chess.
Computer Can't Cope
The formula, which could revolutionize the chess world and perhaps divide the world championships into classes—man and machine—has eluded man as yet.
“The fastest computer envisaged—and some are capable of billions of operations a second—could not begin to compile all the possible moves in chess if it worked for 24 hours each day for billions of years,” he says.
“But in the future almost anything is possible.”
Anderson took up gliding a year ago when a friend described it to him as a “three dimensional game of chess.”
He won his glider's pilot license in one summer, an exceptional feat among gliding devotees.
The glider, a light, motorless plane of exceptionally long wingspan, usually is launched by catapult or tow plane.
A pilot towed to 2,000 feet may remain aloft for a considerable length of time by making use of the lift provided by columns of rising air. In favorable weather conditions, flights of 200 miles are possible.
Anderson says gliding—known to enthusiasts as soaring— is [illegible] per cent brain work and five per cent physical activity.
“A glider pilot must be able to think fast and accurately, possess a knowledge of meteorology and the air and combine a sense of daring and caution.”
Related to Chess
His other hobbies revolve around chess.
Magic and chess are related in that the psychology a magician applies to his audience must also be applied between expert chess players, he says.
“I learned that magic to be entertaining and mystifying at its best is not sleight of hand but the art of diverting people through motions and entertaining talk.
“I've always dreamed of combining chess and magic to make my opponent's chess piece disappear from the board.”
The handwriting hobby, which he described as a popular party pastime, also was self-taught.
He believes most personality traits may be revealed more accurately through handwriting than through any test yet developed.
“Of course, at a party you have to be discreet and tactful.”
He claims a 95-per-cent reliability average in determining such traits as intelligence, powers of concentration, reasoning ability, honesty, generosity and emotional characteristics.
