AJanuary 01 1931
The Leicester Mail, Leicester, Leicestershire, England, Monday, December 29, 1930
News from Nowhere by Simple Simon.
THE CHESS SEASON.
THE international chess season has opened with a zip and Hastings, that historic town, is crowded with the world's masters. So slowly do they move, however, that traffic police are having the utmost difficulty in getting anything done.
M. Prazt, for instance, of Buda Pest, who is engaged in working out an entirely new theory of the game, permits himself to walk from one place to another by means of the Knight's move only, with obviously disastrous consequences. He was pulled out of the sea for the third time this morning on his way from his bedroom to his bathroom and the Hastings lifeboat crew are complaining bitterly of overwork.
CHESS CARNERA.
IT is expected that the tournament will be over in time for the Scarborough Autumn Festival in 1931, and British hopes are pinned to the chances of John Higginbotham who has been described as the Carnera of the chess world.
Mr. Higginbotham stands 6 ft. weighs 25 stone and has a reach of 85 inches, and I am told that his long arm plays havoc with his opponents pawns.
WATCH HIS ROOK.
WHEN my special representative asked Mr. Higginbotham for his views on the world's chess championship, the British hope replied: “Capablanca. garn! Alekhine. blimey! I don't want to boast. but I'll knock these Willies into a cocked hat. Maybe not with my openings, but I've got a wicked rook. It'll be all over by the fifth move.”
With this characteristically modest remark. the champion turned back to his board and dealt King's Bishop's Pawn a smashing blow to Queen's Knight's third.
The Leicester Mail, Leicester, Leicestershire, England, Thursday, January 01, 1931
A FOUL.
A REGRETTABLE incident has taken place at the Hastings Chess Tournament. Mr. J. Higginbotham, the English champion, has been disqualified for fouling M. Alekhine. The incident referred to transpired in the eighth move, when Higginbotham had Alekhine on the ropes and smashed in a tremendous right rook to the pawn.
Unfortunately he made his rook travel diagonally with a slight swerve to the left, and the referee had no other course but to declare Alekhine the winner.
Higginbotham left the hall in tears and a dark blue overcoat.
BY RADIO.
It is interesting to note that M. Alekhine was playing his match by radio from Inverquharity, where he is engaged in compiling a monograph on the Elliptical Nature of Javanese Billiard Balls, a work for which the world is waiting with ill-restrained excitement.
July 12 1931
Alexander Alekhine playing black pieces during match against Swedish grandmaster Gideon Stahlberg at 4th Chess Olympiad in Prague, Czechoslovakia, July 12, 1931.
November 22 1931
November 23 1931
Evening Despatch, Birmingham, West Midlands, England, Monday, November 23, 1931
Chess Defeat By Cable
Paris, Monday.
The British Chess Club of Paris was beaten yesterday by the Manhattan Chess Club, New York, in a match played by cable in the offices here of one of the leading Atlantic cable firms.
Dr. Alekhine the chess champion of the world refereed.
The British team composed of Messrs. G. W. Champion, C. G. Curtis, D. J. Collins, R. W. Holmes and N. B. Scott, opened with the pawn gambit and resigned after the 31st move.
The game began at two o'clock yesterday afternoon and finished by 9:30 last night. Every move of the players in Paris and Manhattan was transmitted between the two cities within six seconds of it being made.—British United Press.
December 1931
Alexander Alekhine and wife. Source
