AFebruary 08 2000
Thousand Oaks Star, Thousand Oaks, California, Tuesday, February 08, 2000
Chess Grandmaster, Columnist, Dies at 96
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Chess grandmaster George Koltanowski who wrote more than 19,000 columns on the game for the San Francisco Chronicle is dead. He was 96.
Koltanowski died Saturday in a San Francisco hospital after a brief illness.
Koltanowski's column ran every day without a break for 52 years, a feat the newspaper said makes it the longest-running daily chess column in newspaper history.
“Chess is an international language,” he once said. “Everyone in the world can understand it, appreciate it and enjoy it.”
In a career that spanned 10 decades Koltanowski was an international grandmaster, one of only 200 in the world and the former chess champion of his native Belgium.
Koltanowski learned the game while watching his father play his older brother taking up the game in earnest at the age of 14. Three years later he was Belgium's champion.
He served a short stint in the Belgian army. He immigrated to the United States after a chess-playing consul in Cuba enjoyed one of his demonstrations.
He met his wife, Leah, in New York City in 1944. The couple moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1947.
Koltanowski was former president of the US Chess Federation.
Koltanowski is survived by his wife, four nieces and two nephews.
Plans for a memorial service in San Francisco are pending.
February 09 2000
The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, Wednesday, February 09, 2000
George Koltanowski; Chess Columnist
George Koltanowski, 96, San Francisco chess grandmaster who wrote the longest-running daily chess column in newspaper history. Known as “Kolti,” Koltanowski began his column in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1948 and continued it daily for more than 50 years, a total of more than 19,000 columns. “Chess is an international language,” he once said. “Everyone in the world can understand it, appreciate it and enjoy it.” The Belgian-born writer learned chess at an early age and took up the game in earnest at the age of 14. By 17, he was champion of his country. Koltanowski even credited chess for saving his life-explaining that when the Nazis invaded Belgium, he was on a chess tour in Central America. He came to the United States after an American consul in Cuba enjoyed one of his demonstrations. In 1960, the Chronicle sponsored an exhibition in which Koltanowski set a world's record by playing 56 opponents consecutively while blindfolded. Merely relying on his memory of the moves, he did not lose any of the games. His wife, Leah, however, once joked that he couldn't remember her requests to bring home so much as a loaf of bread from the supermarket. A national chess tournament was named for Koltanowski, and in 1994, players at the National Open in Las Vegas dubbed him a “National Chess Treasure.” He earned his title as international master in 1950 and honorary grandmaster in 1988. On Saturday in San Francisco.
February 13 2000
Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz, California, Sunday, February 13, 2000
George Koltanowksi, 96, wrote Chronicle chess column
The New York Times
George Koltanowski, an international chess master and author who excelled at beating opponents without looking at the board, died Feb. 5 in a hospital in San Francisco. He was 96.
Koltanowski, known as Kolti, won several chess titles in Europe in the 1920s and 30s but was best known for his skill at blindfold chess, in which a player never looks at the board but makes his moves after being told of his opponent's.
He sometimes used a blindfold for stage effect and often played against more than one nonblindfolded opponent at the same time. In 1937 he defeated 34 players simultaneously without looking at any of the boards, setting a world record. In 1960 he set another world record by defeating 56 opponents simultaneously while blindfolded.
Koltanowski attributed his skill at blindfold chess to memory games he played as a boy and to what he called “the gramophone” in his head. “I record everything I hear,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle, where he was chess columnist for the last 52 years. “I repeat the moves to myself, and they come back to me, like in football an instant replay.”
Koltanowski is survived by his wife, Leah, who never learned to play chess.
February 18 2000
The Daily Telegraph, London, Greater London, England, Friday, February 18, 2000
George Koltanowski
Chess Phenomenon who played 34 opponents at once blindfold without losing a game
Caption: Koltanowski plays blindfold against 10 opponents at Whiteley's department store, in 1932.
GEORGE “KOLTY” KOLTANOWSKI, the Grandmaster who has died aged 96, was famed for feats of blindfold chess.
Koltanowski was a phenomenon, more of a showman in the world of chess than a tournament player. On September 20, 1937, in Edinburgh he broke the world record for a blindfold simultaneous display. His feat stands to this day in The Guinness Book of Records. Over a period of nearly 14 hours he played 34 games winning 24 and drawing 10 without sight of the board.
The Guinness Book of Records later rejected rival claims by the Argentine Grandmaster Miguel Najdorf and the Hungarian Grandmaster Janos Flesch because they were not strictly monitored.
Koltanowski broke another world record in San Francisco in 1960 when he was already 57, by playing 56 opponents consecutively while blindfolded without defeat. It took nine and three quarter hours at a rate of only 10 seconds a move.
One of his celebrated memory feats was the “Knight's Tour.” In this astonishing trick information such as names and telephone numbers would be supplied by the audience and written in the 64 squares of a giant chessboard. In seconds Koltanowski would commit them all to memory.
While blindfolded he would then call out the intricate path required for a chess knight to make a series of L shaped hops around the board without revisiting the same square while recalling the scraps of information in order.
His wife was known to complain that although he could perform the Knight's Tour he could not be sent to the corner shop without forgetting what he was supposed to buy.
George Koltanowski was born in Antwerp on September 17 1903. His parents were Jews from Eastern Europe. In his book Chessnicdotes he says that he learned Flemish and French at school, implying that these languages were not spoken at home.
He learned to play chess at 14 by watching his father play his elder brother. Three years later, in 1923, he was champion of Belgium, a title he was to win again in 1927, 1930, and 1936.
He served briefly in the Belgian Army and while dutifully peeling potatoes would stave off boredom by solving chess problems in his head at the same time “Soldiers were going hungry” he recalled “as I peeled potatoes into smaller and smaller cubes.”
His international career started at the age of 21 in the international tournament at Meran in Italy where he drew against the great chess thinker Siegbert Tarrasch. His best performances in tournament play came in the 1930s. At Barcelona he tied in 1934 with Andor Lilienthal and Savielly Tartakower and in 1935 with Salo Flohr. He also drew with world champion Alexander Alekhine at Hastings 1936-7 and defeated Akiba Rubinstein at Antwerp in 1931.
Like many Jewish players, Koltanowski found himself stranded by the Nazi invasion. He emigrated to the United States while on a chess tour in Central America and later said that chess saved his life. He was admitted to the country only because a chess-playing consul in Cuba was amazed by his feats.
In the 1960s after a successful radio series, Koltanowski presented the first chess television programmes. Koltanowski on Chess was broadcast across America.
He had become an American citizen and served as President of the US Chess Federation during the boom that followed Bobby Fischer's victory over Boris Spassky in 1972. He was given the title “Dean of American Chess” and was one of first three to be inducted into the US Chess Federation Hall of Fame. In 1988 Fide the world chess federation made him an honorary Grandmaster on the basis of his pre-war results.
He was active in the chess world up to his death occasionally appearing at tournaments and writing a column in the San Francisco Chronicle. His work appeared there every day without interruption for 50 years in a total of 19,980 columns. It was the longest-running daily chess column in history. He wrote 18 books on chess in four languages.
He is survived by his wife Leah.
