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November 1, 2005

The Legacy of Samuel Reshevsky

Samuel Herman Reshevsky (Schmul Herman Rzeszewski) was born November 26, 1911 in Ozorkow, Poland. He learned to play chess at the age of four! At eight years old he was already giving simultaneous exhibitions and defeating some of the country's most prominent players. The boy was one of the most famous child prodigies of his era.

When he was seven, psychologists tested him and found that he was quite poor at recognizing pictures of a lion, a monkey, a tiger or a camel; He also had no formal education and was below standard for his age in arithmetic.

There were a completely different set of results when they tested his ability to visualize space and forms (chess players are generally very strong in abstract reasoning). Reshevsky solved problems that would baffle most adults. When they tested his memory there were even more remarkable results! He was allowed four minutes to look at 40 figures, each drawn in a square on a sheet of paper. When the paper was removed Reshevsky was able to reconstruct the figures correctly on a blank sheet of paper and in the correct order.

Reshevsky's style of play was that of a tough and determined positional player who could nevertheless play the most brilliant tactical chess. Always somewhat deficient from a theoretical point of view, he frequently used vast amounts of time in the opening and found himself at odds with the clock. Yet at these moments he was at his most dangerous, often playing brilliantly despite having only a minute or two for twenty moves.

During this brilliant career he was a cold calculating machine, often nicknamed "The Machine." SEE Reshevsky's games

Posted by rene on November 1, 2005 7:05 AM

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Posted by: unknown at November 1, 2005 8:46 PM

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