| “New in Chess 1997 nr.5” |
| The Life and Times
of
ERICH ELISKASES (1913 – 1997)
|
|
It has been the lot
of many great chess masters who never took part in a
At that time, the Tyrolean
was still studying at the 'Handelsakademie' (business school) in lnnsbruck - as a
student, he is reputed
to have been above average, although not excelling in any particular
field.
Against the resistance of some Austrian officials, the youngster was sent to
the Hamburg Chess Olympiad, where he performed quite brilliantly: with a
score of 73.3% (+8 =6 -1) he obtained the best result of all Austrian
participants,
contributing more than his share to the excellent placing of the Austrian team (they finished
fourth). After graduating with honours from business school, he
moved to Vienna, where he began his studies at the 'Hochschule für Welthandel',
starting with the winter semester 1931/32. However, his passion for chess had already
become all-consuming: 'Eli', as his friends called hi, joined
the Hietzing Chess Club and was immediately challenged to an informal match by
local hero GM Ernst Grünfeld, who won the match by a narrow margin. The
rivalry between these two players lingered on through the following years; in the
end, the scales were clearly tipped in Eliskases' favour. He started working
for the 'Wiener Schachzeitung', at that time one of the leading chess
publications in the world, finally becoming chief editor in 1936, after the departure
of Albert Becker.
Eliskases' leading
position in Austrian chess was now undisputed. The Tyrolean's style had always been characterised by extreme
perseverance and circumspection. He retained his composure even in the
most difficult positions, playing with uncompromising practicality and without any
flourishes. As Hans Kmoch once remarked, 'neither far-fetched innovations,
nor sacrificial dreams, nor headstands' were to be found in his games. In the
thirties, he played in many strong tournaments; those were the years of his rise
to fame in the international chess community. As an example, let us just
mention his consistently good showing at Chess Olympiads - e.g. Warsaw
1935, where he scored points for Austria practically single-handedly - and the
first prize he shared with Lajos Steiner in the Trebitsch Memorial Tournament
of 1936. In the 1937 elite tournament at Semmering, although failing to reach
the 50% mark, he had the personal satisfaction of not only having defeated
the final winner, the then 21-year-old Paul Keres, but also having outplayed former
world champion Jose Raul Capablanca in the Cuban's own field of excellence,
the endgame. In the same year, he was AIexander AIekhine's second in the Russian's
return-match with Max Euwe. Overjoyed at the recovery of his title, Alekhine
presented his young second with a gold cigarette case. (After winning against
Efim Bogoljubow in 1934, on the other hand, he is reported to have treated
his second, Hans Kmoch, to a small goulash!)
Then history intervened
and played havoc with Eliskases' ambitions: it was precisely during the Chess Olympiad of 1939 in Buenos
Aires, where two Austrians played in the German team - Eliskases (on top board) and
Albert Becker - that the Second World War broke out. (The German team won despite
anumber of obstacles; some countries refused to play against ‘Grossdeutschland',
and those meetings had to be scored as a 2-2 draw without play.)
Most players, Eliskases and Becker among them, could not or would not return to
their countries, and this put an end to the Tyrolean's promising career, at
least for the time being, since the following years were dominated by the need to
survive in a new environment. He eked out a living by giving simultaneous
exhibitions and playing in tournaments. In 1941, after the tournament of Sao Paulo,
he stayed in Brazil, working as a bridge teacher. Threatened by internment
and expulsion (since Brazil had broken off all official contacts with Germany),
he narrowly escaped that fate with the help of some Brazilian chess enthusiasts,
who hired him as their chess teacher on a regular basis. In 1947, he found
a steady job at a department store of the German firm 'Renner' in Porto
Alegre and also became a chess teacher at the firm's chess club. In 1951, he returned
to Argentina and settled down in Cordoba, where he met 'a nice girl', as
he himself expressed it, and married her on May 17th, 1954. He was granted the
GM title not in 1950, but in 1952, just like Bogoljubow, whose political activities
for the Nazi regime had been under scrutiny for some time. But what was FIDE's
reason for procrastination in the case of Eliskases? No accusations
had ever been raised against him, so perhaps he had simply been forgotten?
After the war, the
chess career of Eliskases, who had become an Argentine citizen, was revived, but he was now considered just a
'regular' grandmaster. He played in many South American tournaments until the seventies,
with fair to middling success, even winning the Zonal Tournament at
Mar del Plata in 1951 and finishing in 10th place in the Interzonal Tournament at
Saltsjöbaden in 1952 (on the way to that tournament, he revisited his native Austria
for the first time since the war). The best result of his 'South American
period' was certainly his victory in (Mar del Plata in 1948 (+9 =8 -0), ahead of
world class players such as Gideon Stahlberg, Miguel Najdorf and Laszlo Szabo.
For example, who had ever seen the great Najdorf go down in just 24 moves? Erich
Eliskases is probably the only Chess player to have represented three different
countries at Chess Olympiads: Austria (1930-35), Germany (1939) and Argentina
(1952, 1958, 1960 and 1964); besides, he is the only Austrian to have beaten
three world Champions (Max Euwe, José Raul Capablanca and Bobby Fischer!).
In 1976, he retumed to his native Tyrol with his wife and son, intending to sett1e
there. He also played chess - even for the Austrian national team! - but after
about half a year the couple had to return to Cordoba; the old ties had been
permanently severed, and besides his wife suffered in the rough climate of the
Alps. The last years of his life were spent in Cordoba, overshadowed by illness
and depression. His Chess heritage, consisting of extensive comments to his
own games, the publication of which had become an important goal in his
final years, was left to a Viennese chess friend.
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Hardly anybody still remembers that Eliskases was the
last top-notch Austrian chess player of the inter-war years and one of the great
natural chess talents, or that for a time he was even considered a likely contender
for the world title. But that is not the only reason why his life story deserves to be saved
from total oblivion – his biography, tightly woven into
the fabric of the global political events of the 20th century, raises a number
of questions that go far beyond his own personality or the world of chess. His early chess years
read like the beginning of a novel: in his family, nobody was familiar with the game; his father was a tailor,
his family came from the Ladin-speaking region of south-western Tyrol. lt was
pure chance that brought the 12-year-old boy into contact with the 'game
of games', and he immediately took a keen interest in his new-found hobby.
Only one year later, he applied for membership in the 'lnnsbrucker Schachgesellschaft'
but was refused because of his tender age. However, he found a paternal
friend and teacher in Carl P. Wagner, an Innsbruck chess player who recognised
his extraordinary talent. At the age of 14, in 1927, Eliskases played his
first tournament in the Schlechter Chess Club and immediately shared first prize.
One year later, at the age of 15, he took part in the Tyrolean Championship and
scored a convincing victory (with 7 points from 8 games!). He had thereby
won the right to participate in the toumament for the Austrian Championship
of 1929, which happened to be held in his native Innsbruck. The end result
was another sensation: Eliskases shared first place with Esra Glass
(+5 =3 -1) and thus became the youngest player ever to win the Austrian championship
title.