Sammy Reshevsky

America's Chess Giant

I've beaten Janowski! I've beaten a grandmaster!

Sammy Reshevsky, age 10, after beating Janowski in a tournament game in New York.

 

Small in physical stature, as a chessplayer Sammy Reshevsky was one of the giants of 20th Century chess. Schmul Rzeszewski was born on November 26, 1911 in Ozerkow, Poland. Learning the game at the age of four, Reshevsky was giving simultaneous exhibitions by the age of eight. He moved from Poland to the United States in 1920.

Reshevsky abandoned chess almost entirely for a decade to pursue a vocation as an accountant. (He received an accounting degree from the University of Chicago in 1933). He resumed his playing career in 1931, but never became a professional chessplayer. He won Margate 1935, defeating Capablanca in the process, and then won his first U.S. Championship in 1936 ahead of Fine and Kashdan. Between 1936 and 1942, Reshevsky had a streak of 75 games without a loss in U.S. Championship competition.

Reshevsky's equal third place at the famed Zurich 1953 Candidates Tournament was one of his more notable international results. (You can buy the excellent tournament book by David Bronstein). 

Other highlights included first prize at Hastings 1937/8 and equal first place at Kemeri 1937. He defeated Botvinnik on first board by a score of 2 1/2 -- 1 1/2 in the 1954 United States--USSR radio match, and tied for first place at Buenos Aires 1960.

Despite devoting little attention to opening play, Reshevsky, was considered a top match player. Late in his career, he did study openings in depth. Throughout his career, he struggled with chronic time pressure problems. As described by Harold Schonberg in Grandmasters of Chess:

His game with Alekhine at AVRO 1938 was typical. At the end of the eighth move, Reshevsky had taken fifty-eight minutes and Alekhine only two. That suicidal deliberateness made almost every Reshevsky game a cliffhanger; everyone wondered if he would beat the clock or lose on time.

IM Anthony Saidy made an interesting observation in The Battle of Chess Ideas that helps understand Reshevsky as a chess player and a man:

When asked to list his all-time favorite games, Reshevsky cited his victories over the greats, including four world champions. It is significant that he selected not his most artistic achievements, but his competitive successes in combat with the titans.

Reshevsky considered himself to be primarily a positional player, but others were more impressed by his exceptional tactical ability. Denker called him a "pocket sized computer" whose games had the appearance of positional chess but not the substance. Whatever Reshevsky's technique was, it worked. Reshevsky had a justifiable reputation as a tough man to beat. As early as 1937, the Soviets had dubbed him an "Escape Artist." Reuben Fine jokingly explained the secret of Reshevsky's success by saying, "Sammy has a secret move, and whenever he gets into a tight spot he plays it."

"Secret moves" or not, Reshevsky was the dominant force in American chess for decades.

In recognition of his significant contributions to American chess, Sammy Reshevsky was an Inaugural inductee into the Chess Hall of Fame.

Other Views of Reshevsky

Practically every player has a penchant for a certain kind of position which he is only too happy to attain, and a distaste for some other type or types which he would avoid at all costs . . . Reshevsky is the exception . . . To Reshevsky, boring positions simply do not exist.

-- Max Euwe, in Meet the Masters (1940)

 

No one else has played so. There is no natural explanation available. Reshevsky sets loose upon the chessboard and elemental force which--who knows_--may have been inherent, and indomitable force that is related to Lasker's evolutionary 'Macheide'--the spirit of survival.

-- IM Anthony Saidy, The Battle of Chess Ideas, 2nd Ed. (1972)

 

But whereas most tacticians are drawn to sacrificial attacking play, Reshevsky's forte was defense. He applied his combinative skill to rebuffing his opponents' ideas, maintaining a solid position, all the while improving his own prospects. This singular style, coupled with unyielding tenacity and a distaste for agreeing to draws, turned Reshevsky's games into wars of attrition.

-- NM Macon Shibut, The U.S. Chess Hall of Fame (1995)

 

One of the more common misconceptions about playing styles is the assumption that there are only two breeds of chessplayer--the tactical attacker and the positional defender. But Reshevsky is the tactical defender. And he can be a positional player who uses tricks as much as Frank Marshall did.

-- GMs Arthur Bisguier and Andrew Soltis, in American Chess Masters From Morphy to Fischer (1974)

 

Others get tired, or excited, or rattled, or lose interest, or lose hope; Reshevsky never.

-- GM Reuben Fine, quoted in Harold Schonberg's Grandmasters of Chess (1972)

Color photo of Reshevsky in 1991 courtesy of Helen Hinshaw.