Care for A Game?

by Bob Brooking

Preface

On 4 August 1986 Melbourne Chess Club turns 120. Sixty years have passed since Rosenblum's history of the club, and it is time for another. How should this be written? By dividing time up, a decade to a chapter, and saying who held office; and where the clubroom was to be found; and who played well and who played badly; and what matches and tournaments they had? Must every quotation show its source, and shall each page be buttressed by a mound of footnotes? Is there to be column after column of office-bearers and tournament results, like some vast outpouring of variations from the pages of Modern Chess Openings? Does it matter now whether Buzzard came third in the Annual Handicap tourney of 1901?

May a history be unsystematic and undocumented and so avoid being unreadable? Instead of carving up into neat slices, let us - to borrow a figure of speech - treat the last 120 years as a chess pie, to be attacked more roughly with a spoon.

Club minute books and other records, not always complete, must be the foundation. Other sources include the accounts of contemporary journalists and chess columnists, Bignold's Australian Chess Annual (1896), Rosenblum's Seventy years of Victorian Chess and the much more recent Australian Chess Lore series. The Melbourne Directory is a useful standby. The magazines have been invaluable, notably the Australasian chess magazine, the Austral, Australasian Chess Review, Check!, Chess World and Chess in Australia, the last including John van Manen's "Australiana" series.

The choice of persons, games and events is largely idiosyncratic. With facts that matter I have tried to be accurate. With those that do not I may once or twice have slipped across the ill-defined boundary separating inference from imagination. Hence the sub-title: not the history but the story of the Melbourne chess club.

Chapter 1: A grand fancy bazaar

Sir George Stephen never came to term with his life in the colonies. Perhaps he had made the move too late. He was more set in his ways than most, and on July 31 1855, 20 years after John Batman, he reached Melbourne he was already over 60. Disembarking from the Oliver Lang, he found the fears that had been growing on him during the 3 month voyage from Liverpool quickly realised. Foreign agitators were demanding the vote for all men. Only a few months before his arrival the republic of Victoria had been proclaimed by a rebel named Lalor at a place called Ballarat and Governor Hotham had found it necessary to send up troops to restore order. In Melbourne itself seditious placards had been circulated and inflammatory speeches made and the Mayor had sworn in hundreds of special constables, seamen and marines had been dispatched to guard the powder treasury and a hundred mounted gentlemen volunteers had been ready for action.

As a former deputy lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, Sir George regarded himself as a military man and on his arrival he applied for a grant of land accordingly. In fact he was no soldier, but a barrister, although his father had intended him for the army medical corps until in 1813 Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig through hundreds of army surgeons out of work. One of the handful of knights in Victoria (he had been honoured for his work against slavery), Stephen soon found himself in demand as president of this or patron of that. But he never ceased to regret his emigration. He remained an Englishman. He was uneasy about the democratic institutions of the colony. Melbourne Punch lampooned him for his military pretensions and his habit of writing letters to the editor under pseudonyms. His attempt to enter public life as the candidate for East Melbourne came to nothing, and for years he smarted under he impudent note that some rascal had written about him in the Victorian Elector's guide: "Ability, not equal to his reputation. Politics, doubtful". Disappointment with colonial life combined with a natural acerbity to produce a formidable man.

One day in November, 1855, not 4 months after his arrival, Sir George was scanning the "Amusements" column in his newspaper. Lola Montez was playing at the Theatre Royal, delighting some and shocking others with her spider dance and "the petite drama entitled Maidens beware". But what caught Stephen's attention was the open letter to the Lady Mayoress about the Grand Fancy Bazaar in aid of the Melbourne hospital. The writer suggested a chess problem tournament and offered an original problem and a prize for the first to solve it. Now that did promise a small intellectual diversion in this upstart city, and to a chess player and problemist the attraction was irresistible. His wife Henrietta looked up as with a grunt he began to read the particulars out loud: an entry fee of 5 shillings in aid of the hospital and a diagram of the problem to be issued at half past 3 on 22 November - that was next Thursday - at the stall presided over by the Lady Mayoress. Thursday came, and Sir George could not keep away. It was scarcely 3 when his carriage reached the top of William St. The Exhibition building, its glass walls refulgent, its flags fluttering in the afternoon breeze, was a fine sight; modelled on the Crystal Palace. It had been used 12 months earlier for the Melbourne exhibition of 1854. (The Mint now stands on the site.)

The Argus had promised that the inside of the building would present a most elegant coup d'oeil, but the hall was so crowded, with its 42 stalls and huge number of visitors, that Stephen's main impression was one of seething humanity. Mrs Carson's floral stand, by the side of the fountain, was certainly a pretty sight. He paused at the panoramic series of waves of the progress made by the Allies in the Crimea. (Britain moved slowly at the outset of any war. Lord Palmerston was confident that civilization and liberty would soon triumph.) The war sketches were poorly executed, but that attracted many patriotic spectators. Passing by the "Bachelors' forlorn hope society" without a glance, Stephen arrived at the brightly decorated stall of the Lady Mayoress. The anonymous composer of the problem, A.C.Combe, one of the colony's strongest players, was there already. In exchange for his 2 half-crowns one of the ladies gave Sir George the problem.

There was jostling as other competitors crowded around; about 150 in all tried their hand in the course of the Bazaar. The simplest problem (mate in 4) gave Sir George no difficulty. He hurried back to the stall with his entry, and was annoyed to learn from Dr Casperson , who was in animated conversation with the Scot, that the doctor had forestalled him and so presumably won the 3 guinea prize. On that Thursday afternoon neither Stephen nor Casperson could know that this problem, the first published in Victoria, would lead to a chess boom in the colony that Stephen and McCombe would themselves do much to foster.

There had been a Melbourne Chess Club in 1851, which survived after its foundation on May 8 for only a few weeks. 4 years later, by the time of the Grand Fancy Bazaar, the second Melbourne Chess Club had come into existence., although the exact date of its birth will probably never be known. A meting held at the Argus hotel in Collins St on 15 May 1855, to discuss founding a club had been inconclusive, but by early September of that year the second Melbourne Chess Club was described as recently formed and very active, so this second club must have been created in mid 1855. Two years later the club wound itself up; William Lancelot Kelly, the chess playing licensee of the Argus hotel, was then secretary. Whether the club existed continuously from mid 1855 until mid 1857 is not clear, but there was plenty of chess activity in Melbourne during that time. The chess problem tourney at the Grand Fancy Bazaar had brought the chess players out in force, and the months following it saw articles on chess by an anonymous Stephen in the Herald and problems in the Argus. The Age countered with a column in its new weekly, the Leader. A tournament - the first in Victoria - with 32 competitors, played early in 1856, gave Sir George Stephen a chance to instruct Herald readers in the legal interpretation of "best of three" when the final match , between Watts and McCombe, gave Watts a win and two draws. Next year a tournament of 8 players produced the first published Victorian games. Scarcely was this over when the third Melbourne Chess Club was established by a meeting held at the Argus hotel on 27 June 1857, in the course of which Sir George spoke on his experience in managing the Liverpool chess association and other clubs. He was made a president of the new club, which was really a continuation of the old, the members of which presented it with their funds and name. Watts and McCombe became vice-presidents.

Nine years have passed, and we now find Sir George Stephen on a Winter's night in 1866 arriving at the Mechanics Institute in Collins St. He feels the cold more now - remember, he is 72 - but a warm welcome awaits him. No-one would think of forming the 4th Melbourne Chess Club without him. He knows the others have held preliminary meetings and that tonight (it is 4 August) the club is to be born. The others are all ready for him - it would not do to keep them waiting. Rusden comes forward. Sir George has said that he will take the presidency but cannot be expected to come in from Glen Eira rd for committee meetings, and Rusden knows that he himself will be taking the chair after tonight. Stephens greets him warmly enough; at least Rusden, despite his remarkable rural rides in the cause of education, is a person of influence, holding a certain position in society. (A confirmed bachelor, and stronger at billiards than at chess, he irritates Stephen at times with his Shakespearian quotations.) Samuel Mullen is more deferential to Stephen as he bids the knight good evening in a voice that still betrays his Dublin origins. Mullen is a decent enough fellow. He is already marked down as treasurer and his bookshop in Collins St will be the source of the club's small library; he will also come in handy as a publisher of games. Mullen never tires of telling the others of his quarrel with Robertson, to whom he has not spoken for nine years. How could he know that the rival firms would merge a generation after his death and in time become a household word?

As Sir George declares the meeting open he cannot help wondering whether this club will last longer than the one they started in 1857: It survived, as he recalls, only a year. Looking at the faces of his 18 companions he sees himself as the only link with the committee of the club formed 9 years before. But now Phillips hands him the report of the provisional committee and the draft rules. He returns to the present and quizzing glass in place (his sight now is not what it used to be), looks through the papers. At least that fellow Phillips, the secretary Pro Tern, writes with a fair hand. The report, he sees, raises only one question: Where should the club meet? Alfred Harris, proprietor of the Temple of Pomona, is anxious to attract the new club. Chess is already played at his cafe, along with billiards, draughts, dominoes and other games. It was the venue for the open handicap tournament, won only a few weeks earlier by the Scot Andrew Burns, the strongest player in the colony, who now sits opposite Sir George as the latter asks the meeting to consider the provisional committee's report. (The idea of forming a chess club had indeed been born at the Temple of Pomona during the presentation of prizes in the tournament won by Burns). Harris, whose advertisements boast of "the most elegant lounge in the southern hemisphere, replete with every comfort that the most fastidious and refined taste could possibly desire for beguiling a leisure hour", has offered a room for £50 a year. Nissen, who runs a cafe and billiard saloon in Bourke St, has offered one for £25. Harris has been quick to match this offer. Both buildings are conveniently placed, Nissen's being just up the hill from the Temple, separated from it only by Tattersal's hotel and Philemon Sohler's waxworks. But Nissen's cafe has advantages which, despite its advertisements, the Temple of Pomona cannot offer. The room above Nissen's, Sir George reads in his report, "has advantages of a separate entrance, is of more commodious shape, is further removed from disturbing influences and adjoins another room of equal size, which the proprietor is willing to let to the club should the increase in members render it desirable, and which would also be useful on such occasions as the holding of a tournament and playing of more important matches". The report and draft rules are adopted. The clubroom will be at Nissen's, opening at four from Monday to Friday and 32 on Saturdays.

Sir George is elected president, repeating his warning that he cannot attend routine business. Rusden becomes Vice-president, Mullen and L.S.Phillips are confirmed as treasurer and secretary and Burns, Sedgefield, Pirani, Lulman, Daniel and P.D.Phillips form the remainder of the committee.

As Sir George emerges from the Institute, making his way carefully down the steps to street level, he can see his breath in the cold August air. But he is glad that he has made the effort. Chess is one of the few comforts this raucous city offers. Why (he asks himself for the thousandth time) did he ever leave England, where his talents were properly appreciated and where Staunton himself gave favourable notice to his games? He does not realise, as he says goodnight to his companions beneath the gaslight at the foot of the steps, that he has presided at the formation of the most notable chess club in what Mr Alfred Harris, of the temple of Pomona, would no doubt have called the southern hemisphere.

Because of his age, Stephen is only a figurehead. It is the younger man, George William Rusden, clerk of the parliaments, Shakespearian scholar and finest billiard player in the colony (but best known to later generations as an educationist), who will guide the club for the next three years, first as president in all but name and then as holder of that office.

The first pawn was advanced at the club on 9 August 1866, by which time the members numbered 23. The first tournament, an open handicap, was held in 1867 and became an institution that would last for 90 years. Strangers have been welcomed ever since the first November, when the committee resolved that visitors from the country and neighbouring colonies should be admitted to the clubroom on leaving their cards with the secretary. Three years later the governor of Victoria, Viscount Canterbury, agreed to become an honorary member, whether his Excellency ever came and played is not known. For its first years the club flourished.

While the society formed in 1857 is the descendant of that in 1855, we cannot, with the best will in the world, claim that the 1866 club is the continuation of some earlier body.

But from 1866 the line is unbroken. Other chess clubs had been founded in the 1850s at Ballarat, Beechworth and Ararat, and St.Kilda seems to have had one in about 1859; but none of these can claim continuous existence.

Chapter 2: A veritable land of Nod

As in nature gold is found in association with base metals, so chess at times associates with other games. But the combination is unstable; chess sits uncomfortably with lesser games. Draughts and cards have presumed most of the condescension of chess. Melbourne has had its "chess and draughts" clubs. (The very word "draughts" has a vulgarising effect, "Fish"; by all means, but not "fish and chips"). More than 100 years ago a room was set aside for both games at the Melbourne Coffee tavern in Bourke St. There was a chess and draughts club at Port Melbourne at the turn of the century; and the new body which had challenged Melbourne's pre-eminence only a few years before was originally called the Victorian Chess and Draughts club. The 1920s gave us the brave little Austral, a monthly newspaper devoted to chess and draughts; which managed to survive for 7 years. As for cards, their official introduction was supposed to strength Melbourne Chess Club, but the result was almost fatal.

By 1878 whist was being played at the club with the approval of the committee; anxious to boost a declining membership. But worse was to come; next year a complaint that poker was being played for high stakes led to the posting of a notice reminding members that such games were prohibited. This was ignored, and soon there was another complaint, this time that the playing of games of chance like Napoleon violated the understanding on which cards had been admitted into the club. By a very close vote, members decided to ban "all games except whist and chess and cribbage". The order - whist before chess - was perhaps significant. For more and more whist was being played, and it was chess that suffered. One shameful day in November 1879 the club changed its name to the Melbourne Chess and Whist club; cards outnumbered chess by 4:1 in the permitted games (chess, whist, cribbage, euchre and piquet). Handicappers were in demand as much for whist as for chess. In 1883 the committee reported that the playing of whist was the main activity and that the club was in danger of imminent extinction. The Australasian's chess columnist, John Wisker, had no doubt where the blame lay, "Chess players wish to play chess. They will not take the trouble to visit rooms where they can neither play a game nor see one played, and where the only objects of attraction are a number of whist votaries, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke, and yelling at one another about mistakes, or supposed mistakes, "in play". At about this time J.C.Whitton arrived from Tasmania; to him the club was "a veritable land of Nod" and "the one place where chess players are not to be found". By 1884 Lush, the president, who had in 1879 led the attack on Napoleon, was complaining that solo whist was creeping in and that the offenders simply played on when he pointed to the notice warning that unauthorised games carried a fine. Although in the end a divided committee decided that solo should not be added to the list of playable games, the affair seems to have been the last straw, for shortly afterwards Nissen's cafe was the scene of a members' meeting called to consider "the position of the club and the proposal of dissolving or reorganising the same". It was not a happy night. The club stood at the very brink of extinction. Two chess players put forward a motion that the club be wound up. They withdrew this in favour of a proposal, not for divorce, but for judicial separation: the chess and card players should either have separate rooms for play or play on alternate nights. After this proposal was adopted, Lush, always on the strongest opponents of cards, resigned as president.

Nothing came of the suggestion for separate rooms or separate nights, but - to pursue the divorce metaphor - a co-respondent then appeared in the person of the Victorian chess and Draughts club, which suggested that the chess players of the Melbourne club unite with it. The vigorous Victorian club was only about 8 months old when it proposed this marriage. But the two bodies could not agree on a name; the old club wanted to preserve "Melbourne", but the new one would not have it. They never did combine, and after a few years of considerable activity the younger one was gone.

The suggested merger with Victoria having come to nothing, members of Melbourne met again at Nissen's cafe in September 1884. It was agreed that the chess players should split themselves off from the card players. The chess players reconstituted Melbourne Chess Club under the original name. The near disastrous liaison with whist was over; the club would over the next few years recover its strength.

Chapter 3: Better late than never

The master had, as always, played quickly and finished the round early, despite his age. Now, as was his habit, he remained at the board (it was the Frankfurt congress of 1878), ready for an off-hand game. "Herr Doktor Anderssen, may I present Herr Esling, who seeks the honour of a game with you? The young man is a student of engineering. His homeland is Australia". Frederick Karl Esling bowed. Adolf Anderssen replied with a smile, "I have met players from four continents. Herr Esling will be my first opponent from the fifth". Anderssen took the black pieces and his 18 year old opponent played the Evans gambit.

[Event "Friendly game"][Site "Frankfurt"][Date "1878"][Round "-"][White "F.Esling"][Black "A.Anderssen"][Result "1-0"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 exd4 7. O-O dxc3 8. Qb3 Qf6 9. Bg5 Qg6 10. Nxc3 d6 11. Nd5 Bd7 12. Rad1 {Better than 12.Nf4 Qxe4 13.Re1} h6 13. Nf4 Qh7 14. Bxf7+ Kf8 15. e5 hxg5 16. Bg6 Be8 17. Ne6+ Ke7 18. exd6+ cxd6 19. Bxh7 Rxh7 20. Nfxg5 1-0

The winner of the game was in 1891 to become the first champion of Victoria. For most of the 1890s he would hold that title undefeated, while serving the club in different capacities. He would be runner-up to Henry Charlick in the first Australian championship tourney, the Adelaide congress of 1887. In 1895 playing his most memorable chess, he would yet narrowly lose a challenge match against the Australian titleholder A.E.N.Wallace, in a contest arousing more public interest in Victoria than any match until Fischer played Spassky. And he live to see the Australian chess federation in 1950 recognise him as this country's first champion on the strength of a match played 65 years before. In the meantime as a railway engineer he would have presided over the massive reconstruction of Flinders St station that produced the buildings still in use. But let us go back to 1885, when the Hon.George Hatfield Dingley Gossip, the unlikeable and vainglorious Englishman who had come to Melbourne not long before, boldly challenged anyone to play him for a stake of £30 and the title of champion of Australia. Esling was induced to take up the challenge and the match began at the club on 29 June 1885, Esling playing black. Gossip chose the Vienna. He played indifferently and soon had cause to regret his challenge.

 [Event "AUS ch m"][Site "?"][Date "1885.06.27"][Round "1"][White "Gossip, G."][Black "Esling, F."][Result "0-1"][ECO "C25"][PlyCount "72"][EventDate "1885.06.??"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Nf3 d6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4 Nf6 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bh4 Qe7 8. Qd3 Nc6 9. Nd5 Nb4 10. Nxb4 Bxb4+ 11. c3 Bc5 12. Bxf6 Qxf6 13. Nf3 O-O 14. Be2 Re8 15. O-O Bd7 16. Nd4 Qg6 17. Bf3 d5 18. Rfe1 Rad8 19. Nf5 dxe4 20. Bxe4 Bxf5 21. Bxf5 Rxe1+ 22. Rxe1 Rxd3 23. Bxg6 fxg6 24. Kf1 Rd2 25. Re2 Rd1+ 26. Re1 Rxe1+ 27. Kxe1 Kf7 28. Ke2 Ke6 29. b4 Bb6 30. a4 Kd5 31. a5 Bxf2 32. Kxf2 Kc4 33. Ke3 Kxc3 34. b5 Kb4 35. a6 b6 36. Kd4 Kxb5 0-1

[Event "AUS ch m"][Site "?"][Date "1885.06.27"][Round "2"][White "Esling, F."][Black "Gossip, G."][Result "*"][ECO "C84"][PlyCount "32"][EventDate "1885.06.??"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Nc3 b5 7. Bb3 b4 8. Nd5 d6 9. Ba4 Bd7 10. Bxc6 Bxc6 11. d4 exd4 12. Nxd4 Bxd5 13. exd5 O-O 14. Nc6 Qd7 15. Re1 Rfe8 16. Qf3 16... a5 {Sealed. Resumption abandoned.} *

The 2nd game was adjourned with Esling in much the better position. That was enough for Gossip. He failed to appear at the next sitting, and showed no signs of ever appearing again. Unfortunately the influential Andrew Burns, who had not been prepared to accept the challenge himself and who was ever jealous of his own reputation, persuaded the Melbourne Chess club committee to announce that the match was cancelled. It had not been cancelled, and in any event the committee had no jurisdiction. Gossip's legacy to us is the curiosity of perhaps the only championship match where but a single game was completed.

An entry appears in the minute book for 1 September 1937, "New member F.K.Esling". The new member - he must have been 77 - is next found enclosing a donation with a letter, unhappily long since lost, dealing with the club's early history. In 1946 aged 86, he comes in from Box Hill to watch the great wireless match against France. Four years later he becomes, retrospectively, the first Australian champion, just before his 90th birthday. He has waited a long time.

If Esling was unlucky to wait 65 years for his Australian title, he was lucky to become first champion to Victoria. He won that title in 1891 when the club inaugurated the Victorian championship tourney. The year before he had come second to R.L.Hodgson in a tournament conducted by the Victorian chess and draughts club, which had been conceived as for the championship of the colony but conducted as the championship of Melbourne because the country clubs were absent. Hodgson had to wait until just before his death in 1901 to become Victorian champion. Esling held the title until 1897, after which he retired from tournament chess, aged only 37, although still playing in the telegraph match for many years.

Chapter 4: Hub of Australian Chess

The club was only two years old in 1868 it accepted Adelaide chess club's challenge and the first inter-colonial telegraphic chess match was played. Two years later came the first match between Victoria and New South Wales. The contest between NSW became the chess equivalent of the Oxford v. Cambridge boat race. The club was responsible for all telegraphic matches with other states until 1938. When Rosenblum in 1926 entitled his history of the club Seventy years of Victorian Chess he was certainly not guilty of conscious exaggeration.

For most of its first 70 years the club was the governing body of chess in Victoria, but between 1878 and 1890 it faltered. In trying to boost membership the club made the mistake of opening the door to whist players. The result was very nearly fatal. By 1883 Melbourne faced extinction and a new body, the Victorian Chess and Draughts club was formed and flourished. The first Australian championship tourney took place in Adelaide in 1887. Next year the tournament was held in Melbourne as the Centennial Congress arranged and conducted , not by the Melbourne club alone, but by the Melbourne and Victorian clubs in conjunction. On 13 October Chief Justice Higginbottom opened the Congress with a speech praising the rule of law in chess. In 1888 the Victorian chess club - its name no longer mentioned draughts, which had disappeared - won a match against Melbourne after drawing one and losing another the previous year. Melbourne won the fourth and final match in 1889. In 1889 the new club suggested an annual tournament for the Championship of Victoria and actually conducted a tourney for the Championship of Melbourne. The winner was R.L.Hodgson, a member of Melbourne, and he induced the club to move to better premises, at the Vienna Cafe, in 1890. The club's handicap tourney of 1889 had been most successful. Melbourne had revived. For the next 50 years the Club would again speak for chess in Victoria.

It was the club that instituted the Victorian championship in 1891 and conducted it until 1939, when the Victorian chess association took over. In 1892 the Club established the Junior championship of Victoria. The tournament had nothing to do with age and its name was altered in 1908 to the Minor Championship of Victoria. In 1931 the name was changed again, to the Victorian Minor tourney. The Annual Handicap Tourney, held by the club for the first 90 years of its life, was always an important event and until the 1890s the principal tournament in Victoria. Its decline marked the modern loss in interest in play at odds. In 1925 the president, J.A.Pietzcker, endowed an annual open tournament, first conducted in the Christmas holidays and known as the Pietzcker tourney or the Melbourne Christmas tourney; later; when it was no longer played at Christmas, its name was changed to the Melbourne annual tournament. The tournament was last held in 1940, but was revived in 1947 as the Australian Open tournament, a biennial event conducted by the club 4 times and so arranged as to alternate with the biennial Australian championship. The Australian Open was taken over by the Australian Chess Federation as the Australian Open Championship, first held in 1971 (as the Karlis Lidums International tournament).

Before there was any system of matches between clubs challenges provided the ocassion of inter-club play. In 1898, for example, we find the club in a match against Malvern chess club, while 2 years later it meets the commercial travellers club and then the Port Melbourne chess and draughts club. The club's open tournaments gave members of smaller bodies an opportunity for competitive play. So in 1910 notice of the Annual Handicap tourney went out to the chess clubs at Prahran, Malvern, Port Melbourne and Fitzroy, the commercial traveller's association chess club and the chess resort at the Victoria Coffee Palace."

The Melbourne chess association, formed after representatives of clubs met at Melbourne chess club on 20 September, 1901, staged a tourney in 1901-1902 between the 8 clubs constituting the association - Brighton, Commercial Travellers, Essendon, Footscray, Malvern, Melbourne, Port Melbourne and Prahran. This became an annual event, and the club was handicapped each year by having its strongest players barred. Every year the club also played a challenge match against the rest of the association. The association ceased to exist in 1909 and soon after this the smaller clubs began to decline, although the 1920s brought a revival.

After the passing of the Melbourne chess association we find the club playing challenge matches against other clubs. At the same time internecine contests take place every week by way of teams matches amongst members; so in 1919 weekly matches are held between teams captained by Grant, Loghran, Moody and Barnard. During the 1920s premiership matches seem to have been held annually, and we find Clifton Hill, Brunswick, Moonee Ponds, Hawthorn, Sunshine, Footscray, Coburg, Melbourne and the Railways taking part. This inter-club competition was evidently conducted by an association, but little is known of it. In about September 1932, the Melbourne chess league was formed; the club affiliated with it. The league conducted an inter-club competition each year, starting in 1934. In 1935 the club handed over to the league the running of the Victorian Minor tournament, with a view to broadening the league's experience, a step described by the Leader as the beginning of complete self-government of Victorian chess by a state-wide association.

Over the next 3 years the committee discussed the formation of a Victorian chess association and in about March, 1938, Melbourne approached suburban and country clubs to ascertain their views. There was no doubt about the views of some C.P.Lowe of Malvern chess club (who was to become the Victorian chess associations first secretary) complained that Melbourne could not see beyond its own clubroom; its idea of calling for entries for the Victorian Championship (he wrote in a letter to the Australasian Chess Review) was to put up a notice on the clubroom wall. But the impression remains that it was not dissatisfaction felt by the other clubs but Melbourne's own initiative that brought the state association into being. The club convened a meeting of representatives of all known chess clubs in Victoria for June 15 1938, to consider forming a Victorian chess Association. The Association was in fact formed in that year and absorbed the Melbourne Chess League and took control of the inter-club competition. In 1939 the Victorian Championship was played for the first time under its auspices. It also took over the telegraphic matches between Victoria and NSW.

In the Association's early years the club was often unhappy with the way in which the Victorian championship or the telegraphic match with NSW has been run. Small things too, like a supposed unauthorised purchase of badges, seems to have caused great friction. In 1942 the club's delegates moved unsuccessfully that the association go into liquidation and as an alternative that control be handed back to the club of the championship and the interstate match. For the next 4 years the club actually held the championship, at the association's request. Relations were very strained. In 1945 the committee suggested to members that the club disaffiliate, but they decided against this. Things improved, by 1948 the association was functioning to the satisfaction of all the clubs.

The year 1966 saw the club's centenary tournament, hailed by C.J.S.Purdy as "the very first full length mammoth round-a-day tournament ever held in Australia." Opened by the Minister of Education, the Hon.J.S.Bloomfield, and held in the Tudor room at the Victoria hotel, the tournament was won by Max Fuller. In his reminiscence at the closing ceremony Purdy noted that he had first played in a tournament at the club almost 40 years before and that only two of the members in those days still belonged to the club, Judge Woinarski and J.L.Beale. The president, Joseph Matters, had the last word: "I'll see you all in another 100 years." (Matters, now 88 and still carrying off prizes in the Saturday allegro, seems determined to keep his promise.)

3 years after its centenary the club instituted the open tournament known as the City of Melbourne championship.

Chapter 5: Odds and Evens

Spend an afternoon going through minute books of earlier and you must be struck by 2 things. The rich variety of matches and competitions, and the popularity of handicap tourneys. For some years now tournaments at the club have generally been distinguished only by whether they are open to all comers or restricted in some way. Handicap tournaments are now rare, and casual games at odds scarcely ever seen.

This monotony would not have appealed to the members of earlier days. Matches of all kinds are found. A married v. single contest took place in 1874 and again in 1898, and one should have preceded the annual supper of 1880, cancelled when members could not agree on how much to spend on wine. Six matches between Natives of Australasia and Elsewhere Born were played at the turn of the century and in 1903 Residents of Brighton took on the Rest of the club. Two years before the club had played against the Commonwealth Parliament chess club. Theme tournaments, where every competitor must use the same opening, by a paradox gave variety through uniformity. In 1912 Watson wins the King's Gambit tourney; another gambit tourney follows in 1919. In 1936 Goldstein disparages the Willhemsen Gambit (or Mason or Keres gambit, if you like). After 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nc3, Black can check at h4 , forcing white to play Ke2. Crowl, always the nonconformist, protests that the gambit is sound, and so they have a 5 game match with a stake of 5 pounds a side; Crowl must play the gambit in every game. He wins 3.5 - 1.5.

From time to time the club has had its ladder; at least since 1910. By 1941 there was a silver bishop; inscribed "Top of the Ladder", for the occupier of the top rung. The committee in 1946 decided to permit challenge games, the result of each game to be posted on the noticeboard and the loser of the challenge to pay 2 shillings into the club's funds. Practice tournaments have been held on occasions. In 1929 consultation games were arranged and in 1938 consultation tournaments, so that the weaker player could benefit from discussions with the stronger partner. There is nothing like this nowadays.

The only consolation for Alekhine's failure to appear in Melbourne for the Australian Championship in 1934 was that the committee hastily arranged a number of subsidiary tournaments in addition to the championship. One was the ladies' tournament, apparently the first in Victoria. Four ladies entered, including Anne Purdy (wife of Cecil and daughter of Spencer Crakanthorp), who came second to the club's Miss E. Lander. In 1949 the Women's club championship was held, it seems for the first time, and won by miss J.Lovett, who later became treasurer. She is one of the handful of women who have served on the committee. It is unfortunate, but typical of so much chess activity, that ladies tournaments should be so rare as to be dealt with in this chapter, among the novelties. In 1977 the club had seven lady members, and it is doubtful whether this number has ever been exceeded before or since. Ladies' tournaments have been at times proposed, sometimes cancelled for lack of support, and occasionally held.

Another organised activity gone from the club in recent years is composing problems and solving them. Sir George Stephens, the first president, used to contribute problems to "My note book", which appeared for a few months in 1858 -1859 and had a chess column written by A.C.McCombe, composer of the Bazaar problem. In 1870 the club arranged a problem composing tourney . Much of the enthusiasm for problems in earlier years was due to H.E.Grant, who became secretary in 1897 and held office until 1915. For 21 years Grant was chess editor of the Leader, where innumerable fine problems appeared. His work in furthering the problemist's art was marked by the publication in his honour of "The Dux", a book of problems specially contributed by the Leader's composers and solvers, which was presented to him in 1914. 5 years later Henry Tate, who had made the presentation and was himself a keen problemist, was elected a vice-president of the Good companions chess Problem club, an international society of composers founded in 1913 by James Magee of Philadelphia. During and after the Great war the club took part in the Washington Birthday tourney, a problem solving competition held all over the world by the good companions on George Washington's birthday. In 1920 that day found Spencer Crakanthorp stranded in Melbourne by a marine strike while travelling from NSW to Tasmania. He turned up at the club and won the tourney by solving all 12 problems in 2 hours, that year the contestants dispensed with boards and men and solved from diagrams. At about this time the club was holding occasional problem solving competitions as well as the Birthday tourneys. As to composing, this was still an organised club activity as late as the 1950s. In 1951 the club arranged an international composing tournament for two-movers. But now no-one shows any interest in making or breaking problems.

From its foundation till the 1950s there was an open handicap tourney at the club, usually once a year, although sometimes a summer and winter tournament were held. The annual handicap tourney was the most important chess event in Victoria until the Victorian championship was inaugurated. In 1946 Martin Green and M.Roken tied for first place. In the playoff Green had to give rook odds but won the game and with it the cup outright as the 3-time winner of the tourney. Fortunately the Herald and Weekly Times provided another cup. The Summer handicap tourney of 1899 attracted 32 competitors. Class 1 gave odds to the other classes as follows:-

• Class 2 - Pawn and move

• Class 3 - Pawn and 2 moves

• Class 4 - Exchange and 2 moves.

• Class 5 - Knight and move.

• Class 6 - Rook and move.

The same scale was continued for other classes. By way of further handicap, additional points, ranging from nil to 1.5, were added to the scores of individual competitors. Players were grouped into 3 sections, each playing a round robin. The final itself was a round robin played between the top scorers in the 3 sections. There were prizes for the first four placegetters in the final and the winner of each section. Not surprisingly, a tournament went on and on. (The Swiss system of pairing contestants was not used in the club for any tournament before 1949.) In 1885, G.H.Gossip complained to Steinitz's International Chess Magazine that laxity made the tourneys even longer. "A handicap tournament", he wrote, "has been going on for the last 6 months! 15 players are competing in it, the first prize is a silver cup, value £15-15-0... The tournament has been unnecessarily protracted, however, owing to no penalty being enforced for non-attendance on the evenings of play. Also, the winner of the cup trophy cannot claim it as his own until he has thrice won it, so that its possession cannot be decided for years, probably."

For a long time handicap tournaments of all kinds formed an important part of club life. If a special tournament was to be held, say for patriotic purposes during the Great war, it was odds on that the players would be handicapped. The New Member's Handicap Tourney was a popular event. Over the years all kinds of levellers have been used for handicap play. One is time. Another is the "knockout" system where weaker players have more "lives", a player dropping out once he has lost the number of losing points allotted to him.

These 2 methods are still in occasional use at the club. But the other systems of handicapping have for practical purposes gone. That most common in the club formerly was the tradition one of giving material, with or without a move or two. Sometimes there was the refinement of adding a varying number of points to the scores of individual players. There were other methods too. In the New Member's tourney for 1920 the games were played on level terms, but points were added to the competitor's score, the handicaps were sealed and disclosed only when all games had been decided. These "sealed handicap tourneys" had been played in earlier years. At times "games start" was used in the Annual Handicap tourney as a substitute for material odds, in other words each player would be credited at the outset with a varying number of points. The system was the same as in sealed handicap tourneys except that there was no secrecy. In 1915 a handicap tournament was conducted with the stronger player having to mate in the number of moves fixed by the handicapper or forfeit the game. In some years the club had, not handicappers appointed for particular tourneys only, but a club handicapper, holding office for 12 months.

Lightning tournaments have been popular with members for 80 years. In Edwardian times the games were more stately; each player had a fixed time per move, usually ten seconds, and moves were made at the stroke of the timekeeper's bell. Handicap lightning tournaments were playing with the giving of material odds, for the way in which the rate of play was determined made handicapping by time impossible. Since the end of the 1940s clocks have replaced the timekeeper for lightning games and in Club's hustler's handicaps players are given anything from 3 to 12 minutes. Handicap allegro tournaments are played occasionally , each competitor having 15 minutes on his clock and players having different numbers of losing points. But all these tournaments are light-hearted affairs, lasting only a few hours. No serious handicap tourney has been conducted by the club for years. We would not even know which pawn or knight to remove, let alone how the odds given should affect the play of the stronger or weaker contestant.

Chapter 6: Those who have come before

The air in the Vienna cafe was heavy with the smoke of cigars. The president Esling, twirled his thick black moustache reflectively. The numbers were down again this year, and Thomas Harlin's inevitable resume of chess events for the past 12 months had gone on a little longer than expected. Still, Harlin was the club historian, and people were now congratulating him on his article "Chess in Melbourne for Forty years" in the Australian chess annual which had come out a year or two before. This years banquet had on the whole been a success. Esling glanced at his watch. As an engineer and chess player he knew the value of time. If dinner was to be wound up by eleven he had better propose the last toast now. The port, he noticed, was still circulating, and one or two of the 18 members and guests had reached the jovial stage. (The president deplored alcoholic excess; he had never forgotten Wisker's performance as his team-mate in the telegraphic match of 1883.) Esling rose to his feet, "Gentleman", he said, "I give you, those who had gone before".

That was in 1898. Esling was to outlive most of those at the banquet, although his days of tournament chess were already over. He has had a chapter to himself. But what of those who went before and came after him? Some we can see in a faded photograph that hangs in the main room of the clubhouse. Taken to mark the annihilation of NSW in the telegraphic match of 1897, it shows 11 stiffly posed figures, with Esling, the captain, at the centre. Ten are the players and the 11th man is Scot Andrew Burns, ostensibly present at the Leader's chess columnist, but really there in the wider capacity of grand old man of Victorian chess. Burns, veteran of 15 telegraph matches (12 wins, 2 losses, 1 draw) was a founder and early president of he club. He won its first annual handicap tourney in 1867 as the only competitor playing from scratch, and there was no acceptor when, 2 years later, he offered pawn and move to any player in the colony. Burns was the Leader's columnist from 1869 until 1900. He died the following year, a great figure in Victorian chess, but morbidly jealous of his own reputation.

By 1875 there was little doubt that the 3 strongest players in Australia were Burns himself, Louis Goldsmith, who became club president later that year, and Charles Fisher, who alternated between Melbourne and Sydney and was by 1875 the outstanding player in NSW. In that year Goldsmith and Fisher played, for a stake of £20 a side, the first notable match over the board between a Victorian and a player from another colony. The match, played at the club, drew many spectators and was narrowly won by Fisher. Five years later he returned to Melbourne and served for a time on the committee. When Blackburne visited Australia in 1885, Fisher alone held the British master to a draw on level terms. Fisher later travelled to the continent, and his last published game was played in the 1889 at the Cafe de la Regence.

H.E.Grant, born in Bengal during the mutiny and saved by his Indian ayah, became secretary in 1897 and served the club as an office-bearer for the next 35 years. Champion of Victoria in 1907, and chess editor of the Leader from 1910 until 1931, this vast and witty man was the best of members, contributing to the game as strong player, writer and administrator. His work for the club was marked by various presentations.: the purse of sovereigns in 1912: the book of problems composed in his honour in 1914; the case of pipes at the dinner given by the Gundersens in 1925. Grant gave his life to the club for all these years, and when in 1931 he died at the age of 76 nearly half the club turned out for the funeral. In 1920 the club won a match by telegraph against Sydney school of Arts. Chess players are used to excuses. Through his column in the Leader Grant had this to say:-

"A Sydney journalist, referring to this match, made its annual wine:- 'It ought to be remembered that whilst the Melbourne club was playing its full interstate strength, the local club, owing to business considerations and personal sickness, were without such sterling players as Messrs. Crane, Bradshaw and Bracey.' This paragraph must be kept in type, to be used annually, with the names of the players changed.

"The school of Arts challenged the Melbourne chess club to play the match, meaning of course, that each would be represented by its best 'available' players. It si nonsense to make out a list of men, who, if they were not dead, demented or in Patagonia, might have been induced to play."

Henry Tate, who succeeded Grant as secretary in 1916, was greater as a problemist than as a player, although he won the annual handicap tourney in 1912. Many of his compositions were published in Australia and overseas, and for a time he contributed the chess column in the Australasian and Weekly Times. One of those who followed him in the Weekly Times was S.J.Myers, a club member who wrote the column for most of the thirties.

The legendary Gunnar Gundersen, born in France of Norwegian parents in 1882, spent most of his life in Melbourne, where he lectured in Mathematics. Renowned for his quick play and smooth and stately style, he won the Victorian championship 12 times between 1907 and 1929 and was twice champion of New Zealand; the Australian title eluded him. The outbreak of the first world war found Gundersen in Germany, where he was competing in the Hauptturnier at the Mannheim congress. Many of those present who were not Germans or Austrians were arrested, including Alekhine, who later escaped and returned home to join the Russian army. Others, including Rubinstein and Bogoljubov, were interned for the duration. Gundersen himself got out through Denmark, using a false passport, which he later had framed. The club's records say little of the great war. Tournaments were organised for the Red Cross and the Wounded Soldiers fund. There has not come down to us the Honour Roll that hung in the clubroom of members and their sons who had enlisted. Gundersen wrote the Australasian's column from 1910 to 1938, when he retired from active play. His chess library was extensive and his authority as a chess historian was unquestionable. (There is in the Anderson collection a copy of Walker's Chess Studies, from Gundersen's library. Published in 1844, it was bought by Sir George Stephen, and came to Gundersen via Louis Goldsmith. The book contains some games played by Stephen in 1850, one with notes by Staunton.) Gundersen and his wife were much given to entertaining visiting players at their home "Tristan" in Mathoura Rd, Toorak, where dinner was followed by Kriegspiel, cricket and song. Cecil Purdy once described Gundersen as the soul of the club.

C.G.Steele made rather a habit of coming second in the Victorian championship, especially to Gundersen, but won the title in 1909 and again in 1923. He was to Gundersen what Hodgson had been to Esling 20 years before.

One of the club's great benefactors was J.A.Pietzcker, who served his first term as president in 1925 and was a member for over 60 years. He flourished during the age of Gundersen. It is to Pietzcker we owe the Australian Open tournament, for that event was a revival of the Pietzcker tourney, endowed by him and held between 1925 and 1940. The Australian Open tournament was conducted by the club every 2 years from 1947 until 1953. Then the ACF took over, but did hold the first Australian Open championship until 1971: the Karlis Lidums International chess tournament.

Frank Crowl (1902-1964) was for years one of the club's most notable denizens. As a boy, he lived in Shanghai, winning the minor championship at 10 and the major at 14. He was champion of Victoria in 1930, 1935, 1941, 1943 and 1950. Described as the Australian Nimzovitch, he was a most original player. Crowl believed that black has the advantage. At times his behaviour was as original as his play and it often brought him into collision with the committee. He regarded the club as his home; all his correspondence was addressed to it, which caused friction. He claimed propriety rights in a certain table near the door, which served as his desk, and resisted all attempts to oust him from it. With his shrill voice, bad language and eccentricities, Crowl made enemies. A reluctant president was asked to "personally explain to Mr Crowl the serious view the committee takes of some of his actions in the clubroom, which annoy so many of our club members". When the club was given notice to quit by the Athenaeum Crowl moved at members' meeting that a letter be sent to the landlord in what the minutes delicately describe as "certain terms"; there was no seconder. When the ?migr? Basta first encountered him in 1955, Crowl, who liked playing for money (usually he needed it) proposed a friendly game for 5 shillings. With uncharacteristic caution Basta suggested half a crown, and play began. Basta won, where upon his opponent enquired, "Would you take a cheque?" Crowl was a great gambler, he once asked tournament organisers to fix a rest day so that he could go to the races.
If Crowl as inimitable, C.G.Watson, with his may retirements and reappearrances and his penchant for winning lost games , was indestructible. He first won the Victorian championship in 1898 and last won the title in 1936. His name appears on the board now and then during the intervening years; in 1902, 1904, 1905, 1914, 1921, 1924 and 1931. In that 39 years he competed only 12 times. For decades he was the strongest player in the state. In later life he was seduced by bridge. In 1922 Watson won the Australian championship with 11 points to Viner's 10.5 and Crakanthorp's 10. The British chess federation had reserved a place for the winner of the Australian title in the International Masters tournament to be held later that year. Off to London went Watson, where he joined Capablanca, Alekhine, Rubinstein, Bogoljubov, Tartakower, Euwue and others. His score of 4.5 points out of 15 was remarkably good: at home he had lacked strong opposition and London was only his second experience of the round-a-day tournament. He showed his skill in the endgame by beating Reti in 92 moves.

Watson won the Australian title a second time in 1931. Like all chess players, Watson was capable of an occasional oversight, and this fallibility extended to payment of his subscription. In 1945 the committee had to remind him that if he used to club he must pay his dues. Watson blamed Crowl for inveigling him into a game; what Crowl said in his defence is not recorded, which is probably just as well. The following year, at the age of 66, Watson contributed his point to the victory in the wireless match, Australia v. France. His game against Lazare (Sydney 1945), when he was at the same age, has been described as reminiscent of Labourdonnais and worthy of Tal. Watson chose the Sicilian:

[Event "AUS ch"][Site "Sydney"][Date "1945.09.13"][Round "10.2"][White "Lazare, Stefan"][Black "Watson, Charles G M"][Result "0-1"][ECO "B72"][PlyCount "72"][EventDate "1945.09.??"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be2 Bg7 7. Be3 Nc6 8. Nb3 Be6 9. f4 h5 10. h3 h4 11. O-O Qc8 12. Kh2 Nh5 13. Bxh5 Rxh5 14. Rb1 Bc4 15. Rf2 f5 16. exf5 Qxf5 17. Nd4 Qf7 18. b3 Bd5 {Preventing Ne4} 19. Nxd5 Rxd5 20. c3 Nxd4 21. cxd4 Rc8 22. Rc1 Rxc1 23. Qxc1 Qe6 24. Qc3 Kf8 25. Rf3 Bf6 26. a4 b6 27. Bf2 Kg7 28. Qc7 g5 29. fxg5 Bxd4 30. Bxh4 Rc5 31. Qb7 Be5+ 32. Bg3 Rc1 33. Qa8 Bxg3+ 34. Rxg3 {Lazare should have taken with the king. Watson then had in mind 34...Rc8 35.Qb7 Kg6 36.h4 Kh5} Qe1 35. Rf3 Qe5+ 36. Rg3 Rc3 0-1

Watson returned from the dead to haunt Koshnitsky in the 1945 Sydney congress. As white, Watson had just played Ke2.

[Event "AUS ch"][Site "Sydney"][Date "1945.09.03"][Round "1.2"][White "Watson, Charles G M"][Black "Koshnitsky, Gregory Simon"][Result "1-0"][ECO "D94"][PlyCount "80"][EventDate "1945.09.??"]

1. c4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. Nc3 d5 4. e3 Bg7 5. d4 O-O 6. cxd5 Nxd5 7. Qb3 Nb6 8. Be2 N8d7 9. O-O e5 10. Rd1 Qe7 11. Bd2 c6 12. Bf1 e4 13. Ne1 Nf6 14. a4 Nbd5 15. Nxd5 Nxd5 16. Bc4 Rd8 17. a5 Rb8 18. Rdc1 Be6 19. Qa3 Qh4 20. Bb4 Nxb4 21. Qxb4 Bf8 22. Qb3 Bxc4 23. Rxc4 Rd5 24. a6 Rg5 25. Qc2 bxa6 26. Ra2 Bb4 27. g3 Qh3 28. Ng2 Rh5 29. Qxe4 Qxh2+ 30. Kf1 Qh1+ 31. Ke2 Qg1 32. Rxb4 Rxb4 33. Nf4 Rhb5 34. Qe8+ Kg7 35. Ne6+ Kf6 36. Qh8+ Kxe6 37. d5+ {The sealed move. "A rook down. Why doesn't he resign?", a bystander exclaimed. Koshnitsky went to dinner without a care in the world.} Kxd5 {After ...Rxd5 Watson could have tipped his king over.} 38. Qf6 Qh1 39. b3 {Now black must avert perpetual check.} Kc5 40. Qe5+ Qd5 1-0 {and white mates in four.}

As a young man of 22, Severin Woinarski appeared from nowhere to finish 2nd to Crakanthorp by a mere half-point in the 1926 Australian Championship. He believed that in chess one should seek, not correctness, but chances, and his vigorous style produced sparkling games during a few years of competitive play.

Here Woinarski, with black, seeks chances against C.J.S.Purdy in the 1927 Pietzcker tourney;

[Event "Pietzcker tourney"][Site "Melbourne"][Date "1927"][Round "-"][White "C.J.S.Purdy"][Black "S.Woinarski"][Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. Bd3 Be7 10. Nc3 Rb8 11. b3 O-O 12. Bb2 Rb4 13. Qe3 h6 14. Nge4 Nxe4 15. Nxe4 f5 16. Nc3 e4 17. Bf1 f4 18. Qe2 Nc4 19. a3 f3 20. gxf3 exf3 21. Qe4 Nxd2 22. Qd3 Nxf1 23. axb4 Qe5+ 24. Qe4 Qf6 25. Rxf1 Bf5 26. Qc4+ Be6 27. Qe4 Bf5 28. Qc4+ Be6 29. Ne4 Qxb2 30. Qxe6+ Kh8 31. Rd1 Bxb4+ 32. Nd2 Rf7 33. Rg1 Re7 34. Qxe7 Bxe7 35. Nxf3 Qxc2 0-1

Leonard V.Biggs, who died in 1944 at the age of 70, has his picture hanging on the wall in recognition of his 30 years as an office-bearer. Editor of the Age from 1927 until shortly before the Second world war, Biggs was president of the VCA for its first 5 years, where all his considerable powers of diplomacy were needed during that difficult time.

Andrew Dall, prominent in chess administration during the 30s, also found time to write the chess column in the Leader from 1931 until 1947. He served 9 terms as secretary and three as president of the club, and was also secretary of the Melbourne chess league.

Lloyd Browning was both a prominent administrator and a strong competitive player. Time and time again he just missed a major title; but he drew with Kotov in 1963 and beat Averbach 4 years later in a skittles tournament.

In the 30s the club's strong players included Martin Green, a Czech who joined in 1929 and won the Victorian championship 5 times between 1932 and 1940, G.R.Lamparter, who came to Australia from Germany in 1930 and won the state title in 1933, M.E.Goldstein, Victorian champion in 1934, and Max Green, who was also a very active committee man. In the 40s there appeared Dr Max Gellis, a Viennese doctor of laws, S.Lazare, born in Poland and educated in France, and G.Karoly, who came from Hungary; each held the state title, and Lazare became joint holder of the Australian title in 1957. J.L.Beale, who had joined the committee in 1936, where he was to serve for 31 years, was chess editor of the Weekly Times for most of that period. In 1940 the secretary began putting a weekly bulletin of war news on the noticeboard. Next year the clubroom was blacked out and in 1942 air raid precautions plant was installed. A number of prominent players (including Lazare, Max Green, Martin Green and Stapleton) were in the armed forces. Another strong player, Karoly, wrote explaining that as an alien he could no longer attend at the club; he had just reached the top of the club ladder, and many years would serve 4 terms as president. The clubroom was thrown open to all men in uniform. Members visited Heidelberg Military Hospital; the treasurer sent a book on chess to corporal McGavin; American servicemen visited the club and won of them won the first lightning tournament played there with individual clocks. The 50s bring us J.N.Hanks and W.J.Geus, who had been junior champion of Holland. By now we are well and truly speaking not only of players past but also of players present. Emanuel Basta, arriving from Czechoslavakia in 1950, was three times Victorian champion. For 13 years he was secretary.

After the Second World War the club was invigorated buy a transfusion of Latvian blood, the arrivals including K.Ozols, A.Lemezs, E.Malitis, K.Raipalis, A.Rudszitis, A.Teters, O.Bergmanis and P.Svece; A.Prods, a younger man, was born here. In 1951 the Latvians who settled in Melbourne formed their own chess club, Venta, which still exists. Most have belonged to both Venta and Melbourne. The remarkable Karlis Ozols, who had at the age of 17 drawn against Lasker in a simul and played in the great Kemeri tournament of 1937, was champion of Victoria 9 times between 1949 and 1971 and became joint holder of the Australian title in 1957. He is still winning tournaments. Teters won the state title in 1965. Lemezs and Rudzitis each won the club championship 4 times. Raipalis, veteran of innumerable tournaments, has in his unobtrusive way done more for the club than any of us realises. Edwin Malitis, club champion in 1969, has served on the committee for the last 30 years and fortunately shows no signs of stopping. An international arbiter, he has had vast experience in directing tournaments. The year book of the 1971 Australian championship described him as almost a "one man band" in chess organisation in Melbourne.

As an example of master play we take the victory of Ozols over the visiting Russian grandmaster, Kotov, in the Invitation tournament played at the clubroom in 1963. Ozols chose the English:

[Event "Invitation tournament"][Site "Melbourne"][Date "1963"][Round "-"][White "K.Ozols"][Black "A.Kotov"][Result "1-0"]

1. c4 d6 2. g3 g6 3. Bg2 Bg7 4. Nc3 e5 5. e3 Ne7 6. Nge2 O-O 7. O-O Nbc6 8. Nd5 f5 9. d3 Kh8 10. Nec3 g5 11. f4 gxf4 12. gxf4 Ng6 13. Qh5 {threatening Rf3-h3} exf4 14. Nxf4 Nxf4 15. Rxf4 Ne5 16. Rh4 h6 17. e4 Ng4 18. Nd5 c6 19. Rxg4 fxg4 20. Bxh6 {If 20...Bxh6 then 21.Qxh6+ Kg8 22.e5 dxe5 23.Be4 Rf7 24.Bh7+ Rxh7 25.Nf6+ Kf7 26.Qxh7+ Ke6 27.Ne4 Qe7 28.Qg6+ and 29.Rf1 with the threat of Rf7} Kg8 21. Bg5 {threatens Ne7} cxd5 22. Bxd8 Rxd8 23. Qxd5+ Kh8 24. d4 Bd7 25. Qh5+ Kg8 26. e5 Be6 27. Be4 Rd7 28. d5 Bf7 29. Qh7+ Kf8 30. Qf5 Re7 31. e6 Rc8 32. Bd3 Bxb2 33. Rf1 Bd4+ 34. Kh1 Rcc7 35. Qxg4 1-0

Many a chess player had cause to thank the club's former secretary, Magnus Victor Anderson, a highly successful accountant, who began accumulating chess books in 1918 and found he could not stop. In 1960 he gave his collection to the State library. He continued to add to it, and look after it, until his death in 1966, but which time it was with its 6,000 items the third largest public chess collection in the world. Now it is card for by Mr K.Fraser, whose depth of research and lightness of touch have recreated for us some of the early chess clubs in Victoria. No player should miss the Anderson collection, which nestles beneath the admirable ceiling of the Art library. It is another world.

The last 25 years have seen the rise of D.G.Hamilton, thrice champion of Australia and thrice champion of Victoria; international master Robert Jamieson, the mainspring of Waverley chess club but also a member of Melbourne (twice Australian champion); Guy West, Victorian champion in 1979; international master Daryl Johansen, champion of Australia in 1984; W.Jordan, Victorian champion in 1980; Gregory Hjorth; and Stephen Solomon. Above all, in Ian Rogers the club can claim the first Australian international Grandmaster. Let us conclude this chapter with two of his games. against Karpov (Bath 1983), Rogers has the white pieces.

[Event "Tournament"][Site "Bath"][Date "1983"][Round "-"][White "I.Rogers"][Black "A.Karpov"][Result "1/2"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 Be7 5. Nf3 O-O 6. O-O dxc4 7. Qc2 a6 8. a4 Bd7 9. Ne5 Bc6 10. Nxc6 Nxc6 11. e3 Na5 12. Nd2 Nd5 13. Nxc4 Nxc4 14. Qxc4 a5 15. b3 Qd7 16. Ba3 Bxa3 17. Rxa3 c6 18. Raa1 Nb4 19. Rfd1 Rac8 20. Rac1 Rfd8 21. Bf3 Qc7 22. Kg2 h6 23. h4 b6 24. Qe2 Rd6 25. Kh2 Rcd8 26. Kg2 Qd7 27. Qc4 g6 28. Kg1 h5 29. Kg2 Qe7 30. Qe2 R8d7 31. Qc4 Qd8 32. Qe2 Kg7 33. Kg1 Qe7 34. Kg2 c5 35. dxc5 Rxd1 36. Rxd1 Rxd1 37. Qxd1 Qxc5 38. Be4 Qe5 39. Bf3 Qc3 40. Be4 Qe5 41. Bf3 Qb2 42. Be4 1/2-1/2

In the game against Karpov there are no fireworks: Rogers played for a draw. His games are not always so quiet. Here he has white against GM Hort of Czechoslavakia (Biel 1985);

 [Event "Tournament"][Site "Biel"][Date "1985"][Round "-"][White "I.Rogers"][Black "Hort"][Result "1-0"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. c4 dxc4 4. Nc3 c6 5. a4 Na6 6. e4 Bg4 7. Bxc4 e6 8. Be3 Nb4 9. a5 Be7 10. O-O O-O 11. Qb3 Bxf3 12. gxf3 Qc7 13. Ne2 Nd7 14. Rfc1 Rac8 15. Bd2 Na6 16. Bf4 e5 17. Bg3 h5 18. h3 h4 19. Bh2 c5 20. f4 exd4 21. e5 {threatens Nxd4}Qb8 22. Bxf7+ Rxf7 23. e6 Rcf8 24. exf7+ Rxf7 25. f5 Bd6 26. Bxd6 Qxd6 27. Qe6 Qe5 28. Nxd4! {if 28...cxd4 29.Rc8+ wins} Qxd4 29. Rd1 Qxb2 30. Ra2 Qb5 31. Qe8+ Rf8 32. Qxd7 Qxd7 33. Rxd7 Nb4 34. Re2 Rxf5 35. Rxb7 a6 36. Re8+ Kh7 37. Re4 Rg5+ 38. Kf1 Nc6 39. Rxh4+ Kg8 40. Rg4 Rxg4 41. hxg4 Nxa5 42. Rb6 Nc4 43. Rxa6 Ne5 44. g5 Kf7 45. Ke2 c4 46. f4 Nd3 47. f5 Ne5 1-0 Hort resigned without waiting for Rogers to seal.

Those who have gone before were not always what they seemed. On Xmas eve in 1974 an applicant for membership under the name Donald Clive Mildoon proved to be John Stonehouse, the British member of parliament and former cabinet minister, who was recognised and arrested in Melbourne and extradited to stand his trial at the Old Bailey, charged with faking his own drowning in Miami to defraud insurance companies. Stonehouse had paid his subscription only 5 days before his arrest; he was sentenced to 7 year's imprisonment, and received no refund.

Chapter 7: The propriety which the committee is bound to maintain

A few hours at the Anderson collection in the company of the old minute books will convince you that when it comes to running a chess club nothing has changed in 120 years. The meeting of 1867 might have been held last week. Chess being what it is, and people being what they are, no doubt it will be all the same in 100 years.

Members must be able to see, whether the committee is putting in 2 gas lights in 1895 or opening a subscription list in 1915 for the installation of 8 electric light bulbs. Members must be kept warm, whether the secretary is arguing with Nissen over the cost of fire in 1873 or stealthily removing a radiator despite the protests of Crowl 70 years later. Members must be kept quiet; they must not comment on games in progress (1866); they certainly must not whistle (1917); the "Silence" notices will have to go up again (1946). Members must be pursued for their subscriptions. In 1867 a debt collector visits the tardy; in 1938 so much is owed by so many that the committee grants a general amnesty and starts again. The search for new premises and for money to renovate them goes on. How can the club be kept open? Shall each member have his key? Nearly 80 years have passed since the first attempt to roster members to man the clubroom. Tortured chairs to be repaired. Unapproved withdrawers to be punished. Disputes over games. Is a forfeit to be enforced? The touch move rule is successfully invoked against Gilbertson, he must move his queen, whether he and Griffith had been touching without moving all night is not to the point. Burns is to placate Gilbertson, but Gilbertson withdraws from both the tourney and the club. Chess has him in his grip, however, next year he is back, and donating Steinitz's Modern Chess Instruction.

This cycle of disputation, mediation, resignation and restoration recurs throughout the minutes. Read leaves the room while the committee determines the sealed move controversy in his game against Watson. Feelings have run high. ("Mr Read then returned and assured the committee that he had no intention of insulting Mr.Watson in anything he said".) Clocks, sets, library books, even chairs, disappear from the clubroom, and sometimes reappear. One stolen set turns up in a second-hand shop. Quarrels flare, now long forgotten. The only recorded formal expulsion of a member is in 1915. His crimes are not chronicled. We know only that evidence was heard by a general meeting on 2 charges. In 1877 an ugly scene; Simpson calls Connell a liar and Connell reacts violently. The committee hears witnesses and resolves that "the use of the word 'lie' was calculated to produce a breach of he peace and was therefore a violation of that propriety which the committee is bound to maintain", but that Connell should control himself in future. An honorary visitor is barred from the premises in 1895 because his bearing has led to "collisions", and for the next 5 years he presents a problem. In 1945 one member sues another - the only known example. An "unpleasant scene" in the club between the pair; one takes proceedings against the other in the County Court, claiming £249 damages for assault; Dr.Gellis, a Viennese doctor of laws, offers to mediate; the affair is settled. This is the only recorded court case in the club's history apart from the City Court ejectment proceedings in 1950, when the Athenaeum expelled the tenant which had overstayed its welcome by 6 years.

Night owls have always roosted in the clubroom and the minutes show the various means of flushing them out, including outright prohibition, late fees to cover lighting and heating costs and an automatic switch to plunge the clubroom into darkness. We cannot claim to have eliminated them.

A thousand and one things claim the committee's attention. The great white fleet steams through the rip in 1908. Naval cadets march from Ballarat to see the American ships, a military review is held at Flemington; State schools demonstrate Maypole dancing at the Exhibition oval. The committee is caught up in the general excitement. Chess playing sailors will be guests of the club, but there are no funds to subscribe for decorations. A letter from India in 1910: Mr James of Bangalore wants to make his exile more tolerable by a correspondence match. cycles of strength and weakness. The move to the second floor back in 1908. The emergency rent fund of 1936. The level of subscriptions. The arguments with the association. The good times and the bad.

Chapter 8: The silver rook and other pieces

Where are they now? Bearded Blackburne still looks down on us, as he has done for many years. But where are all the other mementoes - the trophies, the pictures, the old letters? What has become of the silver rook? Where are the hourglasses? One of them, we know, was sold to Mr.Witton for a shilling in 1904, but what of the others? Has there survived in some dark cupboard any of the "Fattorini chess-timing clocks" presented to the club in 1901? Where are the cables from Dr.Alekhine, the letter from Esling "containing some interesting remarks on the club's early history"? What happened to the Honour Roll of the Great War? Who has the McCutcheon set? When did we lose Cornered("subject - a game of chess"), which was hanging in our Athenaeum clubroom as recently as 1899? And the "valuable framed photograph of a leading European and American chess players" presented in 1883 has gone too.

We have, alas, so few relics to show for our 120 years. On the walls you will find the first president, Sir George Stephen(1794 - 1879); Blackburne, our guest in 1885; the Victorian team that vanquished NSW (9.5 to 0.5) in the telegraphic match of 1897; the field in the 1922 Australian championship; the autographed photo from Bad Kissingen (Capablanca, Euwue, Nimzovitch, Tarrasch, Bogoljubov, Reti, Marshall, Spielmann, Tartakower..); the Victorian team for the 1946 wireless match against France and Watson in particular, then a member of 48 years standing. The Blackwood honour boards for the Victorian and club championship are still there, despite a claim made to the former by the Victorian Chess Association in 1982, when it decided to follow the club into its new home. The minute books back to 1866 are for the most part intact, and they give some idea of what had been lost. Since 1866 the club has on average moved every 5 years, and has sometimes stayed only for a matter of months if not weeks. Small wonder that things have disappeared.

Of the old trophies sadly there are none. Players now want cash prizes; they would not welcome the bronze kettle given in 1911 to the handicap tourney winner or the biscuit barrel or jam spoon presented on the same night. The winner of the lightning tourney might not now "return thanks" as Gundersen did when handed Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The Goldsmith cup, as it was to become known, was presented in 1873 by the Australasian and the Leader. Designed by the jeweller Edwards, this silver cup, costing 15 guineas, was to be played for annually in a handicap tourney and to become the property of the player who won it 3 times. Goldsmith won it outright and on his death left it to the club, and it again became the trophy for the annual handicap tourney, the cup (and often the tournament itself) being called the Goldsmith cup. In 1932 the Herald and Weekly Times donated another silver cup, to be taken absolutely by the winner of 3 annual handicap tourneys. When Martin Green had his third win in 1946 the company presented another cup.

The silver rook itself was donated by Leonard V.Biggs and Stanley White in 1932. This handsome solid silver piece, executed by A.Burr, was held by the club champion for the time being, going to Crowl for the first year. The rook was not kept up to date and in 1947 it cost15 shillings to have the missing names inscribed. Crowl had won the club championship again that year and the committee handed the Rook over to him, taking the precaution of getting a receipt ("held in trust for the club"). Dr.Learner became the holder of the silver rook in 1951 and that is the last time we hear of it under that description. In December 1952 we find a decision to present the club champion from that time onwards with a mounted rook engraved with the year, but this does not sound like the Silver Rook.

The Silver Rook must not be confused with the Silver Bishop, presented by S.J.Myers and inscribed with the words "Top of the ladder." This minor piece glides quickly in and out of the minute book in 1940 and 1941. Dunklings the Jewellers valued it at 3 pounds. Nothing more is known of it.

Then there is the McCutcheon set, which has had what can be described as a chequered career. R.G.McCutcheon was president from 1908 to 1918. After his death his daughter presented to the club a fine ivory chess set by Jaques of London, with king height of 4.5 inches. In 1931 Mr Hunt donated a handsome stand for the better display of the McCutcheon set. The item "Ivory Chess Set and case £25" appears in a trial balance in 1937, in which year the committee had Miss McCutcheon's name placed inside the glass case that Mr Hunt had presented. Dunklings the Jewellers valued the set at 20 pounds in 1940. For most of its life the club disdained what the minutes call "common sets". Nowadays, we play with the ubiquitous plastic men, but for many years the committee ensured that only the best were used, importing chessmen and boards from England. A wooden set was stolen from the clubroom in 1944. It was recovered by the treasurer, who came across it in a second-hand shop and had to lay out 25 shillings to get it back. In the meantime, the committee, alarmed at the theft, had deposited the valuable McCutcheon set for safe custody with the bank of NSW. There it lay, "suitably packaged" in a deed box , for 23 years and came to be forgotten. In 1967 the president, Mr Joseph Matters, chanced upon the bank deposit receipt and the set was retrieved. It was bought by Mr Matters in the same year.

When Victoria played South Australia by telegraph in 1868 the actual rate of paly was so slow that members had to subscribe "towards liquidating the claim of the Telegraph Department". And so hourglasses were used 2 years later for the telegraph match between Victoria and NSW. The chess clock, first suggested by Blackburne, had not been devised. The first satisfactory clock - a pair so arranged that when one was going the other was not - was invented by T.B.Wilson of Manchester and used in the London tournament of 1883; Fattorini and Son of Bradford began manufacturing this about 2 years later. As one would expect, the club's records in 1884 mention hourglasses but not clocks. We hear nothing of clocks until 4 years later, when the secretary is instructed to "make enquiries in the matter of procuring time clocks for match games." By 1898 the club is paying for clock repairs, so we can say that the first clocks were bought some time between 1888 and 1889. In 1900 the committee decided to buy a "new patent clock" evidently known as the "One time chess clock", but this was found to be not yet on the market. In the following years a member presented "2 Fattorini chess-timing clocks". By 1904 the club had 8 chess clocks. But the hourglasses were still there, for in the same year the club sold one of them for a shilling. When and where the last of the hourglasses went is not known.

Talk of clocks leads naturally to lightning games, where the clock really is master. "Lightning" means in Melbourne 5 minutes each on the clock. Almost any Friday night for quite some years you will have found a lightning tournament in progress at the club. Until his death in 1984 at the age of 81, J.L.Bairstow would be there, watching over things with his glittering eye, using his strong voice to chide the latecomers, while generously augmenting the prize fund; he is kindly remembered as a benefactor and office-bearer. When it is not Friday night the staccato sound of the clock in the casual lightning game barely breaks in upon the consciousness until, looking up with idle interest roused by a crescendo, we see the near empty board, the 2 kings and the white pawn hurrying forward with his short quick steps; notice the queen held ready in the left hand for coronation; then sense the fall of white's flag, and so the draw. We look away, but hear the familiar rattle as the men pick themselves up and change sides, and the battle lines are drawn for another game, perhaps the hundred thousandth played on that field. Who can say? For while the plastic men are new ("common sets", the old committee men would have said), the chess tables are venerable; they cannot remember how many contestants they have seen. Tables long outlive chairs. No player would dream of treating his chair with consideration: chairs are as much for the relief of tension as for sitting, and suffer accordingly.

But we were talking of lightning chess. Tournaments of 5 minute games are an innovation in a club established before even the sandglasses was an accepted part of competitive play. The first 5 minute each tournament at the club was a wartime one, played on 18 February, 1942 and won by a visitor, Corporal Parkin. Before this, lightning tournaments of a different kind had been held at the club once a year or so since 1908, moves being made at the stroke of a bell rung by the timekeeper every 10 seconds. Such a tournament was held as recently as 1948, only 5 seconds a move being allowed.

Chapter 9: Up to five pounds in wine

Nowadays there is no social life at the club: nothing but chess. The committee coats the annual meeting pill by giving early birds a piece of cheese and a glass of wine, but after the meeting the clocks are out of the cupboard and a lightning tournament is in progress before the chairs have been re-arranged. It was not also so. For many years the annual meeting was a prelude to a banquet. As early as 1880 a supper seems to have been held once a year, for we find the committee arranging "the annual supper". That year it was to be held at 9pm in the Oriental Hotel after a match between Married and Single and the secretary was authorised to spend up to 5 pounds in wine for the supper. 14 members rebelled against this extravagance, and the function was abandoned. The minutes make no mention of suppers from then on.

When Blackburne's ship berthed in Melbourne at the end of 1884 he was met by the president with an invitation to a banquet, which was held in his honour at the Oriental Hotel. In March 1891 there was a "chess social" midway between annual meetings. When arrangements for this were being made Mr Harlin promised a reading and Mr Hodgson (a future Victorian champion) a pianoforte solo, while Mr Brocklebank offered a book of problems for the winner of a problem-solving contest which was also to enliven the evening. Six months later a banquet, "diversified by speech, song, reading and recitation", followed the annual meeting, and during this dinner Esling, who had just won the first championship of Victoria, was presented with a medal and a "moderate monetary prize". The medallion took the form of a chessboard, enamelled blue and gold and enclosed in a circle, with the inscription on the reverse, "presented to Mr F.K.Esling, chess champion of Victoria, 1891-1892. Wins 11, losses 0". The banquet became an institution. Every year, until 1903, it followed the annual meeting. The venue was generally the Vienna cafe in Collins St, where the clubroom was for a long time. In 1892 the banquet was at the Palace hotel, tickets costing 5 shillings. Five members contributed to the vocal part of the programme in 1896. At these banquets Mr Harlin liked to make a speech surveying the chess world during the last 12 months. In 1897, as well as Harlin's survey, members had vocal and instrumental music, recitations and toasts to "the queen", "chess, our noble game", "the Melbourne chess club" ,"our rising players" and "the inter-colonial team". Rather surprisingly in view of the programme, the dinner ended at 11. The following year Mr Loughran recited his own poem on the chess celebrities of former years, "the old brigade" (it has not come down to us) and the toasts included "the chess associations of Australasia", "the old brigade", "the honourable secretary", "the president" and "those who have gone before", the last being drunk in silence. Once again, Esling managed to wind things up by 11.

Why the yearly banquet disappeared no-one knows. In 1919 the annual meeting at Sargent's cafe began at 7.30. Then came a social programme, the ladies arriving at 8.30. Mr Loughran again recited "the old brigade". A former secretary Mr Henry Tate, who had just been made a vice-president of the good companions problem club, sat down at the piano to play two of his own pieces, "A hush on the hills" and "Surge and Spindrift", and capped this with a recitation. Mr Biggs sang "Jacks the boy" and Miss Burr "The bird of love divine". The wife of another member "recited with all the grace and elegance of pose with which she had charmed the audience of the Repertory theatre in its palmy days." And there was a good deal more before "a very pleasant evening closed with the singing of Auld Lang Syne and God save the king". Laugh gently we may, but one would like to have joined them.

The year 1928 was the club in charge of chess week. Opened at the Athenaeum by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the program included an exhibition of unusual pictures and chessmen, lectures, simuls, consultation games and a problem solving tourney. The president gave a luncheon to country visitors, guests included the premier and the Lord Mayor-elect, Professor Osborne proposed the toast to "the king of games" and Gunderson responded. The week ended with a social evening and dance. On a more modest note, a picture night arranged by the club in 1930 raised 3 pounds. These were the years of private entertaining also. When H.E.Grant turned 70 in 1925 the Gundersens gave him a dinner at their home, during which he was presented with a case of pipes. (Grant's work for the club and for chess was always being marked by presentations: in 1912, a purse of sovereigns; in 1914 a book of problems composed in his honour.) Why the social life has gone is hard to say. Perhaps members were more homogeneous fifty or a hundred years ago.

Chapter 10: Visitor's book

"Gentlemen", said Blackburne, "consider me at your disposal. The doctors were right: the long sea voyage has done wonders for my chest. My only stipulation for the blindfold exhibitions" - and he smiled at Andrew Burns, whose Scottish accent had never quite disappeared - "is that the treasurer should provide a mild stimulant from Auld Reekie". The master's habit of taking a glass of Scotch whisky en passant during simultaneous display was well known, but the committee men who had gone down to welcome Blackburne when his ship berthed in Melbourne were not sure if it was serious. "Doctors orders," the visitor continued. "Both the voyage and the stimulant". Phillips, the president rose to the occasion, "Stimulants you shall have, Sir", he replied. "The club has taken the liberty of arranging a banquet in your honour at the Oriental hotel. And Mr Justice Williams has agreed to preside at your first exhibition".

So it was that a few nights later - 8 January 1885, to be precise - Blackburne arrived at the Equitable Co-operative Society's hall in Collins St, where Sir Hartley Williams welcomed him. The evening had been arranged by a specially formed committee, drawn from the Melbourne chess club, the Victorian chess club and the chess class at the Turn Verein, the German association. The audience of two hundred, each of whom had paid 5 shillings for a ticket, watched as 8 strong players took their places. As the night went on, 5 yielded to Blackburne and three drew. Lush, a former president of Melbourne, tried the Centre Counter. He resigned after Blackburne's 23rd move, and even then his resignation was overdue.

[Event "Simul"][Site "Melbourne"][Date "1885.1.8"][Round "-"][White "Blackburne"][Black "Lush"][Result "1-0"]

1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 c6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Bd3 e6 7. O-O Bd6 8. h3 h5 9. Ne4 Qc7 10. Nxd6+ Qxd6 11. Be3 Bxf3 12. Qxf3 Nf6 13. Rfe1 Nbd7 14. c4 Rc8 15. Rad1 h4 16. Bf4 Qe7 17. d5 cxd5 18. cxd5 Nxd5 19. Bb5 Nf6 20. Bd6 Qd8 21. Qf5 Qe7 22. Qd3 Qd8 23. Rxe6+ 1-0

The Argus described the exhibition as the first successful blindfold chess performance in Melbourne, but this was an exaggeration. Both Brocklebank and F.H.Wilson had given blindfold displays and the former English champion, the Hon. John Wisker, who shared Blackburne's fondness for drink, had given a blindfold simul at the club on October 14 1881. But while Wisker could play on 6 boards against second or third class opponents, Blackburne could manage 16 boards and during his Australian tour asked always for the strongest players. In Warnambool he played without sight on 10 boards , 2 of his 12 opponents not having appeared; then on to Hamilton and Portland and further blindfold simuls. A dispute arose in one of the Warnambool games after 7 hours of play. Blackburne resolved it by rattling off all the moves. His the Melbourne Chess club was marked in 1911, when the committee responded to an invitation from the City of London chess club to subscribe to the Blackburne testimonial. His photograph still hangs in the clubroom.

The year 1924 brought the flamboyant Grandmaster Boris Kostich on a visit to Australia and New Zealand during the world tour. This cheerful, voluble and entrepreneurial chess professional delighted the audience. Kostich, who had in 1916 established a world record of blindfold play on 20 boards, gave a number of simuls at the Athenaeum, including 2 blindfold simuls on 6 boards. He was a great linguist and his knowledge of local dialect was improved during one simul when his offer of a draw on board 2 brought the response "Good-oh!" Kostich preferred to avoid defeat if at all possible and once during a simultaneous display, needing to lose a move with a knight in an endgame, he executed an unusual knight's tour by picking the piece up, brandishing it thoughtfully for several seconds and then replacing it on the same square with the air of making a decisive move; in this ruse he was detected. In Melbourne he won an exhibition match against Watson 3-1.

In 1932 and 1933 the club joined with others in trying to arrange a visit by the world champion, Alekhine, to Australia and New Zealand, but without success, and in 1933 members learned with disappointment that he would only get as far as Java. The following year the Australian championship was to be held in Melbourne as part of the city's centenary celebrations and the club, in charge of arrangements, invited Alekhine to compete. Exhibition were of course to be given to help the expenses fund and negotiations with the world champion dragged on for months. In June, in reply to the club's invitation, Alekhine cabled that he would play in the congress if his own and his wife's expenses were paid. The club sent a second cable: What would those expenses be? But there was no reply. A week before the annual general meeting Alekhine cabled the club, in English less accurate than his play. "Agreeing principle. Expediting definite conditions airmail". This raised the hopes of the meeting, but not those of Crowl, who could be relied upon to reject any generally held view. He wrote to the committee opposing the visit. But he need not have worried, for the proposed airmail letter never came, and neither did Alekhine. To compensate for the non-appearance the committee at the last minute arranged 4 other tournaments as well as the central event, one being a ladies tournament, "a novelty in Victorian chess".

In 1936 the committee had tried to arrange a visit by Dr.Euwe, who had defeated Alekhine the year before. The club had to wait under 36 years for Euwe, then aged 70, to give a simul on April 6 1972 (15 wins, 6 draws, 4 losses). Euwe was given a civic reception by the Lord Mayor on arriving in Melbourne. In 1936 the committee did manage to persuade Lajos Steiner, the great Hungarian master, who was visiting Australia, to come to Melbourne for a fortnight. He was welcomed at a lunch presided over by Watson, won the Pietzcker tourney and gave several simuls, including 2 at the Athenaeum Art Gallery. Steiner had a guarantee from the club and the secretary reported that only the co-operation of the suburban clubs had saved the undertaking from disaster. Steiner returned to Australia to settle in Sydney in 1939.

Two Russian grandmasters, Averbach and Bagirov, played as guest competitor's in the Australian championship in 1960. Both signed the club's visitors' book in the course of the tour, Bagirov staying to give a clock simul. The amiable Alexander Kotov signed the book in 1963 and played at the clubroom in an invitation tournament conducted by the VCA. Most of the 8 players were members of the club. Browning held Kotov to a draw and Kotov lost to Ozols, who won the tournament. Browning seemed to do well against visiting Russians. When Averbach returned to Melbourne in 1967 for a one-day tournament with 64 players, he suffered a 4th round loss to Browning. Averbach's handicap was only 1.5 losing points, but he went on to win the tournament. Browning was won the four to win against Euwe in the 25 board simul in 1972. Euwe has white.

[Event "Simul"][Site "Melbourne"][Date "1972.05.30"][Round "-"][White "Euwe"][Black "Browning"][Result "0-1"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. Qc2 c5 5. dxc5 O-O 6. Bd2 Nc6 7. Nf3 Bxc5 8. e3 b6 9. a3 Bb7 10. Be2 Rc8 11. O-O Qc7 12. Rfd1 Rfd8 13. b4 Bf8 14. e4 Ne5 15. Nb5 Nxf3+ 16. gxf3 Qb8 17. Bg5 a6 18. Bxf6 gxf6 19. Nd4 Qe5 20. Bf1 Bd6 21. Bg2 Qxh2+ 22. Kf1 Kh8 23. Ne2 Rg8 24. Ng3 Bxg3 25. fxg3 Rxg3 26. Rd2 Rcg8 27. Qc3 e5 0-1

In 1971 the club's Edwin Malitis went to Adelaide as manger of the Karlis Lidums International tournament. This brought to Australia Lajos Portisch of Hungary, Lothar Schimd of West Germany, Florin Gheorgui of Romania, Alexander Matanovic of Yugoslavia and Lodewijk Prins of Holland, Portisch gave a simul in Melbourne.

Grandmaster Raymond Keene, who had given a simul at the club in 1977, returned in 1983, when the club gave a reception to mark the Commonwealth chess championship. On his second visit he was accompanied by most of the other competitors, including 5 international masters.

Chapter 11: All around the town

One hundred years ago the committee observed that three things were annual events; the telegraph match with NSW, the handicap tournament and the removal of the club to new quarters. No one could now plot with certainty the moves since 1866. The sites of former homes are scattered all over the city. Early street numbers are misleading. For the first 23 years of the club's life you must think of Bourke and Collins streets as divided by Elizabeth St into East and West, each half with its own set of numbers, beginning at the bottom of the hill. And so street numbers are better avoided until east meets west in 1890 and the streets are renumbered from Spring St all the way to Spencer St.

The club was born of a meeting on 4th August 1866 at the Mechanics' Institute in Collins St, where the Athenaeum now stands. The first clubroom was on the eastern hill, and we have seen in an earlier chapter how the claims of Mr Nissen's cafe prevailed over those of his nearby rival, the temple of Pomona. The latter establishment, named after the Roman goddess of fruit, had vanished by 1875; perhaps it was too exotic a growth to flourish in Bourke St. Nissen's lasted a good deal longer, as did the waxworks that lay between the temple and Nissen's. The room above Nissen's cafe, described by the Argus as commodious and in every way adapted to the requirements of the club, was open at 4pm from Monday to Friday and 2pm on Saturdays. As so the club began as it was almost without exception to continue; in control of its premises and keeping them open for play most days of the week. In June 1875 the club moved from Nissen's to Oliver's cafe, taking the room that the Yorick club had vacated. Miss Oliver's cafe was on the south side of Collins St, up from Swanston St. The club may have had a room in the London tavern in Elizabeth St for a few months in 1878. It was in difficulties at this stage and its movements are hard to trace. A little alter we find Mrs Goodall, described as the club caterer, being authorised to obtain supplies of ale, porter and spirits for its members. By 1879 the clubroom was in the building of Mr Ogg, the chemist and druggist, on the north side of Collins St, east of Russell St. In 1882 the club crossed to the other side of Collins St and took up residence in the City Club hotel, a few doors up from Swanston St. A "handsome ground floor room" was obtained in the Oriental hotel at the top of Collins St in July 1883, but a few weeks later yet another move brought the club back to Nissen's cafe.

After the club purged itself of whist in 1884 it met every Monday evening at the Victoria Coffee Palace, and in 1885 it began meeting there on Saturday evenings also; at this troubled stage of its life the club seems to have had no tenancy or similar arrangement.

Players were distracted by concerts at the Athenaeum, which stood next door to the coffee palace in Collins St. And there were other disadvantages, all duly noted by that unpopular expatriate G.H.D.Gossip, who had arrived from England not long before. In his letter to Stenitz's International chess magazine Gossip complained of the short playing hours and the sound of music. He counted 58 steps on his climb to the clubroom. The annual handicap tournament lasted nearly a year because players failing to appear did not forfeit. But this was not all. "The club", Gossip continued, "labours under serious disadvantages...the coffee palace where they play being a temperance cafe, no wines or spirits can be had, and for those players who have been accustomed for tears to their glass of wine or whiskey, this is a fatal drawback." Things soon improved, for in June 1886 the club took a room in the Thistle cafe in Little Collins St, 5 doors down from Swanston St. It shared this room, and the rent of one pound a week, with the Victoria chess club, Melbourne using it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights and the Victorian players coming on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. This Cox and Box arrangement lasted less than 3 years and members were told that the correspondence before its termination "resulted in considerable friction, which your committee ascribes wholly to the attitude assumed by the committee of the Victoria chess club, and the terms of its communications". Melbourne stayed on at the Thistle and its rival went to the Palace hotel. In May 1889 a correspondent ("Gambit" of Toorak) was given this advice by "En passant", chess columnist of the Journal of the Bankers Institute of Australasia.

"There are two clubs in Melbourne, the Melbourne, just resuscitated, and the Victorian, which has led an active and stirring life since its start 6 years ago. On sanitary grounds alone you should join the latter. The Victoria chess club has the larger members' roll. Its room is lit by electricity, and is open day and night. The former club is over a pie palace, and meets but 3 evenings a week. I can give you an introduction to either secretary as you will. Thistle cafe, Little Collins St is the address of the former and Wilson's palace hotel, Bourke St, that of the latter. You may get a game resembling chess at Parer's cafe, bit in our parlance it is known as skittles. What with the disputes over dominoes, the noise of a hundred feet constantly moving about upon a marble floor and it being a rendezvous for the betting fraternity, who do not speak in hushed voices, miracles will have to be worked before chess is much played there."

The columnist's preference for the Victoria chess club possibly had something to do with the fact that, as F.W.Miscamble, he had been one of its founders. Grand as the room at the palace may have been, it proved to be beyond the means of the Victoria club, which was forced to move to the Globe hotel in 1890 and went out of existence in 1891. Membership of the 2 clubs had always overlapped and when the Victoria club disappeared some of its remaining members transferred to Melbourne. But Miscamble always remained aloof.

In June 1890 Melbourne chess club moved to a room in the Vienna cafe at 270 Collins St, using it every night except Sunday at a weekly rent of 25 shillings. Invitations to the opening went out to other clubs and "leading gentlemen preferably". In less than 18 months another move took place, this time to a room at the palace hotel, the hours being 10am till 11.30 pm. Here the club stayed until 1895. By September of that players were perched in a large room high up in the Athenaeum at 188 Collins St. The Athenaeum was the successor to the Mechanic's Institute, and so nearly 30 years after its foundation the club was back where it started. The clubroom was open every weekday. The committee tried to encourage afternoon play , but for some reason the number of stairs to be climbed prevented this. The long climb made the committee seriously consider amalgamating with the Stock Exchange club on condition that 2 rooms be set aside for chess. Mercifully the merger was averted. But in 1902 the club did take a 12 month lease of a room in the Stock Exchange building at 376 Collins St, with the result that there was afternoon play as well as evening play. When this lease ran out, the club took a room on the first floor of 191 Collins St, opposite the Athenaeum, at one pound a week. In about 1906 the club moved next door to 193 Collins St; here the first recorded attempt was made to roster members willing to each keep the club open for a few hours every week. The club seems in 1908 to have changed its room at 193 Collins St for one on the "second floor back". In 1915 the committee asked the president to wait on the landlord and ascertain on what terms lavatory accommodation, improved ventilation and open street door could be provided. How members fared without some of these facilities is a matter for speculation. A month later a subscription list was opened to raise funds to install electric light (eight bulbs) and a fan.

The club returned to the Athenaeum in 1920, with an arrangement that every member would join the institution. It was not until 1932 that the Athenaeum agreed that only club members should have access to the clubroom. Until 1936 the chess room was open 7 days and nights a week; thereafter it was closed on Sundays and public holidays. On 21st August 1937 the recently decorated clubroom was re-opened by Sir Isaac Isaacs, former chief justice of the high court of Australia and Governor-general from 1931 to 1936. In agreeing to becoming a patron of the club, Sir Isaac recalled that he had taught R.L.Hodgson, who had won the Victorian championship in 1901. In 1944 the Athenaeum gave the club notice to quit by June 30. The club stayed on. A second notice arrived in 1947. Again the club stayed on. In 1950 it was given notice to vacate by April 30. Again the club stayed put; but all good things come to an end and on July 26 1950 the Athenaeum trustees took the case to the City Court. Dr Woinarski, who at the age of 22 had narrowly been beaten by Crakanthorp in the 1926 Australian championship and who had forsaken chess for Latin and the Law, was briefed for the club. Taking perforce the black pieces, Woinarski played at the City Court a sound defensive game lasting 2 and a half days, but the odds were too great and the club was ordered to get out by January. Woinarski would take no fee and was made an honourary life member at the next committee meeting. He was appointed to the County Court in 1958.

At the Athenaeum the club had been in what might be called a cramped position; by the time of the court case membership was twice the immediate pre-war level. The court proceedings brought newspaper publicity, which itself brought offers of accommodation. From the athenaeum the club went to the basement of 109 Flinders Lane as tenant of the Victorian Spiritualists Union, where it was open from Monday to Saturday between 1pmand 10.30 pm. In 1959 the club moved to a room on the ground floor of 447-449 little Bourke St, open from noon 7 days and nights a week. The sign had proved too much for a Swiss migrant, who wrote to the Melbourne cheese club wanting a job in a dairy produce factory. In 1961 the club moved to 23 Tattersall's Lane, between Little Bourke and Lonsdale streets. Two years later the clubroom was transferred to the first floor of 16 Little Latrobe St, where play continued 7 days a week, according to the committee, generous donations made the new clubroom "the best furnished and most decent premises ever". From there the club moved in November 1966 to the second floor of 483 Elizabeth St. The cycle began again; a building alteration fund was opened and the premises refurbished.

For many years the Victorian Chess Association used the club's premises for tournaments, matches and meetings, at first free of charge and then for a daily or yearly fee, which was often the subject of disagreement. As early as 1962 the club had talked of buying a building. Nothing came of a 1972 proposal that the club form a company to raise money for this. In 1975 and 1977 the clubrooms were extensively renovated at the cost of some thousands of dollars and innumerable hours of donated time. Some members were quite oblivious of the work, and games continued despite the noise of drills, the drips of paint brushes above the players' heads and the fine sawdust that filled the air. Side by side with the improvement of the existing clubrooms came a feeling that it was time to end the long march from one rented venue to another, and in September 1977 the committee invested $500 as the nucleus of a fund to buy a building. 5 years later the club took possession of 110 Peel, North Melbourne, which it had bought for $77,500 using the building fund (which had somehow grown to $20,000), a seven year bank loan of $30,000 and gifts and interest-free loans from members. So Melbourne became the only chess club in Australia to own its own clubrooms. The building was bought shortly before the club's lease of its existing rooms expired. A proposal had been put forward that the new lease should no longer be in the club's name and that the premises, while continuing to be shared by the club and the VCA, should simply be known as the VCA chess centre. The club saw in this suggestion a very serious threat to its existence and searched anxiously for a building. Having made the purchase, it offered the association a tenancy of the ground floor of 110 Peel St, but the offer was refused. And so the ground floor was let to another tenant. Conversion of the first floor to the present comfortable clubrooms was largely the work on the indefatigable Carl Nater, aided by other members too numerous to mention.