Albéric O'Kelly de Galway

Albéric O'Kelly de Galway, 1961
Association	Belgium
Born	May 17, 1911 Ruisbroek
Died	3 October 1980 Brussels
title	International Master (1950) Grand Master (1956)
Best Elo rating	2460 (January 1977 to January 1978)

Albéric Ecuyer O'Kelly de Galway (born May 17, 1911 in Ruisbroek near Brussels, † October 3, 1980 in Brussels ) was an important Belgian chess master and the 3rd  correspondence chess world champion .

Life

ancestry

O'Kelly's ancestors came from Ireland. In 1720 an ancestor, John O'Kelly, emigrated to Liege. This ancestor received the hereditary Belgian nobility title Ecuyer ( stable master ), which Albéric also wore.

Close chess

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

O'Kelly System in the Sicilian Defense

O'Kelly learned to play chess when he was 12 years old. As a student he joined the Brussels chess club L'Echiquire , where he played regularly with the top Belgian players of the time, Frits van Seters , Paul Devos and Paul Limbos . From the 1930s onwards, O'Kelly had been the leading Belgian chess master for decades. He became the first professional chess in Western Europe. Akiba Rubinstein lived in Belgium, but he stopped playing the tournament in 1932. Some of the more than a hundred friendship games between O'Kelly and Rubinstein have survived. O'Kelly became Belgian champion for the first time in 1937 (together with Paul Devos) and repeated this success twelve times, namely in 1938, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1947, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1957 and 1959 (together with Jozef Boey ).

He represented Belgium at eight chess Olympiads , namely in 1937 in Stockholm , 1950 in Dubrovnik , 1954 in Amsterdam , 1956 in Moscow , 1960 in Leipzig , 1962 in Varna , 1966 in Havana and 1968 in Lugano . He had his best sporting phase from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. In 1946 he won in Beverwijk , in 1947 he won the zone tournament in Hilversum , but did not participate in the 1948 Saltsjöbaden interzonal tournament . Further tournament victories : São Paulo 1948, Dortmund 1951 ahead of Borislav Milić and Andrija Fuderer , Dublin 1954, Ostend 1956, Utrecht 1961, Málaga 1963 and 1967.

The World Chess Federation FIDE awarded O'Kelly the title of International Master in 1950 and the title of Grand Master in 1956 .

Since the 1960s O'Kelly took part in the team fights in the FRG . He was hired by the patron of the Solingen SG in 1868 , the industrialist Egon Evertz , for his team and trained his employer. With the people of Klingenstadt , he won several German championships and in 1976 the European Club Cup .

O'Kelly's best historical rating was 2675 in January 1957.

The O'Kelly system in the Sicilian Defense is named after him: 1. e2 – e4 c7 – c5 2. Ng1 – f3 a7 – a6 .

Correspondence chess

O'Kelly also devoted himself to correspondence chess since 1937 . He won the national championship of Belgium repeatedly in this discipline, namely in 1942/43 and 1943/44. At the Dyckhoff memorial tournament played between 1959 and 1962 , he came second (behind Lothar Schmid ). At the 3rd World Cup, played from 1962 to 1965, he was the winner. In the Ragosin memorial tournament in 1966 he took second place behind Horst Rittner .

O'Kelly said of correspondence chess: Correspondence chess gives the opportunity to solve most chess problems almost infallibly. So it is not only an art, but also a science! (Quoted from: F. Baumbach: 52–54, stop: Fernschach. Berlin 1990)

referee

O'Kelly, who was polyglot , also became FIDE International Referee in 1962 . In this function he headed the world championship fights between Tigran Petrosjan and Boris Spasski in 1966 and 1969. In addition, the 1974 candidate final match between Anatoli Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi .

Awards

O'Kelly was awarded the Golden Palm of the Order of the Crown by the Belgian royal family for his success in chess .

death

O'Kelly suffered from leukemia near the end of his life , which also became the cause of his death. In 1980, after coaching the Mexican national team, he was taken ill to a hospital in Mexico City , from there to Brussels, where he died in the Border Hospital.

Works

• Match Botvinnik-Smyslov. Ed. du Marais, Bruxelles 1957.
• 34 times chess logic. Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 1964.
• Tigran Petrosyan, champion du monde. Ed. du Marais, Bruxelles 1964.
• The Sicilan flank game. Batsford, London 1969.
• Assess your chess fast. Batsford, London 1978. ISBN 0-7134-1056-6 .
• Improve your chess fast. Batsford, London 1978. ISBN 0-7134-1054-X .

literature

• Alfred Diel : The always correct O'Kelly. In: Kaissiber . No. 30, January-March 2008, ISSN  0948-3217 pp. 75-76.

Web links

Commons : Albéric O'Kelly de Galway  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Replayable chess games by Albéric O'Kelly de Galway on chessgames.com (English)
• The evolution of its historical rating chessmetrics.com
• Albéric O'Kelly de Galway at the International Correspondence Chess Federation ICCF (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alfred Diel: The always correct O'Kelly. In: Kaissiber . No. 30, January-March 2008, p. 75.
2. ↑ Albéric O'Kelly de Galway's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ^ The international tournament 1951 in Dortmund on TeleSchach (cross table and games).
4. ↑ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002. Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, pp. 87 and 74.
5. ↑ Albéric O'Kelly de Galway's results at European Club Cups on olimpbase.org (English).