Robert Graham Wade

Robert Graham Wade, Bad Liebenzell 1995
Association	New Zealand England
Born	Dunedin April 10, 1921
Died	November 29, 2008 London , United Kingdom
title	International champion (1950)
Best Elo rating	2375 (July 1972)

Robert "Bob" Graham Wade OBE (born April 10, 1921 in Dunedin , New Zealand , † November 29, 2008 in London , United Kingdom ) was a British chess player of New Zealand origin.

Life

Wade grew up as the oldest of seven children on a farm and learned to play chess from his father. At the Dunedin City Library he deepened his knowledge by reading British Chess Magazine and the works of Cecil Purdy . He also made the acquaintance of John Boyd Dunlop , who was New Zealand champion six times between 1920 and 1940.

Wade made rapid progress and won the New Zealand Championship in 1943/44, 1944/45 and 1947/48. In 1945 he also played in the Australian championship, where he finished second. From 1948 he traveled through Europe for four years. In 1949 he stayed temporarily in Germany and played tournaments in Heidelberg and Oldenburg . He took part in the FIDE congress in Paris in 1949 as a representative of Australia and New Zealand and was elected to the rules commission. In 1950 he played ten games against Lothar Schmid in Bamberg , which ended 5: 5 without any draws. In the same year Wade came fifth at an international tournament in Venice and was one of the first players to receive the title of International Master .

In 1952 he won the British national championship for the first time in Chester . In the same year he took part in the interzonal tournament in Saltsjöbaden , but only finished 18th out of 21 participants. He had some successes at national level in the following years, including winning smaller tournaments in Ilford in 1957 and 1968, Paignton in 1959, Dublin in 1962 and Southend-on-Sea in 1965. In international tournaments, however, he was mostly unable to place in the front field , although he managed to win individual games against grandmasters. In 1963, 1964 and 1965 he took part in the Capablanca memorial tournament in Havana . In Coventry 1970 Wade was again British national champion after he had finished second behind Jonathan Penrose in 1961 and 1969 .

Wade has worked as a junior coach since the 1970s and has done a lot to promote chess in Great Britain. In 1979 he was honored for his services with the title Order of the British Empire . He remained active in chess well into old age and took part in several world and European senior championships from 1991 onwards. From 1958 Wade was also an international chess referee . He was made an Honorary Member of FIDE in 2001.

In the Merano system of the semi-Slavic defense the variant is 1. d2 – d4 d7 – d5 2. c2 – c4 c7 – c6 3. Ng1 – f3 Ng8 – f6 4. Nb1 – c3 e7 – e6 5. e2 – e3 Nb8 – d7 6 Bf1 – d3 d5xc4 7. Bd3xc4 b7 – b5 8. Bc4 – d3 Bc8 – b7 named after him.

National team

He played at a total of seven Chess Olympiads : 1954 , 1956 , 1958 , 1960 , 1962 and 1972 for England, in 1970 in Siegen for New Zealand. He scored a total of 48 points from 92 games and achieved the third-best individual result on the second reserve board in Varna in 1962 . He also took part in the 1973 European Team Championship in Bath for England .

societies

In the introduced 1993 Four Nations Chess League Wade played from 1993 to 1996 and from 1998 to 2001, the top division, the Division 1. His teams were in the 1993/94 season Covent Garden from 1994 to 1996, the British Chess Magazine , in the 1998-99 season Home House , in the 1999/2000 season index IT and in the 2000/01 season, the second team of Beeson Gregory .

Writing activity

Wade wrote numerous chess books , some with co-authors . His first book dealt with the 1951 world championship match in Moscow between Michail Botvinnik and David Bronstein , at which Wade himself was present as FIDE Vice President. He followed the chess life in the Soviet Union with great interest and wrote the book Soviet Chess about it in 1968 . From 1968 to 1972 he edited Chessman Quarterly magazine. In it, opening theory analyzes were published, which were based on the systematic evaluation of the Russian specialist press. At that time, Wade was considered one of the leading opening experts in the West and created several dossiers for Bobby Fischer on the opening repertoire of his opponents on the way to the world title. Wade later worked as a chess advisor to the Batsford publishing house in London, where several of his books were published.

Game example

RG Wade - EW Bennett
Fernpartie 1942/43

	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

White to move

At the very beginning of his chess career, Wade managed a beautiful combination in a long distance game based on a fork motif .

In the diagram position followed 19. Qc2xg6 h7xg6 20. Bc4xf7 + Rf8xf7 21. Rh3 – h8 + Kg8xh8 22. Ng5xf7 + Kh8 – h7 23. Nf7xd6 Ra8 – d8 24. Re1 – e6. White achieved a winning position, so Black gave up.

Chess composition

On March 19, 1965, Wade was one of the eleven founders of the Chess Endgame Study Circle , from which the magazine EG emerged . He often attended meetings of the British Chess Problem Society .

literature

• Ray Cannon: Bob Wade, tribute to a chess master . Impala Publications, London 2006.
• Sarah Hurst: Curse of Kirsan . Russell Enterprises, Milford 2002, ISBN 1-888690-15-1 (particularly pp. 232-241).

Web links

Commons : Robert Wade  - Collection of Images

• Replayable chess games by Robert Graham Wade on chessgames.com (English)
• Raymond Keene : Biography ( Memento from May 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
• Tim Harding: The Career and Legacy of Bob Wade ( Memento from March 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) ( PDF ; 329 kB) Article ("The Kibitzer") at ChessCafe.com , February 2009 (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Chess legend Bob Wade dies at 87 at chessbase.com, November 29, 2008 (accessed November 29, 2008)
2. ^ Willy Iclicki: FIDE Golden book 1924-2002 . Euroadria, Slovenia, 2002, p. 87.
3. ↑ FIDE Honorary Members (English)
4. ↑ Robert Graham Wade's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Robert Graham Wade's results at European Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
6. ↑ Tim Harding: Shakhmatny Bulletin, an old friend revisited ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 219 kB)
7. ↑ EG 1: The Chess Endgame Study Circle . July 1965, p. 15. ( online version as PDF file )
8. ↑ EG 175: † Robert Graham Wade . January 2009, p. 50.