Documents for "Games and Hobbies: Biographies":

• Alekhine, Alexander 1892-1946, Russian-French chess player, b. Moscow. He became a naturalized French citizen after the Russian Revolution. At the age of 16 he gained the rank of master and in 1927, by a surprising...

• Canfield, Richard Albert 1855-1914, American gambler, b. New Bedford, Mass. A well-known gambling operator in Providence, R.I., Canfield went in the 1880s to New York, where his gambling establishment became famous. It was...

• Capablanca, José Raúl 1888-1942, Cuban chess player, b. Havana. Champion of Cuba at the age of 12, he won the world's championship from Emanuel Lasker in 1921, retaining the title until he was defeated by Alexander Alekhine...

• Cavendish pseud. of Henry Jones, 1831-99, English card game expert. Jones studied medicine, practiced in London, and retired in 1868. He became a leading authority on card games and was the first person to formulate a system of...

• Culbertson, Ely 1891-1955, American authority on contract bridge, b. Romania. His father was an American engineer then living in Romania, and his mother was of Russian parentage. Culbertson introduced the first...

• Fischer, Bobby (Robert James Fischer) , 1943-, American chess player, b. Chicago. In 1958, he became a grandmaster, the youngest to that time. In the Interzonal and Candidates' matches in 1970 and 1971 he won an unprecedented 20...

• Goren, Charles Henry 1901-91, American expert on bridge, b. Philadelphia, grad. McGill Univ., 1922. Goren played bridge as a law student and by 1931 was competing in major tournaments. He wrote the first of his many...

• Hoyle, Edmond 1672-1769, English writer on games, b. London. He codified the rules of whist in his book A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist (1742) and in successive editions of the book he added new material...

• Jones, Henry see Cavendish.

• Karpov, Anatoly 1951-, Russian chess master. In 1970 he became the world's youngest international grand master. Karpov won (1975) the world championship by default when Bobby Fischer , the titleholder, refused to agree to terms for a match. He successfully defended (1978, 1981) his title against Viktor Korchnoi but lost (1985) to Gary Kasparov. Karpov regained (1993) the International Chess Federation (FIDE) championship in a playoff after Kasparov formed a rival association and was expelled from the federation. Karpov retained the FIDE...

• Kasparov, Gary 1963-, Armenian chess player, b. Azerbaijan (then in the USSR) as Garri Kimovich Wainshtein. He became the world junior champion at the age of 16 and was International Chess Federation (FIDE)...

• Korchnoi, Viktor Lvovich 1931-, Russian-Swiss chess master. A long-time leading Soviet player, he lost to Anatoly Karpov in 1974, competing for the right to challenge Bobby Fischer for the world title. Korchnoi criticized Karpov after the match, was banned from competition for six months by Soviet authorities, and in 1976 emigrated to Switzerland. An innovative but erratic...

• Kramnik, Vladimir 1975-, Russian chess player, b. Tuapse. Kramnik started to play chess at the age of four, and at eleven began studying with both Mikhail Botvinnik and Gary Kasparov. Deeply versed in theory, he has been influenced by the styles of such masters as Capablanca, Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov. He became the world's junior champion in 1991 and the following year,...

• Lasker, Emanuel 1868-1941, German chess player. He won the world championship in 1894 when he defeated Wilhelm Steinitz and held it until he was defeated by José Raúl Capablanca in 1921. Lasker studied the games of his opponents for their weaknesses and predilections in technique and played primarily against the temperament of his opponents. He was a master in closed...

• Morphy, Paul Charles 1837-84, American chess player, b. New Orleans. At 10 he learned the game and at 21 was acknowledged as the greatest player in the world. Not only was Morphy possessed of a phenomenal memory,...

• Spassky, Boris 1937-, Soviet chess champion. A child prodigy, he became an international master at the age of 16 and in 1955, at age 18, he became an international grand master. Subsequently in international...

• Steinitz, Wilhelm 1836-1900, German chess player. In 1866 he won a match from Adolph Anderssen, the leading player after Paul Morphy's retirement, and became world champion, although the title did not officially...

• Topalov, Veselin 1975-, Bulgarian chess player. Topalov won the under-14 world championship in 1989 and placed second in the under-16 the following year, becoming a grandmaster in 1992 and a potential challenger...