Chess Items.

Otago Witness, Issue 2578, 12 August 1903, Page 58

Chess Items.

A Palmerston North correspondent writes that there is every probability of Mr Frank Hollins, the expert player who came- out frcmt Birmingham last year and settled at Huirangi, taking part in the next New Zealand chesa championship contest. Questioned as to the probability of his participating in the next New Zealand, chess championship tourney, Mr J. Edwards replied that he did not think so at the present moment. The ex-champion further stated that he had! decided to give chess a rest for a year. " When I was champion in 1893," remarked the versatile Joseph rather significantly, "I had had little or no practice." Thus the Birmingham Gazette on the pro* posed America v. Europe cable match: — "We. would do all we could to forward tho match, which, in common with all other amateurs, we would rejoice to see. But we fear that the raising of the necessary funds would be by\ far the smallest part of the trouble. r Xha petty vanity of the chess master has been before us foi a whole generation. We knowi 'Jtcu; tfluchiuessj their profes=ioflal pride, theix

•utter impracticability concerning all questions that touch, on. concession oi precedence. The ludicrous vanity of the rook player who sets ■up positions which he won is well known and deservedly ridiculed. But this is as nothing compared with that of the great chess master, ■whose conceit in proportion to hi 3 talent rises in geometrical progression. The difficulties «re too great, and it is Lombard street lo a China orange that the great Europe-American match never takes place. ' Mrs Fagan and Miss Finn recently tied, vith 8| points out of a possible 10, for the championBlip of the London Ladies' Chess Club. The tie was played off, and Mrs Fagan won by 2 ■wins, 1 draw, to 1 win, 1 diraw. The Brooklyn Daily Esgle says that Champion Lasker sailed for E\irope on Thursday, June 11, and that during his absence from America, he" may nieet M. Tschigorin in a series of games to test the Pace Gambit. Pillsbury informed a New York Herald reporter recently that he proposes to make an attempt to win the world's chess championship it an early date. The scribe of the Birmingham Daily Gazette ■writes in the following strain: — " We are indebted to the Otago Witness for «iew3 concerning Mr Frank Hollins in New Zealand. The Birmingham expert is said to have purchased a farm at Huirangi, in the Taranaki district — or words to that effect, — and it is also said that he hopes to have the pleasure at some future date of playing with some of the chess players of New Zealand. " We venture to thick that Jlr Hollins will take a lot or beating by the men (if any) of Huirangi. When he plays his, ' Queen's Gambit Declined ' or hi& ' Ruyalopi ' lie will show the British meaning of the phrase ' tough customer.' Possibly in the sylvan solitudes of his sequestered farm he may invent new openings, new defences. Wo may hear of "the "Huirangi Gambit' or the 'Taranaki Defence '"to the ' Evans.' And when Macaulsy's 2sew Zealander has done his sketching from the ruins of London Bridge he may look north and may say to a fair tourist companion : ' Only think! Wo are within one hundred snd thirteen ancient miles cf the- site of ancient Birmingham, once the Tesider.ee of Frank Hollins, the first chess ployer to suggest what has for so many centuries been known as the Taranaki continuation of the Hampe-Thorold-Allgaier.' And the charming New Zealand lady will reply : "Really! How well I remember his statue at Huirangi!' And after tea they will skim to iho cite Birmingham and back, even though the compressed ether motor bp slightly out of ori?r, so that the journey takes nearly an hour each way."