'Frisco Fail 'fains.

Otago Witness, Issue 2671, 24 May 1905, Page 62

'Frisco Fail 'fains.

Hamel, G. D. Wright, J. Edwards, and A. Mellor are in the lists for the senior championship of the Otago Chess Club; the Rev. A. T. Chodowski, and Messrs S. S. Myers, J. C. Ponsonby, G. Rankin, and R. H. Osten are aspirants for junior championship honours; while the Rev. A. T. Chodowski and Messrs D. Forsylh, F. J. Mouat, J. H. F. Hamel, G. D. Wright, J. Edwards, J. Stone, G. Rankin, R. H. Osten, A. King, J. Hale, A. Mellor, S. S. Myers, and J. C. Ponsonby have entered for the handicap tourney. Mr D. H. Hastings claims to be one of the oldest members of the Otago Chess Club, and in a brief speech fuli of reminiscences he told the assemblage at the opening of the season last Wednesday night that he was the only survivor of the band of players who, in the early eighties, foregathered at the old Occidental Hotel, in Manse street, for play. Messrs B. Throp, E. E. C. Quick, F. H. Irwin, and J. B. Borton, on the other hand, claim even greater seniority, the first of the quartet dating his membership back to some 30 years ago, when a coterie of chess enthusiasts met for play in a dark cellar somewhere below the Dunedin Athenaeum and Mechanics' Institute.

Home exchanges state that the accounts of Pillsbury's breakdown are gross exaggerations, and yet a, cable was sent out to New Zealand announcing that he was in a critical condition! The British team for the cable match against America comprises Messrs H. E. Atkins, Gr. E. H. Bellinghain, J. H. Black-1/urn-e, Amos Burn, T. F. Lawrence, R. P. Michell, G. W. Richmond, and W. Ward. Two places remain to be filled, one of which may be occupied by H. N. Pillsbury. The thirty-fourth inter-University . chess match, played at St. George's Chess Club, London, resulted in favour of Oxford University, the final score being—Oxford 4£, Cambridge 2§. Herr Schlechter has won the Vienna Masters' tourney with a score of 13 points; Wolf, second, 12 points; Dr Pertis, third, 10J.