Bill Hook

William Edward "Bill" Hook ( born May 28, 1925 in New Rochelle, † 10 May, 2010 Silver Spring ) was a chess player in the British Virgin Islands. He celebrated at the 1980 Chess Olympiad in Malta his biggest success by winning the gold medal for the best points haul on the first board. Overall Hook represented his country in the national team at 17 Olympic Games, most recently in 2008 at the Olympiad in Dresden with 83 years of the oldest participant.

Life

Bill Hook grew up as the only son of Finnish parents in the United States in the state of New York, where his parents worked as domestic servants in New Rochelle. He learned to play chess at age 15 from a friend, a deeper interest in chess ensued three years later, in 1943, when he spent fifteen months in a hospital in Westchester County for tuberculosis. The disease was discovered during a medical examination during his pattern and saved him, 18 -year-old, before use in the Second World War. During the time in the hospital he was playing correspondence chess and reading of the New York Academy of Chess and Checkers (New York Academy for Chess and Checkers ). The club was established and since the 1920s, known as Fisher's in Manhattan on 42nd Street. Next to the name of the owner Harold Fisher, he also contributed in the 1960s because of the proximity to a flea circus and shabby interiors also nicknamed The Flea House. After his recovery, Hook went on for 25 years there on and off, played chess for money, met famous players like Miguel Najdorf and Arturo Pomar and played games with celebrities such as Marcel Duchamp and Stanley Kubrick, who was still working as a photographer in the 1950s.

At this time met Hook several times, the young Bobby Fischer on fast tournaments in New York, whose talent is already announced by then. Hook hit the small fishing four times in a row until he at a tournament at the Manhattan Chess Club defeated him one day, while the energy of the boys could feel and then won no match against Fischer.

Bill Hook was unable to work because of the effects of his tuberculosis and enrolled at an art school. With the painting he played at times his livelihood, his working wife Mimi wore another part during. The couple had a common passion - traveling. One of her expeditions, 1960 to the Caribbean, the starting point for their future second home on Cooper Iceland, an island of the British Virgin Islands, for their national team, he played at numerous Olympics on the first and second board chess was. The Hooks acquired in 1962 a piece of land on Cooper Iceland and built there over the years a house that they over 40 years in addition to their residence in the United States - since 1969 just outside of Washington DC - Regularly used for weeks or months. In 2005, Bill Hook sold this property, but with the option, it can inhabit one months per year over 5 years.

Bill Hook died in 2010, a few weeks before his 85th birthday, in Silver Spring.

Chess Olympiads

His first Olympic appearance was in Hook relatively high age of 43 years at the 18th Chess Olympiad in Lugano in 1968 with the crew of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Except for the years 1972 and 1996 to 2000, he played on all other Olympics, a total of 16 times. In 1970, he met at the Olympiad in Siegen unexpectedly - some 15 years after their first meeting - again on Bobby Fischer, who was to become a world champion two years later. Hook came with the black pieces well out of the opening, had about 30 minutes thinking time advantage, but lost after 28 moves ( see diagram position below).

Due to a conflict with the head of the Chess Federation of the U.S. Virgins Islands, Hook was taken for subsequent Olympics, in 1972 in Skopje, disregarded, and from the team. In January 1974, he suggested then the foundation of the Chess Federation of the British Virgin Islands that even before the Olympics in Nice was timely participation commitment by the World Chess Federation FIDE. From then on, Bill Hook played for the British Virgin Islands, with the exception of the 1992 Olympics in the Philippines, where took a combined team of two groups of islands under the flag of the U.S. Virgins Islands due to the high financial travel expenses.

At the Chess Olympiad 1980 in the Maltese Valletta Hook earned on first board 11.5 points from 14 games, also favored by weaker opponents, he got drawn against due to the weak performance of his teammates, and thus according to the Swiss system. In the first round he defeated the Finnish grandmaster Heikki Westerinen and lost only one game in three draws. Finally, he won the gold medal for best performance on top board, scoring it an Elo performance of 2501. Anatoly Karpov, the former world chess champion and Olympic champion with the Soviet team had to settle for fourth place. Two years left after this success the British Virgin Islands four stamps with chess motifs hang up, one showing the front and back of hooks gold medal, another key position after winning move from Hooks game in the last round against the Kenyans Kanani.

Hook had a 1980 Elo rating of 2265, its highest historical Elo was 2441 in May 1969.

Away from the chessboard

In addition to painting Hook developed from 1957 onwards a passion for photography, in his travels he chose primarily cemeteries with their grave sites and statues as a motive. On Chess Olympiads chess player portraits were in the foreground, which he also sold to chess magazines, newspapers and news magazines. In early 2008, Bill Hook published his memoirs: Hooked on Chess ( Addicted to chess).

The game fishing - Hook

At the Chess Olympiad in Siegen, it came in the fifth round to the encounter between the Virgin Islands and the United States. At that time was still played in preliminary groups, in which you had to qualify for the final rounds. Bill Hook played on first board against Bobby Fischer, who was then in its strongest performance phase and convincingly won the interzonal tournament at the end of the year to qualify for the world championship.

According to a French Defence Hooks finally the chart position was reached, Hook swerved to the tower chess on d1 with his king to e7 and allowed a small fisherman's combination:

Hook and gave the lot on which the tower can not be beaten because matt Df6 on Kf8 loses the black lady on e8 with a hopeless position.