Geneanet
Geneanet (previously stylized as GeneaNet) is a genealogy website with 4 million members. The database consists of data added by participants and is intended for all genealogists. The website is collaborative and the data added by the members are ...
''Hooper/Whyld, Gaige say 1905. – 19 March 1978) was a Mexican
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
player and the first from his country to be awarded the title of grandmaster, which was accorded by FIDE in 1977.
Biography
Born in
Mérida, Yucatán
Mérida () is the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán, and the largest city in southeastern Mexico. The city is also the seat of the eponymous Municipality. It is located in the northwest corner of the Yucatán Peninsula, about 35 km (22 ...
, US and developed as a young player under the tutelage of the New Orleans player Edwin Ziegler Adams. Torre later published an extraordinary combination that was supposed to have occurred in a game Adams–Torre and featured White's victory. It was determined subsequently that this combination was never played in a game; Torre's attribution of it to Adams was an homage to his teacher.
Torre first came to international attention when he attended the great New York 1924 tournament and impressed both the American and European masters with the high quality of his
speed chess
Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, blitz ...
and analytical ability. The website Chessmetrics.com places Torre as eighth in the world following his tour of Europe. He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 1977.
Torre's career was cut short by mental illness. Torre spent much if not the remainder of his life hospitalized following his breakdown in 1926. A coming marriage that was broken by a
Dear John letter
A Dear John letter is a letter written to a man by his wife or romantic partner to inform him that their relationship is over, usually because his partner has found another lover. The man is often a member of the military stationed overseas, alth ...
is believed to have played a role in his breakdown, according to ''
The Oxford Companion to Chess
''The Oxford Companion to Chess'' is a reference book on the game of chess written by David Vincent Hooper and Kenneth Whyld. The book is written in an encyclopedia format. The book belongs to the Oxford Companions series.
Details
The first e ...
''. Chess historian Edward Winter, however, regards this as an open question.
Reuben Fine
Reuben C. Fine (October 11, 1914 – March 26, 1993) was an American chess player, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology. He was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the mi ...
visited him many years later and found that he still played very well.The game is included in Fine's book ''Lessons From My Games'' (1958), along with some comments on Torre's demeanor and condition.
Major tournament results
Torre won the Louisiana state championship at New Orleans 1923, and began to reach world prominence in 1924. He was first at Detroit 1924 (25th
Western Open
The Western Open was a professional golf tournament in the United States, for most of its history an event on the PGA Tour.
The tournament's founding in 1899 actually pre-dated the start of the Tour, which is generally dated from 1916, the ye ...
Norman Whitaker
Norman Tweed Whitaker (April 9, 1890 – May 20, 1975) was an Americans, American International Master of chess, a lawyer, a civil servant, and a chess author. He was convicted of several crimes, was disbarred from the practice of law, and serve ...
,
Samuel Reshevsky
Samuel Herman Reshevsky (born Szmul Rzeszewski; November 26, 1911 – April 4, 1992) was a Polish chess prodigy and later a leading American chess grandmaster. He was a contender for the World Chess Championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-196 ...
, etc. He won at
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
1924 (with Jennings). In 1924, Torre took third place in New York (
Abraham Kupchik Abraham Kupchik (25 March 1892 – 26 November 1970) was an American chess master.
Abraham Kupchik was born into a Jewish family in Brest (then Russian Empire, now Belarus) to parents Pinchas Kupchik and Bessie Kupchik née Perlmutter. His fam ...
won).
In 1925, he made his European debut, in events with much stronger and deeper fields of more experienced masters. Torre took tenth place in
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with Fra ...
(
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine, ''Aleksándr Aleksándrovich Alékhin''; (March 24, 1946) was a Russian and French chess player and the fourth World Chess Champion, a title he held for two reigns.
By the age of 22, Alekhine was already a ...
won). In 1925, he tied for third-fourth places with Frank Marshall, behind
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch ( lv, Ārons Nimcovičs, russian: Аро́н Иса́евич Нимцо́вич, ''Aron Isayevich Nimtsovich''; 7 November 1886 – 16 March 1935) was a Latvian-born Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimz ...
and
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein (1 December 1880 – 14 March 1961) was a Polish chess player. He is considered to have been one of the greatest players never to have become World Chess Champion. Rubinstein was granted the title International Grandma ...
, in Marienbad. In 1925, he tied for fifth-sixth with
Savielly Tartakower
Savielly Tartakower (also known as ''Xavier'' or ''Ksawery'' ''Tartakower'', less often ''Tartacover'' or ''Tartakover''; 21 February 1887 – 4 February 1956) was a Polish and French chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandm ...
in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
(
Efim Bogoljubow
Efim Bogoljubow ( or ), also known as Ewfim Dimitrijewitsch Bogoljubow, ( (); also Romanized ''Bogoljubov'', ''Bogolyubov''; uk, Юхим Дмитрович Боголюбов, Yukhym Dmytrovych Boholiubov; April 14, 1889 – June 18, 1952) ...
won), tied for second-third in
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
(quadrangular;
Solomon Gotthilf
Solomon Borisovich Gotthilf (Соло́мон Бори́сович Готгильф; 21 February 1903 11 July 1967) was a Russian chess master.
Chess career
He shared 3rd in the 1922 Leningrad City Chess Championship (Grigory Levenfish won) ...
won). In 1926, he tied for second-third places with
Géza Maróczy
Géza Maróczy (; 3 March 1870 – 29 May 1951) was a Hungarian chess player, one of the leading players in the world in his time. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950.
Early career
G ...
, behind Marshall, in Chicago. In 1926, he won, ahead of
José Joaquín Araiza
José Joaquín Araiza Vázquez (23 March 1900 – 27 September 1971) was a Mexican chess master.
In 1926 in Mexico City, Araiza took second place, behind Carlos Torre. In 1928, he tied for twelfth/fourteenth place in The Hague (Amateur World Cha ...
Torre Attack
The Torre Attack is a chess opening characterized by the moves:
:1. d4 Nf6
:2. Nf3 e6
:3. Bg5 ('' ECO'' code A46)
or the Tartakower Variation in the Queen's Pawn Game (''ECO'' code D03):
:2... d5
:3. Bg5
or the Torre Attack in the Eas ...
is named after him. It is characterized by the moves: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5. Torre also introduced the Mexican Defence to chess theory in a match against Fritz Sämisch in 1925 in
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden () is a spa town in the state of Baden-Württemberg, south-western Germany, at the north-western border of the Black Forest mountain range on the small river Oos, ten kilometres (six miles) east of the Rhine, the border with Fra ...
, Germany. It runs: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 Nc6.
A
memorial tournament
The Memorial Tournament is a PGA Tour golf tournament founded in 1976 by Jack Nicklaus. It is played on a Nicklaus-designed course at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb north of Columbus. The golf course passes through a large n ...
in his honour has been held annually since 1987 in his native city.
"The Windmill"
In the
Moscow 1925 chess tournament This international super-tournament, organised by Nikolai Krylenko, was held at Moscow in the Soviet Union, from 10 November to 8 December 1925. It was the world's first state-sponsored chess tournament. There were eleven foreign stars and ten Sovie ...
, Torre defeated former
world champion
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Cham ...
with a
queen sacrifice
In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move that sacrifices a queen in return for some compensation, such as a tactical or positional advantage.
Queen sacrifice: real versus sham
In his book ''The Art of Sacrifice in Chess'', Rudolf Spielmann disti ...
. The famous sequence is known as "The
Windmill
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...
rook
Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to:
Games
*Rook (chess), a piece in chess
*Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game
Military
* Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft
* USS ...
and
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...
form a
grindstone
A grindstone, also known as grinding stone, is a sharpening stone used for grinding or sharpening ferrous tools, used since ancient times. Tools are sharpened by the stone's abrasive qualities that remove material from the tool through friction ...
discovered check
In chess, a discovered attack is a direct attack revealed when one piece moves out of the way of another. Discovered attacks can be extremely powerful, as the piece moved can make a threat independently of the piece it reveals. Like many chess t ...