CHESS TRAIN

The oldest participant refusing the offers of draw

[18.10.2012 00:00:00] - The oldest participant of the Chess train, Christoph Kohlschmidt, fighted by the same manner as the youngest one. He was refusing the draws and finally won 5 points. „I liked the Chess train very much, I enjoyed every single game, refusing the draws, because the result wasn´t important for me, only the beauty of the game,“ told us the German chess player Christoph Kohlschmidt.

He was born in 1935 in Dresden and had to spend the majority of his childhood in the hospital. In the first school year, he was present only for 11 weeks, the rest he was in a hospital, where he met the royal game for the first time. „When I lied in the hospital, some boy came to our room and he taught me to play the chess. Then I was already able to amuse me with the game for the rest of the hospital time,“ says 77 years old Christoph Kohlschmidt remembering his childhood and the chess beginnings.

In 1951, he started to visit the chess club of the town Reichenbach, where he used to live with his family. Otherwise he wasn´t the best player of his club, he liked it very much. „I have never been the excelent player, but I was always interested by the people playing the chess. The majority of the players are very inteligent and cool-headed, therefore they are sympathetic to me,“ adds Mr. Kohlschmidt, whose today´s rating still represents a good first class – 1954 ELO.

Christoph Kohlschmidt has studied the linguistics, but he couldn´t finish it because of the financial reasons. He became a teacher of English and Latin finally.

He received the Chess train trip as a birthday present of his son and he repeated several times, that his son made him a big pleasure, that he enjoyed the tournament and the whole trip and that he was glad to participate this event. „It was very nice experience,“ said us this sympathetic, high and elegant old man shortly before coming to Prague station where the trip finished.

| Karolína Němcová | visits(2335x)