Talk:Miguel Najdorf

old talk
I would like to see this page revert. Describing the Taimanov-Najdorf game as a "Taimanov-Narjdof (sic) match" is not only a grotesque misspelling but also a misuse of the term "match" in a chess context. One game from a tournament isn't a "match." Bill-on-the-Hill 03:37, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Feel free to fix the article yourself. -Mariano 07:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I've fixed it now, but Mariano is right, of course: it's usually better to fix these things yourself when you see them (be bold in updating pages and all that). If you just comment on talk, you could be waiting months for somebody else to do it! --Camembert 12:49, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, understood, but I didn't want my objection to seem like dueling author vanities, since the text that was modified to produce that bad "match" terminology and box was all mine. Bill-on-the-Hill 13:02, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Usually, if there's not an edit war, you do your changes and justify them in the edit summary field. To roll back such a modification might be better to leave a messege on the talk page first. Good wiking, Mariano 14:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Date of birth
I haven't been able to find any reference to Najdorf's birth date, and I always thought it to be unknown. Anon user 81.97.127.110 added September 4 as ihs birthdate, but it should be backedup with some reference. Mariano (t/c) 09:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

All books say 15 April 1910. Chvsanchez 05:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Versus World Champions
I just saw a brief obit written in 1997 that says that Najdorf played every World Champion except Steinitz, beating Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian, Tal, and Fischer. The second part is true, but I'm not sure that Najdorf played Lasker. The two free databases I checked (chessgames.com and nicbase) both have only a single game against Edward Lasker, and none against Emanuel. Does anyone know if this claim is correct? Quale 18:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The ChessBase.com database agrees with you - just one game with Ed Lasker. I suspect someone got mixed up by the e. Laskers.  Bubba73 (talk), 06:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * And he did play Karpov a few times and Kasparov once (I don't know past that). Remarkable! Bubba73 (talk), 06:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation
I've read that it's "knee-dorf", but looking at Polish phonology suggests "nigh-dorf" is correct. Anyone know? Pronunciation information should also be added to page Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation. 91.105.40.85 (talk) 10:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * When I played him in a simul a long time ago (with disastrous results, from my point of view...), it was "nigh-dorf". -- Bill-on-the-Hill (talk) 14:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Doesn't the "j" stand in for an "i"? (Larry Evans says he pronounces it "night off," a slight simplification.)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by WHPratt (talk • contribs) 21:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Gratuitous References to Ethnicity
I would like to see such comments as "of Jewish origin" removed from these chess pages. "..raised in a traditional Jewish family" or the like would be fine - but these references to ethnicity as they stand make me nervous and imply a certain racist attitude that needs to be removed. I even saw "extraction", as if a person were a bad tooth.

The quality of these chess articles is overall very poor. It stand to reason and I suppose there is nothing to be done about it, given the general nescience of chess players and the low quality of modern chess literature. The best we can hope for is to have the facts. Antimatter33 (talk) 17:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This issue has been discussed at some other chessmasters' pages (e.g. Talk:Carl Schlechter), with the consensus, if there is one, apparently being to keep the references as long as they are factual rather than a matter of conjecture. That a remarkable fraction of top players are of Jewish origin is undeniable and possibly interesting -- why this overrepresentation?  In Najdorf's case it is also significant to his entire life story, as his reluctance to go back home to Poland after the Olympiad is both tied to his origins (obviously) and critical to him becoming the legend that he was.  Failure to mention his "Jewish origins," I think, would do the new reader, unfamiliar with his life story, a disservice.
 * "(G)eneral nescience of chess players"? What a silly concept. -- Bill-on-the-Hill (talk) 23:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It is no mystery why so many top chess players are Jewish. Only Jewish people themselves say so in order to flood their ego with false humility. The same goes with anti-semitism throughout the ages. There is no mystery why these things happen. But focusing on the chess thing, it is the same for all the other professions and non-physical activities. There is a large disproportionate percentage of Jews in Law, Medicine, Finance, and Teaching. In addition, all the fields that are not popular or were not popular at one point are dominated or were dominated by Jews such as Pornography, Comics, Chess, and the movie industry. When Jews escape one society and move to another society they disproportionately flood the professions and, at the time, other useless non-physical fields (which is why they reap the advantage when those "useless" fields become popular like comics, porn, movies, etc.). This is also much of the source of anti-semitism. How do you compete with a colleague who is from a family with 5 generations of lawyers, doctors, mathematician when you just left a poor family and became the first to go to college and become a lawyer, doctor, mathematician? Tie this with the threatened elites and you have a pogrom in the making. There is no mystery, open your eyes.99.55.175.41 (talk) 05:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I would actually take a perspective that is the opposite of the first poster. It is comical, especially from the Jewish perspective, that he is labeled such and such a "nationality." If he is a Jew he is a Jew. To label him Polish or Argentinian or whatever is what is wrong with these descriptions. At the end of the day he is simply a Jew and NOT Polish, Argentinian, etc. To the Goyim labeling nationality means something, who you are, but to Jews it is meaningless. 99.55.175.41 (talk) 05:37, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It may be comical "especially from the Jewish perspective," but chessplayers at Olympiads, etc., play on national teams, under national flags, not ethnic ones. Failure to grasp the significance of being a Polish team member when he stayed put in Argentina, or a representative of Argentina for all subsequent events, misses some very fundamental points that would be central to Najdorf's chess career, and therefore, to an article about him.  Unget updandered. -- Bill-on-the-Hill (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

User:Antimatter33 makes very good points - and the unfortunate replies by an IP editor (well refuted by User:Bill-on-the-Hill) just strengthens his case. As the article stands right now, it is almost OK, in that it mentions "ethnicity" only at a moment in which it becomes relevant (WWII). At the same time, we should (as usual) remembered that what was relevant then was not how people lived, or how they perceived themselves, but rather how they were classified by others. It is good to make clear that Polish players from all origins had good reasons to stay in Argentina, and did stay. At the same time, a category such as "Gentile" (or "Jew" as opposed to "Gentile", as here) does not belong outside quotation marks - just as the more relevant categories of "Jew" and "Aryan" don't. (Also: if I remember correctly, Tartakower actually was a former Austro-Hungarian officer with a Christian upbringing; he was at risk because (a) he was a Polish citizen, (b) his parents had been converts, thereby making him a Jew *in Nazi eyes*.) It would be better to say: "Najdorf decided to stay in Argentina (as did many players -- particularly those in the Polish team, whether or not they had, like him, Jewish origins)" or simply "Najdorf decided to stay in Argentina (as did many players, both "Aryan" and "non-Aryan")". The second wording may be better, as "origin" may refer to a category that is too heterogeneous to be of sociological use; was Najdorf from a family like, say, Rubinstein's (in which case a mention might be interesting)? The page already gives (in footnote 1) his full given names as given on his passport, so it is not as if one of the reasons he would have been a conspicious target is being hidden. Feketekave (talk) 13:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)