Weaver W. Adams
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Weaver Warren Adams (b. April 28, 1901 in Dedham, Massachusetts, d. Jan 6, 1963 in Cedar Grove, New Jersey) was an American chess player, author and chess opening theoretician. He won the U.S. Open Chess Championship in 1948, and his picture was on the cover of the August, 1948 issue of Chess Review magazine. He played in the U.S. Chess Championship five times.
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[edit] Game history
He participated in the U.S. Chess Championship in 1936, 1940, 1944, 1946 and 1948. He won the Massachusetts State Championship in 1937, 1938, 1941 and 1945. In 1939, he wrote a book entitled "White to Play and Win." The year after its publication he played in the U.S. Open at Dallas, 1940. He did not win a single game as White (three losses and one draw) and won all four of his games as Black. Weaver Adams won the 49th U.S. Open, held in Baltimore, in 1948. He also wrote "Simple Chess", which he revised several times, "How to Play Chess", and "Absolute Chess".
[edit] White to play and win theory
He was best known for his books and magazine articles in which he claimed and attempted to prove that White's first-move advantage in chess is decisive, i.e. that White has a forced win from the starting position.
His first book which expounded on this thesis was "White to Play and Win" published in 1939. In this book, he claimed a forced win with the Bishop's Opening 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4.
However, he was unable to prove this over the board. In the finals of the 1940 US Open, he scored only one draw in his four games with White, while winning all his games with Black. Chess Review, October 1940, p. 146 (available on DVD).
Adams thereafter switched to the Vienna Game in which he claimed a win with White after 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Qh5 Nd6 5.Bb3 Nc6 6.Nb5, a sharp line that has recently been dubbed the Frankenstein-Dracula Variation. However, in actual play, Black wins most of the games played in that variation.
When this did not work either, he switched to other lines. In the March 1962 issue of Chess Life (available on DVD), page 56, he advocated what he called the Adams Gambit, substituting 6.d4!? for 6.Nb5. He explained his repudiation of 6.Nb5: "it is antipositional to move a developed piece a second time, and masters have long given it up as hopeless."
Even though Adams was rarely successful at the top levels, his ideas were studied and sometimes adopted by the strongest Grandmasters, including Bobby Fischer. Fischer scored notable wins using the Adams Attack against the Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation, which starts with the moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.h3.
The problem Adams had was that he published his analysis and then played it, so that his opponents knew in advance exactly what he would play, and had time to prepare a refutation.
[edit] Personal life
Weaver W. Adams believed that he was descended from Henry Adams, who was born in England on January 21, 1583, and who landed in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1644, and thereby he was distantly related to Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. His father was Frank Harding Adams and his mother was Ethel Weaver. Both Weaver and Warren were his ancestral names. His mother's side has been traced back to the founding fathers of America. His father's side has not as yet been established.
Grandmaster Arnold Denker related of Weaver that he was "a master who inherited a chicken farm and who was – so to speak – a White man clear through. He wrote a book, White to Play and Win, lived in a White house on White Street, chewed antacid pills that left the inside of his mouth perpetually White, and raised only white chickens that laid white eggs. Predictably, Adams' business was soon no more than a shell."[1] Harry Golombek wrote in 1977 that Adams, whom he described as "author of White to play and win and a sodium bicarbonate addict," was on Golombek's "reserves" list for "the ten most interesting personages" from the past 100 years.[2]
Adams was gay as discussed in his autobiographical article reprinted in Chess Pride.[3]
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Adams, Weaver W. (2007), White to Play and Win (reprint ed.), ISBN 978-0-923891-83-1
- Winter, Edward (2007), p. No. 5215
- Denker, Arnold (1995), The Bobby Fischer I Knew and Other Stories, Hypermodern Press, p. 170, ISBN 1-886040-18-4
- Johnson, Eric, ed. (1998), “Weaver Adams”, Chess Pride Magazine 3, <http://www.correspondencechess.com/campbell/reviews.htm#ReviewC>
- Adams, Weaver W. (1959), How to Play Chess, OCLC 22300203
- Adams, Weaver W. (1959), Absolute Chess, OCLC 20876567
- Adams, Weaver W. (1946), Simple Chess, OCLC 8157445
- Adams, Weaver W. (1939), White to Play and Win, OCLC 4377426
