Australia Chess: RIP MAX FULLER 1945-2013
Chess Blog for Daily Chess News and Trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013
Here is an obituary by Ian Rogers on Max Fuller who became Australia's chess hero in the 70s. (via smh.com.au)
Australia's first chess professional, Max Fuller, developed from a gangly teenager who would rarely be seen at Canterbury Boys High School without a chessboard under his arm to Australia's No.1 in a few years.
His bohemian and peripatetic lifestyle - winning tournaments from Malta to Honiara - confounded many in Australia who believed chess could not be a ''real'' job, but also inspired a generation of Australians to try their luck on the international circuit.
Maxwell Leonard Fuller was born on January 28, 1945, and brought up in Sydney by his mother and a disliked step-father, after his father died.
As a teenager, every Saturday he could be found at the Hyde Park chess set, taking on all-comers all day, and by the time he left school at 16, he was determined to become a professional player. He even taught himself Dutch so he could read the premier theoretical journal of the time, Max Euwe's Chess Archives.
His mother's death in 1962 made Fuller more determined to leave home and he used his small inheritance to travel to the World Junior Championship in Yugoslavia in 1963 and a year later to the Chess Olympiad in Tel Aviv.Prizes in Australian tournaments at the time were negligible, so when Fuller returned to Sydney he combined studying and playing chess with proofreading for the Herald. He was called up for the army during the Vietnam War but was rejected for being far below the minimum weight for his height.
His first big break came at the end of 1968 when he was invited to the traditional Hastings Grandmaster tournament in England. He soon understood the gap between himself and the world elite and said the five ''draws'' he scrounged in his eleven games were the most difficult of his life and left him exhausted.
Read more »
Hello everyone,
Knight moves: Max Fuller in 1964. He went on to become Australia's No.1 player and toured the world. Photo: Stuart MacGladrie
Australia's first chess professional, Max Fuller, developed from a gangly teenager who would rarely be seen at Canterbury Boys High School without a chessboard under his arm to Australia's No.1 in a few years.
His bohemian and peripatetic lifestyle - winning tournaments from Malta to Honiara - confounded many in Australia who believed chess could not be a ''real'' job, but also inspired a generation of Australians to try their luck on the international circuit.
Maxwell Leonard Fuller was born on January 28, 1945, and brought up in Sydney by his mother and a disliked step-father, after his father died.
As a teenager, every Saturday he could be found at the Hyde Park chess set, taking on all-comers all day, and by the time he left school at 16, he was determined to become a professional player. He even taught himself Dutch so he could read the premier theoretical journal of the time, Max Euwe's Chess Archives.
His mother's death in 1962 made Fuller more determined to leave home and he used his small inheritance to travel to the World Junior Championship in Yugoslavia in 1963 and a year later to the Chess Olympiad in Tel Aviv.Prizes in Australian tournaments at the time were negligible, so when Fuller returned to Sydney he combined studying and playing chess with proofreading for the Herald. He was called up for the army during the Vietnam War but was rejected for being far below the minimum weight for his height.
His first big break came at the end of 1968 when he was invited to the traditional Hastings Grandmaster tournament in England. He soon understood the gap between himself and the world elite and said the five ''draws'' he scrounged in his eleven games were the most difficult of his life and left him exhausted.
Labels: australia chess, chess obituary, max fuller
posted by Chess Blog Admin @ 11:49 AM
0 Comments
