dr. Dezső Elekes

He started to pursue this sport at the age of ten, and soon had excellent results. He sat at the board whenever he could, he learnt and competed but because of limited local opportunities for competition he could yet make his knowledge really perfect in correspondence chess. Shortly he even set a record. As during World War I the competition was pushed into the background, correspondence remained the major branch of chess. In those days Dezső Elekes had up to 100 games at one time, and was the winner of several teams of Deutsches Wochenschach.
Dezső Elekes had good results not only on paper but also on the board. In 1924, for example, he won the amateur chess championship of Budapest. Even if he had such results he remained modest, and looked at his own career with a winning self-irony. He writes the following on this in a very pleasant and humorous way, addressed to the columnist, in the Gyula Chess Journal:
"Let me present you in these few lines, concerning some biographical data of mine and my view on the problems, at least the mitigating circumstances of committing the problems.
I summarise my defence in the following points:
1. I hate chess with all my heart, yet I have played chess since my babyhood.
2. I have never gone far and among chess players I play the role of the "camouflage" piece, which can be taken off the board without worsening the score of the game.
3. In setting a problem I still live my minority - seeming to be extended to my old days. One of the reasons for this is that I still could not learn which direction the pawns move, the more annoying that the problems involving the changing of pawns are my favourite ones."

Dr. Dezső Elekes
Olympic games 1936 - 2nd prize

The solution: 1. Kd1, c4, 2. Kc1, e2, 3. Kc2, e1R, 4. Kc3:,
Re4, 5. Kb4, Rg4, 6. Kc3, Kf7, 7. Kb4, Ke7, 8. Kc5, Ke6,
9. g8Q+, Rg8:, 10. Bc3, Rc8+, 11. Kd4, Rc6, 12. Bb4, Kd7,
13. Ba5, Kc8, 14. Be1, Kc7, 15. Kc3 and draw.