Rui Nascimento

Rui de Carvalho Nascimento ( Setúbal , 14 June 1914 - Lisbon , 3 September 2012 ) was a Portuguese chess player and chess problem solver and Honorary Master of Chess Composition

The son of Josué do Nascimento, an employee of Setúbal City Council, and Maria José Ferreira de Carvalho Nascimento, a domestic servant, he completed his fifth (now ninth) year at the Liceu de Bocage in 1930.

He learnt to play chess from his maths teacher Álvaro Sequeira Ribeiro and founded the Setúbal Chess Group in 1937 with several good players, based at Café Bocage in Setúbal.

As a young man, he was interested in various types of cultural activities, interests that continued throughout his life. He studied music and violin and joined the Orfeão Cetóbriga choir and the orchestras he organised. He wrote poetry and theatre after launching the magazine "De Vento em Popa" with his older brother Mário Nascimento, journalist and painter-scenographer, at the Sociedade Filarmónica Palmelense "Os Loureiros" ( Palmela ) in 1940. He also co-authored and wrote two other plays - " Cobras e Lagartos " and " Filtro de Amor ".

In 1941, he won three first prizes and several honourable mentions at the Setúbal Floral Games.

However, he would be most notable as a chess player, as from a young age he devoted himself to chess problems , a speciality that differs from the conventional leisure aspect.

Up until the age of ninety-six, which he completed in June 2010, he was still actively engaged in composing chess problems, was the dean still active in this art and was known internationally as " The Nonagery ".

In May 2011, his health took a serious blow when he fell victim to a transient ischaemic attack. He lost some memory and his walking difficulties increased, which persisted since 2007. His eyesight also deteriorated as he suffered from cataracts, which he never wanted to have operated on.

Nevertheless, after a few months in a care home, he returned home and managed to play the violin and harmonica a little again and occasionally play automatic chess.

He also celebrated his 98th birthday on 14 June 2012. Shortly afterwards, he was admitted to the Hospital de S. José due to a respiratory infection and confusion.

He got better and returned home in July, but sadly time got the better of him. He lost the game of life by checkmate on the night of 3 September 2012, at the age of ninety-eight.

Activities in the field of chess problems

Rui de Carvalho Nascimento is the author of "Problemas de Xadrez" (1986) and "Problemas de Xadrez II" (1995). He composed mostly twomovers.

As one of the world's rare specialists in figurative or symbolic problems, Rui Nascimento dedicated works of this type to numerous personalities such as Niccolò Paganini , Albert Einstein , Pope John Paul II , Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo , Infante D. Henrique and Damão de Odemira , pharmacist , author of the first known chess treatise published in Rome in 1512 . Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo , Infante D. Henrique and Damião de Odemira , apothecary , author of the first known chess treatise published in Rome in 1512 .

He invented a theme based on several partners, which she called Margarida, in memory of her eldest daughter, who died in a road accident in Brazil in 1972 at the age of 25. She organised an international competition with this theme for the magazine Portuguesa de Chess in 1977, which received 75 entries from India to Brazil.

He was also a judge in international competitions, such as the "Meredith" of the Portuguese Chess Federation (1987), the National Solution Contest (1987) or the competitive contest in "Toto-Xadrez", a modality he invented, in 1995 Among the various compositions he wrote, Rui Nascimento stood out within heterodoxy. The most notable was one consisting of a board of normal squares with a side length of four centimetres, but with a diagonal equal to the length of the diameter of the universe. In other compositions, these orthodox ones, he took part in international competitions, winning the Jubilee Grand Master D. António Argüelles SEPA-Espanha (1992), the Special Recommendation Cabala, the International Sherlock Holmes Competition of The Problemist (1992, 2nd Honourable Mention), the International GAMA I Competition, launched by his problem partner Gabriel Mariz Graça, who won 1st Prize in 1993; 1st Honourable Mention in 1995 and 1st Prize in 1996.

Since number 1 in the daily Correio da Manhã (1979), he maintained a daily problem-solving section until 31 December 1991, when he invited another chess player, realising that it was necessary to make room for new talent. Rui Nascimento was a member of the governing bodies of the Setúbal Chess Group, the Lisbon Chess Group, the Alekhine Chess Group and the Portuguese Chess Federation and represented Portugal at the Congress of the Permanent Commission on Chess Problems of the International Chess Federation, which took place in Alicante and Benidorm (Spain) in 1990.

Rui Nascimento also edited the Revista Portuguesa de Chess , the Boletim do Grupo de Adrez Alekhine and the Revista Xeque-Mate , having collaborated scattered in newspapers such as O Setubalense , Diário de Lisboa , Grande Enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira and the British The Problemist and The Independent .

Most important published works
Author of several books on chess problems, his publications include the book Problems of he describes his life together with the Russian master Alexander Alekhine when he sought refuge in Estoril in the 1940s , and Cartapácio de Figurativos (2006, private edition). In the latter there are, among other things, 88 problems with the celestial constellations . His most recent work was a series of Heterodox Figurative Problems with two black kings.

The chess player and friend Mário Silva Araújo published in 1998 the book Rui de Carvalho Nascimento - A Life Dedicated to Chess , in which one can read the following sentence: " The knowledge of problemism in Portugal is divided into two periods: pre-birth and post-birth ". Rui Nascimento estimated that in the course of his long life he would have written about five hundred to six hundred chess problems.

Participation in tournaments and prizes won

In 1937 he won ex aequo the Portuguese Chess Magazine's solving competition and immediately began composing and publishing his own works after receiving the first honourable mention - the National Prize - in the International Composition Competition of the Stadium Magazine ( Lisbon ) in 1945, in the category of Master of the Portuguese Chess Federation.
In 1941 he settled in Lisbon after winning several internal tournaments in the club he had founded. At the III Summer Tournament of the Lisbon Chess Group, he came 3rd with the same points as the winner.
In 1942, he took 4th place in the Lisbon Chess Group Championship and reached the 1st category; 5th place in the IV Summer Tournament and 4th/6th place in the Capital Championship.

In 1943 and 1944, he took part in the Lisbon-Porto II and III matches and won all three games. Still in 1944 he took 1st place ex aequo in the Lisbon Main Tournament and 10th place in the Masters Tournament. A year later, he won the 1st and 2nd stages and finished 5th/6th in the final of the Southern Chess Association tournament. He also won the title of Master of the Portuguese Chess Association, finishing 7th in the respective tournament. As part of the Sport Lisboa e Benfica team, he was champion of Lisbon and was selected for the Portugal-Spain and Léon-Lisbon I and II international matches, recording a total of two wins, two draws and two defeats.
In 1946 he also won first prize in the British Chess Federation competition with a problem created in collaboration with the Englishman Gerald Anderson, who was living in Lisbon at the time.
In 1947, their first daughter Margarida was born, who died at the age of twenty-five in a car accident while on holiday in Brazil.

In 1949, he was honoured with the Stratford Express Originality Award. Due to the illness and death of his first wife, Albertina Fernandes, he was unable to compete for several years, returning in 1952 with a triumph in the Dr Damas Mora Cup.
In 1953 he finished fifth in the Estoril Cup and third in the Dr Damas Mora Cup in 1954. All these competitions brought together many of the best players of the time.
In 1956 he remarried Carlota Carapeta, a teacher at the Colégio Valsassina . The following year, his second daughter Leonor was born.
In the same year, 1957, he won the Banking Chess Championship, individually and with teams, representing the then Agricultural Bank, where he was Director of Securities Services.

Between 1984 and 1985 he had compositions that won prizes at the DCE-Brasil Bulletin competitions. For many years he was the first Portuguese authority on this problematic subject and was a juror at composition competitions such as Portugal-Espanha (1947), A Bola (1948) and Festival Iberoamericano-Brasil (1985).
In February 1988, he was honoured by the Union of Bank Employees of the South and the Islands with a chess party in Caldas da Rainha.
In 1996, he won the international GAMA 96 competition, which was founded by his friend, the problemist Gabriel Mariz Graça.

In 1997 he founded Tertúlia Damião de Odemira , consisting of the chess masters: Gabriel Mariz Graça, José Vinagre, Vasco Santos, who died in January 2006, Mário Silva Araújo, Pedro Silva Araújo, Dagoberto Markl, International Chess Master, Joaquim Durão and António Pedro Vinagre. Tertúlia is not exclusively dedicated to chess, but you can talk about any cultural, artistic, literary or scientific topic. It also published its respective bulletin for forty issues. Tertuliano Mário Silva Araújo dedicated the book " Damiano, the Portuguese and his work " (private edition) to Damião.
In 2000, he was awarded the title of Honorary Master of Chess Composition by the International Chess Federation.

Source: pt.wikipedia.org