Dr. Jenö Bán (Hungary, * Sunday  09.03.1919   -   † Monday 12.11.1979)

Famous chess player, significant chess trainer, author and significant chess composer of endgame studies

Life & Career

His father János Bán was a financial inspector and his mother was called Mária Faragó. He was three and a half months old when his own father was killed. József Kerekes became his foster father. On June 3, 1937, he completed his high school diploma at the Kölcsey-Ferenc High School in Budapest. On September 10, 1937, he enrolled at the Hungarian Péter Pázmány Királyi University in Budapest. He successfully passed his first medical exam and received his final certificate (second semester 1942), but his medical diploma was issued in Bologna.

Chess composition                                                                                                                                                              Magyar Sakkélet -He was one of the founders of the well-known Hungarian magazine "Magyar Sakkélet".The one that he directed more than 20 years, at the same time the end column. He also excelled as an international judge of chess composition.

Chessteacher                                                                                                                                                                              He was one of the most important chess teachers of the 20th century.

At the Kölcsey High School he learned to play chess from Tibor Flórián and Miklós Schneider. In 1945 he came first in the main tournament and received the title of chess master.

In 1946 he gave up his medical career and devoted his life to chess.

His chess career

After graduating as a doctor, he did not practice for a minute, but took part in organizing rural chess life in the first post-war chess association, MADOS (Hungarian Workers' National Chess Association). It gave him the title of master in chess, but he also achieved the same title in solving chess problems and endgame studies, and after the title was introduced, he was one of the first to receive the title of master coach, following one of his fellow coaches at the 1956 Moscow Chess Olympiad with 2: 3. for the Hungarian national chess team.

He managed to organize his life in such a way that he lived only from chess and chess lessons: from 1951 he - together with László Szabó and Gedeon Barcza - (as editor-in-chief and then as specialist editor) published “ Hungarian Chess Life ” (where he also included the study department), led a weekly chess column in Népszava, Vándor Kálmán headed its sports department, together with Gedeon Barcza he taught and trained the chess team of the Tipográfia club. At the end of the 1970s he strengthened the Vasas Izzo. In 2009, on the occasion of his 90th birthday and the 30th anniversary of his death, in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the development, dissemination and popularization of chess culture, he was posthumously awarded the honorary title of Knight of Caissa, endowed by the Hungarian Chess Association and the Foundation for Chess Culture .

Forty years after Jenö Bán death

His hometown and its surroundings still preserve his name with the Jenő Bán Memorial Competition, his birthplace in Dunapataji is marked by a memorial plaque, and a small area not far from his birthplace was also named after him. The organizer of the Jenő Bán memorial competitions, which are organized annually with the participation of hundreds of primary school children, is the logicusak(k) cultural and sports association. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, a wreath was laid on the memorial plaque at his parents' house in Dunapataj.

His chess books

In addition to the books mentioned above (of which The Tactics of the Finals was published in English and German and both publications were made accessible to the blind in Braille editions and as audio books in several languages), he also wrote championship bulletins and a handbook. His main works:

The Elements of Chess (with Lajos Asztalos, Bp., 1950-2006 consecutive many editions, e.g. ISBN 963-09-3516-3 )

Tactics of Endgames (Bp., several editions from 1954 in Hungarian, English and German)

The VII Hungarian Chess Championship (Bp., 1952)

The Xth Hungarian Chess Championship ( with József Pogáts , Bp., 1955)

End Game School (Bp., 1965)

Awards and honours

Honoured Sportsman of the Hungarian People's Republic (1954) [3]

Master coach (1956)

Medal of Merit for Socialist Labour (1961) [4]

Bronze Medal of Sports Merit of the Hungarian People's Republic (1975) [5]

Knight of Caissa (2009) (posthumously)

Notes

Foundation and donation of the Knight of Caissa Prize (in Hungarian). Hungarian Chess Federation. [2014. Archived from the original on 17 October]. (Accessed: 13 October 2014)

Chess master Dr Jenő Bán was born 100 years ago /2019/ lays a wreath , 26 September 2019.

Who recently won the title of worthy sportsman. Popular sport , (28 May 1954)

(February 1961) " Honours ". Hungarian Chess Life 11 (2), p. 25.

(December 1975) " Honours ". Hungarian Chess Life 25 (12), p. 287

Source: Wikipedia (hu)