Playing Strength
In 1950, FIDE, in its first award of international titles, awarded Atkins the International Master title in recognition of his past achievements. By Arpad Elo's calculation, Atkins' strength during his five-year peak was equivalent to an Elo rating of 2540.
World Champion Emanuel Lasker believed that if Atkins had devoted more time to chess, he would have become one of the world's leading players. Sir George Thomas, one of Britain's leading players in the first half of the 20th century, observed, "H. E. Atkins ranks, indisputably, as the greatest figure in English chess since Amos Burn, and only lack of opportunity prevented him, in my opinion, from definitely establishing his position in the world championship class." Anne Sunnucks writes that, "His devotion to teaching and his insistence on treating chess as merely a game was all that prevented him from becoming one of the leading players of the world."
Read more about this topic: Henry Ernest Atkins
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or strength:
“They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car.
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar.
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“The wise and just man will always feel that he stands on his own feet; that he imparts strength to the state, not receives security from it; and if all went down, he and such as he would quite easily combine in a new and better constitution.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)