He was a Harvard, class of 1929, graduate who won the precedent, setting Harvard, Yale, Princeton and West Point College Chess League’s first organized individual championship tournament in the history of college chess in the United States. The game were played in the Manhattan Chess Club on April 8, 9 and 10, 1929.      Chevalier of Harvard demonstrated a clear superiority over all of his rivals by defeating them in five consecutive rounds and emerging with a perfect 5-0 score., thereby earning him the earned the distinction of being the first American ..read more

    Needless to say, with WWII going on there wasn’t a lot of chess activity going on, especially in England.      January was the start of the nocturnal Luftwaffe bombing offensive chiefly targeted at the Greater London area which lasted until May. Later, in September, the first V-2 rocket attack on London was launched from The Hague. And, on June 6th, D-Day for the Normandy landings was launched. It involved 155,000 Allied troops.      In other British news, in February a pay as you earn system of tax collection introduced and in May t ..read more

    In the winter of 1948, when it came to the attention of the Manhattan Chess Club that three top foreign players would be spending December in New York, a tournament was put together on short notice.      The masters in question were former world champion Max Euwe, Miguel Najdorf and Swedish champion Gideon Stahlberg. Unfortunately, Stahlberg would not be staying in New York long enough to participate, so he declined. His invitation went to Samuel Reshevsky, who also declined. Argentinian master Herman Pilnik found out about the tournament from Najdorf a ..read more

     When it comes to picking Alehome’s greatest game it;s impossible because he had so many, but his game against Reti at Baden-Baden, 1925 has to be one of them. It’s been annotated by a lot of GMs including Gary Kasparov. You’ve probably seen it before, but even if you have it’s worth looking at again.      Following World War I which ended in November of 1914 no really great tournaments had been held in Germany and so Tarrasch prevailed upon the authorities Baden-Baden, a famous spa city, to host another international tournament...the last had bee in 18 ..read more

    The really big news in 1944 was  the Allies invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6th. The BBC Home Service presenter, John Snagge, announced these immortal words: "D-Day has come. Early this morning the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler's European fortress.”      A number of players were lost that year. German master Wilhelm Orbach (1894-1944) died Auschwitz/ Polish-Dutch master Salo Landau (1903-1944) was gassed by the Nazis in a German concentration camp in Poland. Polish masters Dawid Daniuszewski (1885-1944) and Dalomo ..read more

James I. Minchin (March 12, 1825 - January 18, 1903) was born in Madras, India where for many years he was engaged in the Civil Service in India.      The Sepoy Rebellion (1857-1858), an uprising against the British, caught the British by surprise. During that time Minchin sent his wife Mary, who was in poor health due to the climate in Madras, back to England. In due course she returned to India, however the travel, the climate and seven pregnancies had taken their toll and she passed away in Madras, where she had been born, in about 1877.     Minchin retu ..read more

    Yesterday was a harrowing one owing to rain, flooding, severe weather alerts and power outages, but we were mercifully blessed to have been spared all but an incessant drizzle. I spent some time playing on Chess Hotel.      I like the site because you sign in with a guest name and then choose your time limit or click on the list of available games and start playing. The strength of the players is usually in the low to medium range.      There does not seem to be a lot of engine users and some players demonstrate bad etiquette by aban ..read more

    The tournament held at Groningen, Netherlands from August 13 to September 7, 1946, was a watershed in chess history. Not only was it the first major international tournament after World War II, it marked the first time the Soviet Union sent a team of players to a foreign event. Their results confirmed the growing recognition of the great strength of Soviet players. Of the Soviets, only Alexander Kotov had a middling result, but he defeated both of the top finishers.     Mikhail Botvinnik and Max Euwe were in a close race to the end. Botvinnik had a lead much ..read more

    The 1916 United States presidential election was won by the incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Charlie Chaplin signed on with Mutual Studios and earns an unprecedented $10,000 a week. In buying power in today’s dollars that’s over $280,000 per week, or $14 million a year. That’s not a lot; in 2022 an actor/filmmaker/producer names Tyler Perry raked in $175 million.      Chess players didn’t fare as well financially as Chaplin. In 1916, Siegbert Tarrasch defeated Jacques Mieses by a score of 9-4 in a match played in in Berlin. With Germany in the middle of Wor ..read more

    At the time the 1953/54 Hastings tournament was one of the most exciting and interesting of all the Hastings events.      Not only was the quality of the play considered higher than in many of the previous Hastings events, it had, for that time, the unusual, but most welcome, participation of Russian Grandmasters and it was a success for the British as C. H. O’D. Alexander tied for first with the redoubtable David Bronstein. Alexander was the only British player ever to have won the first prize outright in a Hastings which he dis in 1946-47.    ..read more