Lajos Szedlacsek

One of the first local masters I remember seeing in action was the Hungarian emigre, Lajos Szedlacsek. His rating, if memory serves, was something over 2300, which was quite high for the early 1960s. Supposedly Szedlacsek arrived in U.S. in 1956 or 1957. According to one source he was born in Hungary in 1910. He passed away in Cleveland, Ohio on 16 June 1964 at St. Lukes Hospital at the age of 54. Beyond that, I was unable to find much information about him and his games are scarce. I did find the following crosstable from the following tournament held in Budapest in 1953.

There are several mentions of him playing in tournaments, usually with considerable success, all over the Mid-West during the late 1950s to early 1960s, but beyond that, nothing. I did uncover a couple of his games from the West Virginia chess archives, including the one that follows. His opponent was a well-known Mercer, Pennsylvania master. In the event in which it was played, the 1963 Tri-State Championship, Wheeling, West Virginia, the final scores were: 1. Szedlacsek 4-1 (two draws), 2. John Downes of New Martinsville, Pa, with 3.5-1.5 , 3-4. Johnson and James R. Schroeder, Cleveland, Ohio 2.5-2.5, 5. Dr Alex Darbes of Huntington, West Virginia with 2-3 and 6. Richard Ling of Dayton, Ohio with 0.5-4.5. Ling’s draw was with Szedlacsek who was also held to a draw by Schroeder.

It’s interesting to see how good garden variety masters were in those days. The game was pretty well played except for White’s blunder at move 46 which lost immediately.