Random Posts

  • Academic Chess
  • Russia's (Fake) Bobby Fischer
  • Vladimir Simagin
  • Fun Blitz Game
  • Andrew Soltis on Monkey Wrenches
  • Queen Alice and Chess Hotel Updates
  • Multiple pins and a Weak Back Rank
  • Update On the Obscure Celia Neimark
  • Chessbase Products
  • David Janowsky
  • Monday, November 9, 2015

    Follow Up to Post on USCF Rating List for 1960

         Many of the players on that list are well known even today, but some are not and some have almost no information available. I searched for some of the lesser known players on the list and have linked to what information I was able to find. Readers with any information about any of these players feel free share!!







    Herbert Seidman 
    James B. Cross - Born 1930, 1950 won the US Junior Championship, held in Milwaukee. In 1957, won the California State Championship. 
    Arthur Feuerstein – My record against Feuerstein is 0-2. 
    Curt Brasket - Wikipedia, Obituary
    Herbert Avram 
    Povilas Tautvaisas 
    Eliot Hearst 
    Tibor Weinberger - Born November 27, 1932 in Hungary.   In 1962, he tied for 1st in the California State Championship.  In 1970, he won the California Open. FIDE master. 
    Leroy Dubeck 
    Zolton Kovacs - Born Feb-21-1930 in Hungary 
    Robion Kirby 
    John Hudson - Won the 1952 Louisiana State Championship. In 1956, he won the U.S. Amateur Championship. He was Armed Forces Champion in 1960, 1961, and 1970. In 1965, he won the California State Open. In 1951, following the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He was a navigator-bombardier on B47 and B52 bombers. He was also a navigation-training instructor and served as editor of The Navigator magazine. He retired from the USAF in 1971 with the rank of Major. 
    Stephan Popel 
    Albert Sandrin 
    Boris Siff 
    Charles Henin 
    Theodore Dunst 
    Tulio Pizzi - Born Oct-09-1919, died Aug-15-2005, 85 years old, in Chile. He was Chilean champion in 1946. 
    August Rankis - Born Mar-29-1911 (died Nov-02-1966, 55 years old) in Latvia. Rankis shared first prize with Erik Karklins in the 1947 Latvian-English Zone Championship in Germany. In 1957, he won the New York State Championship with a 9-0 score. He also won the New York State Championship in 1959. In 1965, he won the 5th North American-Latvian chess championship. 
    Martin Harrow 
    Saul Yarmak 
    John Tums 
    Louis Szedlacsek - Born 1910, died Jun-12-1964, 54 years old. 
    Walter Harris 
    Raul Benedicto - Born Feb-14-1923, died Mar-05-2005 at age 82, in Puerto Rico 
    Ariel Mengarini

    2 comments:

    1. Boy, that list takes me back! When I was just getting into chess, back in the early ‘60’s, the Sandrin brothers, Paul Tautvaisis, Rob Kirby, and John Tums were chess royalty in Chicago. Al Sandrin, who was 1949 US Open Champion may have been the most talented of the bunch, but he had become almost totally blind at that point, which made tournament chess much more tiring and difficult. But he still maintained a Master rating for many years. Tautvaisis was famous for his deep knowledge of the Schliemann Defense to the Ruy. Many an ambitious young Chicago expert tried to surprise the old fox with some special home cooking in that variation, but they almost always ended up ruefully turning over their king.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Lots of nostalgia for me, too! They were names that appeared all the time in Chess Life and most players today do not appreciate the fact that masters were rare in those days. Hearst used to write a popular column for Chess Life and as a ten year old kid I wrote him a letter showing off one of my games. I was thrilled when he responded with a very kind letter, some encouraging words and a couple of notes to the game.

      ReplyDelete