Prize money in 1955 plus a sharp King's Gambit

     While looking at the 1955 Chess Life magazine I ran across the breakdown of the prize fund for the 1955 US Open and it was interesting to see what the players received as prize money. First place tie breaks ultimately went to Rossolimo after some confusion which you can read about here. 
      Rossolimo won a Buick automobile. I am not sure exactly what the cost of the car was, but a stock 1955 Buick 4-door Tourback Sedan sold for $2,291 which is the equivalent of about $20,300 in today's dollars.  For his second place finish Reshevsky got $1,000...about $8,892 today. 
Other prizes were: 
Donald Byrne $750 ($6632 today) 
Larry Evans and Abe Turner $550 ($4,864 today) 
5 players received $300 ($2,653 today) 9 players, including Arthur Dake received $72.23 ($638.80 today) 
16 players, including William Lombardy, received $3.13 ($27.68 today) 
Sonja Graf, top woman won $50 ($442.20 today) 

By contrast, the top prizes in the last U.S. Open were:  $8,000-4,000-2,000-1,500-1,000-800-600-500 plus $200 to a clear winner. The total prize fund last year was $50,000 compared to $5,115 (a little over $45,000 today) in 1955. 

Rossolimo (left) receives his car

Unrelated to the Open, I stumbled on the following King's Gambit game played in the Wichita, Kansas Open in 1954. It's a Cunningham Gambit where black snatched too many Pawns and white quickly got the upper hand. The ensuing complications were enormous and, as usual, it's a good idea to play through the variations on an actual board and try to visualize all the lines.