The First U.S. Junior Championship 1946

Larry Friedman

     The U.S. Junior Open was started by the USCF in 1946, mainly due to the growing popularity of chess among young players and eventually many of the country's top players either became junior champions or they at least participated in the tournament. Unfortunately many of the games and even crosstables were lost, so not much remains of many of those early tournaments.
     The first tournament, held at the YMCA in Chicago in July of 1946, drew 32 entrants under the age of nineteen, the cutoff for juniors in those days. There was a preliminary round and out of four games, three points were required to qualify for the finals; the qualifying points did not carry over to the finals. For those that did not qualify there were two other tournaments: the consolation tournament and the class A tournament. 
     Some of the players went on to fame, some went on to become well known local players and some faded into obscurity. In the 1946 event one of the most interesting stories was that of the the winner, 16-year old Larry Friedman, the 1945 Junior Champion from Cleveland, Ohio. 
     The previous year Friedman finished in 4th place in the Ohio State Championship while a sophomore at Shaw High School in Cleveland. Friedman also won the Junior Open in 1947, held in Cleveland. 
     On July 31, 1950, Friedman appeared on the first USCF rating list at 2284. On the 1952 rating list his rating was 2145. He soon quit chess until he popped up in the late 1970s and took 1st place as the top New Jersey resident in the New Jersey Open (though the event was actually won by Tibor Weinberger) only to disappear again. The youngest was 11-year old Ross Siemms of Toronto. 
     Hans Berliner went on to become an IM and a correspondence GM. He won five Washington DC championships, the New York State championship, three of Chess Review's Golden Knight Championships and the World Correspondence Championship. 
     James B. Cross finished in the top three in the next four junior championships and won the title in Milwaukee in 1955. Cross was a strong master from California who studied under Herman Steiner, but retired after Steiner died. 
 

Dr. Poschel in 1960

    Paul Poschel won the Illinois Championship in 1949 and was Michigan State Champion five times. He also won the 1946 Correspondence Chess League Of America's Grand National Tournament. I had the pleasure of playing, and losing to, Dr. Poschel in the late 1960s, or maybe it was in the early 1970s, in a tournament in Toledo, Ohio. I especially remember it because I gave Poschel a tough game before exceeding the time limit in a lost position.  There were a lot of spectators crowded around our board.  After my flag fell Poschel, who had not looked at my rating before the game, asked if I was an Expert and when I told him no, his comment was that I played like one. I am sure he was just being nice, but it was very flattering! 
     Richard Kujoth, who was to eventually be Dr. Richard Kujoth, became champion of Wisconsin in 1947, 1948, 1949, 1952, 1953, and 1958. Lee Magee became the champion of Nebraska four times. 

Kujoth in later years

     Philip LeCornu was a Michigan Open champion, who left the USCF a $350,000 bequest of which $50,000 was used to start a Philip LeCornu Olympiad Fund, with 10 percent of the fund available each two years to support American teams. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 79 in Seminole, Florida.
     Some other players whose names I remember seeing in the distant past were George Miller (who may have been from Cleveland, Ohio?), Donald Kilgore and Eugene Levin, the 1946 and 1947 California Junior Champion. In 1953, Isaac Kashdan won the 20-player Hollywood Invitational with the score of 18.5-0.5, second place went to Levin, followed by Herman Steiner. 

8-14-18 Edit:
     I received an email from Michael Steve, the editor of the Ohio Chess Bulletin with additional information on George Miller. Thank you Mr. Steve! From the Ohio Chess Association Bulletin, Volume 1 No. 2, August 19, 1946, 

"Larry Friedman Wins The first National Junior Chess Championship of the United States was held on July 1st to 6th, at Chicago, under the auspices of the United States Chess Federation. Ohio entered four boys, viz.: Carl Driscoll, of Dayton; Larry Friedman, of East Cleveland; and George and Harald Miller, of Cleveland Heights. All four qualified for the finals. We are proud of these young men. Larry Friedman brought back to Ohio the Junior Championship. We hope to have the beautiful trophy, which he won, for exhibition at Columbus. He will play in the Major Tournament." (i.e., State Championship).” 

     Thus, at the time of the report, George Miller, age 16, was City Champion of Cleveland and twin brother Harald Miller was Junior Champion of Cleveland. Their story is quite interesting. They were born in Vienna, Austria on 8 June 1929. Their father Otto Miller was arrested on Kristallnacht and sent to Dachau until their mother Grete Wertheimer Miller was able to negotiate his release with the Gestapo. The family fled to South Africa in 1939. In 1941 a family named Miller of the Cleveland Jewish community sponsored them to come to America and settle in Cleveland. The twins attended Cleveland Heights High School. They were very active in chess, with Harald winning the State Championship in 1951, George in 1962. They held simuls and blindfold exhibitions are participated in many tournaments in the Cleveland area before concentrating on their work as CPAs. Harald passed away on 3 April 2014; I have no date of death for George, who had died earlier than Harald.

Finals: 
1) Larry Friedman 8.5-2.5 
2-3) Hans Berliner and Philip Le Cornu 7.5-3.5 
4) James B. Cross 6.5-4.5 
5) Paul Poschel 6.0-5.5 
6) Larry Evans 5.5-5.5 
7) George Miller 5.0-6.0 
8) Richard Kujoth 4.5-6.5 
9-10) Paul Dietz and Carl Driscoll 4.0-7.0 

     The Consolation tournament was a tie between Eugene Levin and Jack Hurst. They were followed by Donald, Kilgore, Julian Leavitt, Gerald Rothstein, Melvin Janowicz and Ted Lewis and Ralph Williams. 
     Winners of the Class A event were William Grossman and Robert Meredith followed by Henry Blume, Roy Berg and Sheldon Rein, John Carron, Richard Crittenden and Stephen Smale, and Roger Clipes. 
     I searched high and low for games from this event, but the below game was the only one I was able to locate. Berliner blundered early in the opening and never had a ghost of a chance after that.