As a result the USCF created a “Master Plan” for reorganizing the title that consisted of a three-year cycle of elimination contests similar to the one that FIDE had just established to choose a world championship challenger.
The cycle began with regional preliminaries the first year and the second year there would be a Candidates Tournament made up of the regional qualifiers and seeded players. The finals would be played the third year. This system would result in a smaller, more manageable event. The plan struck a snag almost immediately...the Candidates Tournament of 1950 was never organized!
As a result, in 1951 the USCF tried to salvage their botched plan by holding some kind of a huge invitational event with 50 players from across the country. At some point, somebody realized this would be even worse that the 1948 disaster.
Their solution was to hold a 24 player event, but that, too, met with a problem...very few players were interested in playing! Herman Steiner, Arnold Denker, Reuben Fine and Isaac Kashdan turned down their invitations. In the end 24 players showed up in New York in June to go through elimination events to qualify for the 12-player finals in July.
The finals winner and new US Champion was Larry Evans who scored an undefeated 9.5-3.5. Samuel Reshevsky finished second a point behind as a result of a surprise loss (his only one) to 8th place finisher Dr. Ariel Mengarini.
Apparently at that time the Champion could also put his title on the line in match play and so Herman Steiner was able to arrange a match with Evans for the title,
The prize fund was $3,000...no small amount; it was the equivalent of over $29,000 today. The average cost of new house in 1952 was $10,250 and gas cost 22 cents a gallon and a movie ticket cost 70 cents.
The games were scheduled to be played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Reno and New York, but the games in New York were canceled after Evans had established a commanding +8 -2 =4 lead.
The USCF idea of a championship cycle completely flopped as only a few of the regional preliminaries were held. The problem was local sponsors could be found to hold the preliminaries in the country’s big chess centers, but nowhere else.
In an effort to salvage the disaster, the USCF planned a candidates tournament to be held in Philadelphia in September 1953. This tournament would be open to anybody with a rating above 2000 and who was willing to pay a $25 (almost $250 in today’s dollars) entry fee.
The idea wasn’t very popular and 23 players showed up to play in a Swiss system instead of round robins. The entire prize fund was $250 ($2,400 today). The real stake though was six spots in the 1954 championship.
As usual, the USCF was having financial difficulties and couldn’t afford to pay for a hotel venue to hold the 1954 tournament. As a last resort the Marshall Chess Club offered its rooms.
Arthur Bisguier, at the age of 23, was just out of the Army and had qualified from Philadelphia. He had been an up and comer a few years before when he won the 1950 US Open and his first international tournament at Southsea, England, but hadn’t done much since then. Bisguier was attending college classes during the day and ended up sleeping in one of the Marshall's upstairs apartments at night.
Play began on May 29, 1954 and it was a relatively weak field. Bisguier was eighth on the latest rating list while the defending champion Larry Evans was only tenth. None of the five top rated players had accepted their invitations. They were Samuel Reshevsky, Robert Byrne, George Kramer, Donald Byrne and Arnold Denker.
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| Bisguier in 2011 |
Among the favorites were Evans, Bisguier, recent French emigre Nicolas Rossolimo and Max Pavey.
The 20-year-old James T. Sherwin, a Marshall Chess Club junior star, was only ranked 24th on the rating list, but he took the early lead after five rounds. Sherwin was unable to keep up the pace and ended up with a +4 -2 =7. His two losses were to Bisguier and Evans.
When Bisguier and Sherwin met in the next to last round it was one of the most exciting games of the tournament. They castled on opposite sides and both were P-storming their opponent’s King. The last third of the game saw mate threats hanging over the head’s of both Kings.
Then Sherwin tried to force a draw and declining it meant Bisguier had to accept an extremely dangerous Knight sacrifice. He decided that with the US Championship title on the line that he had to take the risk so declined the sacrifice only to have Sherwin give him a bad scare by making another sacrifice, this time a Rook. But in the end luck was with Bisguier and he won when Sherwin blundered and and lost on time.
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| Sherwin |
Bisguier entered the final found only a half point ahead of Evans who had white against Seidman who he would normally expect to beat. Mengarini had white against Bisguier.
Mengarini refused Bisguier's draw offer. What’s interesting is that in the 1951 tournament, Mengarini had white against tournament leader Larry Evans and refused the draw offer there also. In a dead drawn B of opposite color ending he suddenly began blundering and ended up losing!
History repeated itself in this tournament. Instead of accepting Bisguier’s draw offer, he desperately tried to win, blundered on the 47th move and lost. Meanwhile the Evans-Seidman game was drawn and Bisguier was the new US Champion and $254.35 (about $2,400 today) richer.
Final standing:
1) Arthur Bisguier 10.0
2) Larry Evans 9.0
3) Herbert Seidman 8.0
4-5) Max Pavey and James Sherwin 7.5
6-7) Sidney Bernstein and Nicolas Rossolimo 7.0
8-9) Hans Berliner and Saul Wachs 6.5
10) Eliot Hearst 6.0
11) Karl Burger 5.5
12) Carl Pilnick 5.0
13) Paul Brandts 3
14) Ariel Mengarini 2.5
In his book The Art of Bisguier, he included his wins against Dr. Karl Burger, Carl Pilnick, Eliot Hearst and James T. Sherwin from this tournament.
There are two books in the series, both were written with coauthor Newton Berry. Volume 1 covers 1945 to 1960 and Volume 2 covers 1961 to 2003.
The first book is not without flaws. It measure 8.5 x 11 with a cheap binding that will fall apart after minimal use. It also has a lot of pictures which is nice, but for some reason many of them appear distorted. Bisguier also has the annoying habit of calling pieces Monarchs, Prelates, Steads, etc. apparently in an attempt at humor.
In spite of the awkward size, poor binding and wonky photographs, the printing is easy to read with large type for game moves and italic type for notes, plus the 82 games are packed with 380 diagrams. In spite of the rather superficial notes, the games are a joy to play over.
Bisguier was a classical player and his attacks followed as a result of his straight-forward moves. Although he hated to lose, he had panache and wasn’t afraid to take chances with hair raising consequences such as in this game against Sherwin.
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