Over 20 players entered the Championship, but the committee was totally unprepared for that many and had a hard time deciding what to do. They finally decided to limit the championship section
to masters with national or international reputations and placed other entries in the Experts Section. Needless to say, the Experts were disappointed that they were not allowed a crack at the State title.
In the Experts Section Sven Almgren and Abe Yanofsky, a schoolboy from Winnipeg, Manitoba, shared first with 7.5-1.5 scores a half point ahead of Dr. Bruno Schmidt who started off with a string of seven straight wins before losing in the last two rounds.
The other tournaments were designated "Working Men's tournaments" and the games were played in the evening.
The Class A tournament was won by Frank Valvo with 8.5-1.5, a full point ahead of Julios Partos and Paul Rosenzweig.
In the Class B tournament Frederick Ekstrom and Louis Persinger tied for first with 7.5-1.5.
The Class C section was won by Sidney Ross with 8.5-0.5 a full two points ahead of George Cheney.
In the Masters section an undefeated Reuben Fine demonstrated that he was in fighting form and ready to make a determined effort to dethrone Reshevsky as US Champion in the upcoming 1942 tournament. Even before the 1942 championship, Fine had tried unsuccessfully to arrange a championship title match with Reshevsky to be played in the winter of 1941.
As it turned out, Fine didn't play in the '42 event which is famous for being the one in which the TD, L. Walter Stephens, incorrectly forfeited Denker after Reshevsky's flag fell.
Stephens, standing behind the clock, picked it up and turned it around so that the clocks were facing opposite sides and then forfeited Denker. Even though proven wrong Stephens refused to change his decision. As a result Reshevsky and Kashdan tied for first and Reshevsky won the playoff match.
At the State Championship, even though he didn't lose any games, Reshevsky, then the current US Champion, found it tough going. He won only four games and drew six.
Indicative of his poor form was his game against a Harvard student named Clarence Hewlett, Jr., a promising young player, but one who was hardly in Reshevsky's class.
Clarence Hewlett (June 20, 1921 - August 6, 2006, 85 years old) was born in Iowa City, Iowa and passed away in Waynesboro, Virginia.
He earned his bachelor of science degree in physics and served as team captain of the Harvard Chess Team. He also attended Columbia University, earning his master's degree in mathematics.
He worked as an instrumentation designer on World War II's Manhattan Project where he developed instrumentation used in measuring the separation of Uranium 235 and Uranium 238, and was recognized for his contribution to the building of the Uranium Diffusion Plant.
He spent his career working for General Electric as an electrical engineer and computer circuit designer. He held over 20 patents for mechanical and electrical circuit designs.
A rated Expert, Hewlett won the New Hampshire championship in 1966 and 1970. After retirement, he became active in the game of Othello and served as the editor of the Othello Quarterly for 14 years.
Hewlett was Othello's oldest champion, winning the Virginia State Othello Championship in 1986 and 1987 and the Midwest Othello Open in 1985. Additionally, he played in the 1990 World Othello Championship held in Stockholm, Sweden.
He directed numerous local, regional and national tournaments and was the tournament director of the Othello World Championships held in Warsaw, Poland, in 1989 and again in New York in 1991. Hewlett also designed an Othello hardware endgame analysis computer that at the time was the world authority on Othello endgames.
In their game Hewlett outplayed Reshevsky in the early stages, won a pawn and could have drawn. However, Reshevsky's greater experience and his uncanny faculty of finding the best moves in time pressure allowed him to overpower Hewlett and win.
In this tournament Reshevsky's proverbial good luck deserted him in a couple of games. Overlooking the win against Fine cost him a probable tie for first place.
As usual, Reshevsky was frequently in time trouble and in his game against Denker he had 17 moves to play in about 2.5 minutes! While both players were blitzing out moves and making check marks on their scoresheets in lieu of writing down their moves. the TD, that old clodpoll L. Walter Stephens, in a precursor to the coming 1942 incident, interrupted and insisted that they actually write down their moves.
Reshevsky protested loudly and took up valuable time arguing with Stephens. The clocks were stopped and the players wrote down their moves.
Obviously upset by this interruption, the players resumed play with about one minute to go on each clock. Somehow both of them managed to move, record it and punch their clock in the remaining time to reach adjournment. Reshevsky complained the incident affected his play and might cost him the game, but he managed to win the after adjournment.
Then in the last round against tailender Harold Evans, Reshevsky made what was for him a rare, and in this case ill advised, attempt to win the brilliancy prize and it cost him second place.
With no chance to catch Fine, it was a foregone conclusion that he would defeat Evans and finish half a point ahead of Denker and Kashdan.
Indeed, Reshevsky obtained an overpowering position against Evans, won the exchange and had an easy win in six different ways. Instead of taking the point in a quiet, unspectacular fashion Reshevsky played an unsound Queen sacrifice. Evans found the flaw in the line and forced a perpetual check. The draw cost Reshevsky $33 in prize money. That's about $560 today.
With so many thrill packed games to choose from it was hard to decide which one to publish, but I finally settled on Hewlett's game against Harold Evans. The game was awarded the Brilliancy Prize by a panel of judges consisting of Harold M. Phillips, Frank Marshall and I. A. Horowitz who were unanimous in their selection.
Evans' unimaginative, routine opening meets with swift punishment from an array of batteries centered on his King.
I have no idea who Harold Evans was. I seem to remember a NY player named Harry Evans and Larry Evans was taught chess by his father, who was named Harry, but are they connected?
Harold Evans - Clarence Hewlett Jr
Result: 0-1
Site: New York State Championship, Hamilton
Date: 1941
Dutch Defense
[...] 1.d4 e6 2.e3 f5 3.♗d3 ♘f6 4.♘f3 b6 5.c4 ♗b7 6.O-O
7.♘bd2 O-O 8.♕c2 ♘c6 9.b3 ♘b4 10.♕b1 ♘xd3 11.♕xd3 ♕e8 A typical method of attacking on the K-side for black in the Dutch. 12.♗b2 ♕h5 13.♖ac1 ♗e4 14.♕c3 ♘g4 15.h3 ♖f6 Obviousy white can't take the N because of mate on h2. Now he has only one move that avoids defeat. 16.c5 White fails to find the equalizer.
6.b3 ♗e7 7.♘bd2 O-O 8.O-O ♕e8 9.♕c2 ♘c6 10.♗b2 ♘b4 11.♕c3 ♘xd3 12.♕xd3 ♘e4 Black has the better prospects. Nader,M (2033)-Abdel Fadil,M (2228)/Mahalla EGY 2009
6...♗d6
6...♗e7 7.♘c3 O-O 8.♕c2 ♗b4
8...♗xf3 9.gxf3 ♘c6 10.a3 ♕e8 11.f4 White's position is the more promising. Elissalt Cardenas,H (2317)-Lopez de Turiso,J (2137)/Parla ESP 2008
9.♘e2 ♘e4 10.a3 ♗d6 11.♘g3 ♗xg3 12.hxg3 a5 White is somewhat better. Shiomi,R (2072)-Salem,A (2228)/ Calvia ESP 2004 16.♘xe4 fxe4 Again, there is only one move here. 17.♘e5 ♘xe5 18.dxe5 ♖g6 Guess what? There is only one good move at white's disposal. 19.♔h2 and white can defend himself with little difficulty. Reaching this position would not have been an easy task OTB!
16...♖g6 17.cxd6 ♘e5 White has no way of saving the game. 18.♔h2 Allows a mate in 5, but there was no really better move.
18.♘xe4 ♘xf3+ 19.♔h1 fxe4 20.dxc7 ♖c8 21.♕c4 ♕g4 22.♖g1 (22.hxg4 ♖h6#) 22...♖h6 23.♕f1 ♘d2 24.♕e1 ♖xh3+ 25.gxh3 ♕xh3#
(18.dxe5 ♕xh3 mates in 2.) 18...♘xf3+ 19.gxf3 ♖h6 White resigned. (19...♖h6 20.♔g3 ♕xh3+ 21.♔f4 ♕h2+ 22.♔g5 ♖h5#) Powered by Aquarium
Another question: Was Frank Valvo any relation to the late Chess and Bridge master Mike Valvo?
ReplyDeleteThey were father and son. See Mike's obituary on the USCF website. For some reason the link will not publish here.
ReplyDelete