1934 Ohio Championship

    Down near Black Lake, Louisiana in 1934, FBI agents ambushed and killed bank robbers and murderers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Another criminal, bank robber John Dillinger, died after a shootout with police in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

 

 Correction: As caught by alert reader Paul Gottlied, Dillenger was killed in Chicago, but he escaped a shootout in St. Paul. Read/listen to article HERE

 

The kidnapper/murderer of Charles Lindbergh’s baby was arrested. Bruno Hauptmann maintained his innocence right up until the last minute that he was executed by electric chair on April 3, 1936. 

    July of 1934 was the hottest month ever recorded in Ohio with a record temperature of 113 degrees being set on the 21st about four miles northwest of Gallipolis in southern Ohio. 

    Air conditioning was still in the future and the estimated death toll in Ohio was about 160 dead just during the week of July 20-26. The oppressively warm nights led many people to seek relief by sleeping on porches, roofs, and even on their lawns. See Also 

    In May of 1934, before the heat wave hit, two prominent Ohio players who are virtually unknown today played a match for the state championship. They were P.G. Keeney and John O. Hoy. 

    Dr. Palmer Gunkel Keeney (March 25, 1877 - October 14, 1959, 82 years old) was, like his father, a medical doctor and composer of chess problems. 

    Keeney graduated from the Medical College of Ohio which was founded in Cincinnati in 1819 in Cincinnati. Prior to the Medical College's establishment, most doctors learned their profession through an apprenticeship system. Private doctors trained their students. In 1896, the college merged with the University of Cincinnati. He served his internship at Speers Memorial Hospital in Dayton, Ohio and practiced in Newport and Bellevue, Pennsylvania. Keeney also served served in WWI. 

    As a chessplayer Keeney was a noted problem composer. He was considered a chess prodigy after having composed his first problem at the age of 13. 

    He is not well-known today, but was a very successful chess editor and he was a two-time State Champion. His chess column in the Cincinnati Enquirer was widely regarded as one of the best in the world. His editorial career lasted into the 1950s, when he was the first problem editor for Chess Life. 

    Keeney liked to illustrate his problems with stories and his most famous problem was illustrated with a fabricated story by another author, Emil Ramin. Ramin, in Im Wunderland des Schachproblems, wrote of a crazy problem tourney that never existed and was supposedly won by Keeney. In reality, the problem was a Christmas original in Keeney's column in the Cincinnati Times-Star, and had a different story there; in the Times-Star the story was about the potential re-birth of man.

    In a match for the 1934 state title, Keeney, the1934 Southern Ohio champion, crushed a well-known local player named John O. Hoy of Cleveland the 1934 Northern Ohio Champion who was also the 1933 State Champion. You can see a photo of Hoy taken by the newspaper Cleveland Press in 1948 HERE. Virtually no information is available on Hoy. 

ChessBase

Dr. P.G. Keeney–John O. Hoy1–0B02Match Championship, Cincinnati2Cincinnati, OH USA08.05.1934Stockfish 16

B02: Alekhine's Defense 1.e4 f6 2.e5 d5 3.c4 White does better with the standard 3.d4 because the text does not yield favorable results in practice. b6 4.c5 4.d4 is much more popular and actually gives white better results. d6 5.exd6 exd6 6.c3 e7 7.d3 c6 8.ge2 equals. 4...d5 5.c3 xc3 5...e6 6.d4 d6 7.cxd6 cxd6 8.f3 c6 9.exd6 xd6 10.d3 0-0 11.0-0 1/2-1/2 (11) Durarbayli,V (2628) -Mamedyarov,S (2757) Shusha AZE 2022 6.bxc3 6.dxc3 is considered to be slightly more accurate. e6 7.d3 xc5 8.g4 g6 9.h6 f5 10.exf6 xf6 11.f3 c6 12.0-0-0 with equal chances. Ginzburg,Y (2405)-Jaskolka,T (2216) chess.com INT 2022 6...d6 7.cxd6 exd6 7...cxd6 8.exd6 xd6 9.d4 g6 10.f3 g7 11.e2 0-0 equals. Gal,J (2325)-Bogdan, D (2410) Szeged 1998 8.exd6 xd6 9.d4 0-0 10.e3 e7 11.c4 c5 12.f3 g4 13.0-0 c6 14.dxc5 14.h3 is more complex. cxd4 15.cxd4 h5 16.e1 Oddly, black's Q is safe from discoveries for the moment. ae8 17.e2 b4 18.d2 xd2 19.xd2 f6 with equal chances. 14...xh2+ 15.xh2 xf3 16.xf3 h4+ 17.g1 xc4 18.ab1 Neither side can boast of any advantage here, but Hoy's next move allowing a R on the 7th rank is a serious mistake. He should have played 18...Na5 or even 18...Nd8 f5 19.xb7 f4 Black simply does not have enough compensation to justify his last move. 20.g4 20.xc6 This move would have given black enough play... fxe3 21.b4 21.f3 ad8 22.e1 fe8 23.xa7 loses as follows... h4 24.a4 24.e2 d1+ mate next move 24...xe1+ 21.d6 exf2+ 22.xf2 xf2 23.xf2 h4+ White's K is so exposed that black should draw with little difficulty. 21...xc3 22.d5+ h8 23.e4 exf2+ 24.xf2 fd8 25.fe2 c1+ 26.h2 h6+ 27.g1 c1+ draws 20...xc3 21.xf4 21.d4 is hard to see, but it would prove decisive. xd4 22.d1 f6 23.dd7 g5 24.h3 f7 24...h6 25.b3+ f7 26.xf7 wins 25.xf7 xf7 26.xf7 xf7 27.f5+ e8 28.e4+ d7 29.d5+ c7 30.d6+ b7 31.d7+ b8 32.xc6 21...f6 22.d6 fe8 22...f7 is best met by 23.b3 The R has accomplished all it can on the 7th rank and so it's time to relocate it. f5 24.a4 d7 25.e3 d8 26.fe1 White's advantage should prove decisive, but the win will still require a lot of work. 23.fb1 e6 This allows a very nice finish, but his position was already badly compromised. 24.xg7+ Nice! xg7 25.xe6+ h8 25...f7 26.e4 e8 26...c8 27.g4+ wins the R 27.d5+ h8 28.b7 d8 29.g5 g6 30.e5+ g8 31.g7+ 26.g3 26.b8 was a slick move! xb8 27.e8+ g8 28.e5+ g7 29.xb8+ xb8 30.xb8+ wins the ending. 26...g6 27.e5+ xe5 28.xe5+ g8 29.d5+ g7 30.b3 An excellent choice. Black resigned. 30.xa8 is less precise because it leads to a very difficult Q+P ending! Watch... xb1+ 31.h2 xa2 32.b7+ f8 33.c6 xf2 34.b8+ 34.c7 h4+ draws 34...f7 35.c7+ e8 35...g8 36.g3+ 36.d7+ f8 37.d8+ f7 38.d5+ e7 39.e5+ d8 40.d6+ e8 41.e6+ f8 42.e5 h4+ 43.g1 b4 44.c7 b6+ 45.h2 h6+ 46.g3 g6+ 47.f4 h6+ 48.e4 c6+ 49.d4 d7+ 50.c5 f7 51.g4 a6 51...xg4 52.d5+ f6 53.d4+ 52.f5+ 30.b3 f6 31.g3+ f8 31...h8 32.xa8+ 32.f3 1–0

Download PGN