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. 

[Event "Match Championship, Cincinnati"] [Site "Cincinnati, OH USA"] [Date "1934.05.08"] [Round "2"] [White "Dr. P.G. Keeney"] [Black "John O. Hoy"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B02"] [Annotator "Stockfish 16"] [PlyCount "59"] [EventDate "1934.05.07"] [Source "Cincinnati Enqui"] {B02: Alekhine's Defense} 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 {[%mdl 32] White does better with the standard 3.d4 because the text does not yield favorable results in practice.} Nb6 4. c5 (4. d4 {is much more popular and actually gives white better results.} d6 5. exd6 exd6 6. Nc3 Be7 7. Bd3 Nc6 8. Nge2 { equals.}) 4... Nd5 5. Nc3 Nxc3 (5... e6 6. d4 d6 7. cxd6 cxd6 8. Nf3 Nc6 9. exd6 Bxd6 10. Bd3 O-O 11. O-O {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. Bd3 Bxc5 8. Qg4 g6 9. Bh6 f5 10. exf6 Qxf6 11. Nf3 Nc6 12. O-O-O {with equal chances. Ginzburg,Y (2405)-Jaskolka,T (2216) chess.com INT 2022}) 6... d6 7. cxd6 exd6 (7... cxd6 8. exd6 Qxd6 9. d4 g6 10. Nf3 Bg7 11. Be2 O-O {equals. Gal,J (2325)-Bogdan, D (2410) Szeged 1998}) 8. exd6 Bxd6 9. d4 O-O 10. Be3 Qe7 11. Bc4 c5 12. Nf3 Bg4 13. O-O Nc6 14. dxc5 (14. h3 {is more complex.} cxd4 15. cxd4 Bh5 16. Re1 {Oddly, black's Q is safe from discoveries for the moment.} Rae8 17. Be2 Bb4 18. Bd2 Bxd2 19. Qxd2 Qf6 {with equal chances.}) 14... Bxh2+ 15. Kxh2 Bxf3 16. Qxf3 Qh4+ 17. Kg1 Qxc4 18. Rab1 { 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. Rxb7 f4 {Black simply does not have enough compensation to justify his last move.} 20. Qg4 (20. Qxc6 {This move would have given black enough play...} fxe3 21. Rb4 (21. f3 Rad8 22. Re1 Rfe8 23. Rxa7 {loses as follows...} Qh4 24. Qa4 (24. Re2 Rd1+ {mate next move}) 24... Qxe1+) (21. Qd6 exf2+ 22. Rxf2 Rxf2 23. Kxf2 Qh4+ {White's K is so exposed that black should draw with little difficulty.}) 21... Qxc3 22. Qd5+ Kh8 23. Re4 exf2+ 24. Rxf2 Rfd8 25. Rfe2 Qc1+ 26. Kh2 Qh6+ 27. Kg1 Qc1+ {draws}) 20... Qxc3 21. Bxf4 (21. Bd4 {is hard to see, but it would prove decisive.} Qxd4 22. Rd1 Qf6 23. Rdd7 g5 24. Qh3 Qf7 (24... h6 25. Qb3+ Rf7 26. Rxf7 {wins}) 25. Rxf7 Rxf7 26. Rxf7 Kxf7 27. Qf5+ Ke8 28. Qe4+ Kd7 29. Qd5+ Kc7 30. Qd6+ Kb7 31. Qd7+ Kb8 32. Qxc6) 21... Qf6 22. Bd6 Rfe8 (22... Rf7 {is best met by} 23. Rb3 {The R has accomplished all it can on the 7th rank and so it's time to relocate it.} Qf5 24. Qa4 Qd7 25. Re3 Rd8 26. Rfe1 {White's advantage should prove decisive, but the win will still require a lot of work.}) 23. Rfb1 Re6 {This allows a very nice finish, but his position was already badly compromised.} 24. Rxg7+ { [%mdl 512] Nice!} Qxg7 25. Qxe6+ Kh8 (25... Qf7 26. Qe4 Qe8 (26... Rc8 27. Qg4+ {wins the R}) 27. Qd5+ Kh8 28. Rb7 Rd8 29. Qg5 Qg6 30. Be5+ Kg8 31. Rg7+) 26. Bg3 (26. Bb8 {was a slick move!} Nxb8 27. Qe8+ Qg8 28. Qe5+ Qg7 29. Rxb8+ Rxb8 30. Qxb8+ {wins the ending.}) 26... Qg6 27. Be5+ Nxe5 28. Qxe5+ Kg8 29. Qd5+ Kg7 30. Rb3 {An excellent choice. Black resigned.} (30. Qxa8 {is less precise because it leads to a very difficult Q+P ending! Watch...} Qxb1+ 31. Kh2 Qxa2 32. Qb7+ Kf8 33. c6 Qxf2 34. Qb8+ (34. c7 Qh4+ {draws}) 34... Kf7 35. Qc7+ Ke8 (35... Kg8 36. Qg3+) 36. Qd7+ Kf8 37. Qd8+ Kf7 38. Qd5+ Ke7 39. Qe5+ Kd8 40. Qd6+ Ke8 41. Qe6+ Kf8 42. Qe5 Qh4+ 43. Kg1 Qb4 44. c7 Qb6+ 45. Kh2 Qh6+ 46. Kg3 Qg6+ 47. Kf4 Qh6+ 48. Ke4 Qc6+ 49. Kd4 Qd7+ 50. Kc5 Kf7 51. g4 a6 (51... Qxg4 52. Qd5+ Kf6 53. Qd4+) 52. Qf5+) (30. Rb3 Qf6 31. Rg3+ Kf8 (31... Kh8 32. Qxa8+ ) 32. Rf3) 1-0