The year 1918 was a rough one because it was heavily influenced by World War I plus the Spanish Flu epidemic which resulted in life expectancy at birth in the US dropping by almost 12 years to a scant 26,6 years for men and 42.2 years for women.
Opha Mae Johnson (1878-1955) was born in Kokomo, Indiana and graduated as salutatorian of her class from the shorthand and typewriting department of Wood's Commercial College in Washington, DC in 1895.
As far as is known, she didn’t play chess, but on August 13, 1918, at the age of 39, she joined the Marine Corps Reserve making her the first women to enlist in the Marine Corps Reserve during World War I.
Her first duties were as a clerk at Headquarters Marine Corps, managing the records of other female reservists who joined after she did. She was soon promoted to sergeant and was the highest ranking woman in the Corps during her time in service.
At the end of World War I the Corps, like all services, women were slowly released from duty and she became a clerk in the War Department and worked for the Marine Corps as a civil servant until retiring in 1943. Semper Fi, Sergeant Johnson!
New York 1918 was originally planned as an 8-player double round tournament, but the nefarious Norman T. Whitaker began a game a day before round 1, became ill and withdrew.
Round 1 saw the most famous game of the tournament when Frank Marshall sprung his prepared variation of what has come to be known as the Marshall Gambit against Jose Capablanca who managed to win anyway.
In Round 2, Marshall lost againt, this time to Oscar Chajes and as a result Marshall was unable to overcome his bad start.
The loser of today’s game, which features some interesting tactical play, was John S. Morrison (1889-1975) from Toronto. He was Canadian champion in 1910, 1913, 1922, 1924, 1926 and shared first place in 1931 with Maurice Fox won the playoff. In 2000, he was inducted posthumously into the Canadian Chess Hall of Fame.
The fact is, both players deserve credit for a well played game. The tactical analysis with Fritz assigns Morrison a credible Weighted Error Value of 0.39 while Capablanca performed at a very precise 0.39.
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