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Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Chess Champion Of New London Ohio

The Unknown Albert U. White, Jr.
     The other day I ran across a short article about a fellow named Albert U. White, Jr. from a place called New London, Ohio that was written by his grandson.  The article mentioned that White was a champion chessplayer, so, of course, it had my interest.
     These days New London, which lies about 45 miles SW of Cleveland and has a population of about 2,400 has an interesting history. In White's day the town was much smaller with a population closer to 1,500.  From about 1900 to about 1948 New London was nicknamed Ferretville USA because it was the ferret-raising capital of the world. They shipped 30,000 to 40,000 of the critters a year.  In those days ferrets were used to chase down rats on farms and there was also a sport called ferreting which was eventually outlawed in most states.
     Bert, as he was known to everyone, played postal chess and sometimes had 15-20 games going. In New London he often took on all comers at various meeting places around town. His father saw to it that he was able to play in many big tournaments when he was a teenager. He was known to play in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Indianapolis. 
     The article stated that in 1895, at the age of 16, he won the Ohio State Chess Championship, but that cannot be right because when White died in 1955 he was 85 years old. That would mean he was born in 1870, making him 25 in 1895. As far as I know there are no records of who was the Ohio champion in those years. In any case, White’s grandson was not a serious player and the article could have contained some errors. 
     The article also claimed that as a result of winning the Ohio Championship, White earned the right to compete in the National Chess Championship that same year where he finished as runner up. 
     The story goes that the final game was played between White and a man by the name of Ripley of Indianapolis. Both had easily won their previous matches and in the final it soon appeared White had an advantage. Ripley offered a draw, but White refused electing to continue play. White lost, for in his haste he made a careless move which cost him the game and the US title. 
     Of course this is not correct because in those days the US title was decided by match play and in 1895 the champion was Jackson W. Showalter. I was unable to determine if White actually did win the Ohio Championship in 1895 and if he did, what tournament he might have played in that year, but it certainly was not for the US Championship! 
     However, there was a player named Warwick H. Ripley, a prominent Indianapolis lawyer who was also a well known player and organizer of Indiana chess in the late 1800s, so it’s possible White played in a local tournament in Indiana that year. 
     What I was able to verify was that Albert U. White, Jr. did play in the Continental Correspondence Chess Tournament started by Walter Penn Shipley of Philadelphia in 1894. 
     This tournament introduced the concept of preliminary rounds prior to a final round. Prizes were: 
First - $50 in cash or a gold medal and chess books of that value) as the winner preferred 
Second - $35 or chess books totaling that value as the winner preferred. 
Third - $25 or chess books totaling that value as the winner preferred. 
Fourth - $18 or chess books totaling that value as the winner preferred. 
Fifth - $14 or chess books totaling that value as the winner preferred. 
Sixth - $10 - or chess books totaling that value as the winner preferred. 

 There were also Special Prizes: 
1) Longest announced mate - $5 worth of chess books 
2) Most elegant termination of a game. Book prize 
3) Most brilliant game - $5 worth of chess books 
4) Best Evans Gambit - $5 worth of chess books 
5) Best score by a non-prize winner against a prize winner in the final round – chess book 
6) In the preliminary Section III a book prize worth $5 was offered o the player making the 5th best score (out of 14 players). 

      The preliminary rounds consisted of five sections with 14 players. Albert U. White, Jr. played in Section I. The players were William J. Ferris, John S. Hale, W.H. Hicks, J.A. Kaiser, M. Lissner, G.A. L’hommede, B.H. Lutton, E.S. Maguire, Henry, H. Morrill, J. Whitall Nicholson, Henry Plenge, J.F. Prentice, Alfred Waterson and White. White’s home town at the start of the tournament was listed as Lodi, Ohio. 

     The final round had 19 players and was won by an ex-Canadian who had moved to Chicago named C.W. Phillips. It’s not known how White fared. 
White's home in New London
Here is his obituary from the Sandusky (Ohio) Register, January 22, 1955. 

 Albert U. White, 85, Retired Merchant At N. London, Dies 
Son of Huron County Pioneers. Had Been Invalid Four Years. Was Chess Expert

 NEW LONDON, Jan 22 – Alebrt U. White, 85, a life long resident of this community who retired in 1930 from operation of the A. White and Co., a dry goods and mercantile business which had been in business for 108 years died this morning in New London Hospital after a lengthy illness. 
     Mr. White, who had been an invalid for the past four years, was the great grandson of John and Fear Perry White, who came Huron County from New York state with their family of 10 children by bob sled in the winter of 1817. The family cleared and settled on land which is now a part of the Huron county Home farm, just south of Norwalk. 
     The store Mr. White operated was founded by his grandfather, Union White at Fitchville when that village was the most thriving community in Huron county being the main road to Milan which at that time was the most important grain port in the nation. Due to the shortage of hard money. Much of the trade of that day was conducted with furs and pearl ash, of which large deposits existed nearby. 
Father Built Town Hall 
     Mr. White’s forebears came to this country about 1630 and settled in the Taunton area of Massachusetts. In 11 generations, the family resided in onl;y two communities in Massachusetts and Huron County. His father built the New London town hall. 
     In his earlier years Mr. White was one of the nation’s outstanding chess players. 

      The obituary adds that White’s wife, Bertha, had passed away two year’s earlier and he was survived by five sons, a daughter, a sister, 13 grandchildren asn 13 great-grandchildren. He was buried in the Grove Street Cemetery in New London, Ohio. 
Grove Street Cemetary

     His grandson wrote that White suffered from dementia and hardening of the arteries, but a few weeks before his death, he requested his chess set and proceeded to badly defeat his grandson. 
     The article stated that the scoresheets to White’s games all disappeared. As a result, I could only locate three of his games. One game score as published was mangled to the point that it could not be deciphered...not an infrequent problem with the old descriptive notation! Another game was a miniature of little interest because his opponent fell into an opening trap. 
     The only other game I found was the following one played against W.C. Cochran from Cincinnati, Ohio. White’s home was listed as Nova, Ohio, not Lodi as when the tournament started. As the players were in different starting sections I assume this game was from the finals.
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Monday, February 17, 2020

A Rare Reshevsky Brilliancy Prize

     The advent of chess engines have pretty much eliminated the brilliancy prize, but at one time they were popular. 
     The first one was awarded to the Henry Bird for his victory over James Mason in New York in 1876. Bird sacrificed his Q for a R, obtaining long-term compensation, but there was no immediate win. See game.
     Probably the most famous brilliancy prize game was Levitsky vs. Marshall, Breslau 1912. Marshall’s Q could be captured three different ways, but there was no defense. See game. 
     Along a similar line was Rossolimo’s brilliancy prize for his win against Paul Reissmann at the U.S. Open in San Juan in 1967. In that game Rossolimo placed his Q on a square where it could be captured by two different Ps. But either capture allowed mate. See game.
     By the way, Rossolimo once complained that despite his having won many brilliancy prizes and having played several Q sacrifices, when he approached publishers about publishing a book of his best games he was rebuffed and told nobody was interested in his games because he didn’t win enough tournaments. That was a pity because besides his many brilliant games Rossolimo operated a chess studio in New York’s Greenwich Village, drove taxi, practiced judo, recorded folk albums and was an expert linguist. And, that was just what he did in New York. Before that, who knows? His autobiography would have been amazing.
     In a Chess.com article Jeremy Silman figured Mikhail Tal is the all-time brilliancy prize holder with 15 prizes, followed by Gary Kasparov with 12 and Anatoly Karpov, that most boring of all World Champions, with 10. 
     Bobby Fischer only won four, but his most famous was his win over Donald Byrne in the 1956 Rosenwald tournament, when the 13-year-old Fischer sacrificed his Q.  See game.  
     IM Danny Kopec in his book Winning the Won Game: Lessons from the Albert Brilliancy Prize wrote that what constitutes a brilliancy prize has changed over time. Thanks to engines, the importance of the soundness of the sacrifice is now deemed essential. Flawed play, imaginative though it might be, no longer counts as a brilliancy. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. 
     When you think of Samuel Reshevsky you don’t think of brilliancy prize games. As far as I know, he only won three. His first was for his victory over Janowsky at New York 1922. Game. 
     In his game against Arnaldo Vasconcellos at the US Open, Boston 1944, Reshevsky was assured of first going into the last round, so he sat down with the intention of enjoying himself. The result was a brilliancy although I do not know if there was a prize for such offered. Game. 
     Reshevsky also won the brilliancy prize for his win over Albert Simonson in the 1938 US Championship. Game.
     Many players unfamiliar with Reshevsky think he was a positional player, but he wasn't. Botvinnik described Reshevsky's play as a forceful, active and impetuous adding that he evaluated positions in a routine, but unusual way. His main strength was his calculating ability. 
     Botvinnik claimed that Reshevsky calculated only 2-3 moves deep (that's just silly), but he looked at a lot of possibilities. He stated this calculation didn't always help because there was no "purity" (not sure what that means) and he often ended up in bad positions. 
    Botvinnik added that Reshevsky "had no taste" because he was willing to play any position at any time, but he skillfully complicated play and was not afraid of dangerous positions. He also played on both flanks and when he played a "waiting move" it generally indicated that he had realized his original plan wasn't going to work and he was awaiting a mistake and a convenient opportunity. 
     Reshevsky also liked to make harassing moves and to force his opponents into difficult situations where he could use his imagination. And, he was always ready to go into the ending, especially those with a lot of pieces, because in those positions he had great skill. He was also known for his expertise in handling Knights, especially in the ending.
     According to Botvinnik, Reshevsky's weaknesses were his weak positional feeling in complicated positions, openings and his routinely getting into time trouble. In time trouble his play was "deft" but he did make oversights. 
     Viktor Korchnoi wrote that in every game Reshevsky played you could sense his enormous desire to fight and win. While his lack of opening knowledge was a handicap, in the middlegame he was extremely confident and had enormous tactical talent and possessed the ability to make original and non-routine (there's that description again) evaluations. Positional battles were not to his taste and he avoided positions where maneuverings and waiting were required.  This, I think, is why Botvinnik was so criticalof Reshevsky because in Botvinnik's mind the only was to play chess correctly was scientifically with deeply analyzed openings, precise positional play and flawless endings.
     Kasparov, on the other hand, abjured, claiming Reshevsky had a high level of positional understanding or else he would never have maintained such a high level of play for so many years. 
     The Hollywood Pan Am was played from July 28 to August 12, 1945, with singer and actress Carmen Miranda there to open the event and draw the pairings. Humphrey Bogart, a USCF tournament director, was selected as the Master of Ceremonies. 
     The tournament got off to a rocky start because the US was still at war in the Pacific and travel was difficult. Several players withdrew for various reasons and others arrived late. 
     Albert Pinkus and Edward Lasker withdrew because they could not obtain reservations and last minute replacement Weaver Adams was delayed and arrived three days late as did Cruz of Brazil. Another last minute replacement, Herman Pilnik of Argentina, lost his plane reservation and had to rent a car. He ran into an unlighted truck at night and woke up in a Yuma, Arizona hospital where he spent two days and arrived in Hollywood three days late with his head swathed in bandages. 
Mrs. Charles Henderson

     With all the late arrivals, at the start there were only nine players present so for the first two weeks a lot of postponed games were played making impossible to be exactly sure what the standings were. At the end of the tournament Herbert Seidman, who was in the Army, had to withdraw from the final three rounds because he was called back to duty. 

 There were five other tournaments in progress: 
Masters Reserve:
Harry Borochow scored 13.5-2.5 in a 17-player field. He was followed by R. Solona. G. Grey and A. Weiss tied for third. 
Class A: 
H. Carlsen ahead of E. Moncalian and 13 others. 
Class B: 
W. Fieg won ahead of Dr. A. Kupka 
Interscholastic Tournament:
This was a double round event. Eugene Levin won ahead of B. Erickson 
Women's Tournament: 
Mary Bain and May Karff tied ahead of Mrs. Nancy Roos and six others. Movie star, Mitzi Mayfair, played under her married name, Mrs. Charles Henderson. 

 1) Samuel REshevsky 10.5 
2) Reibem Fine 9.0 
3) Herman P8ilnik 8.5 
4) I.A. Horowitz 8.0 
5) Isaac Kashdan 7.0 
6) Hector Rossetto 6.5 
7-8) Weaver Adams and Herman Steiner 5.5 
9-10) Walter Cruz and Jose Araiza Munoz 5.0 
11) Jose Broderman 3.5 
12) Herbert Seidman 3.0 
13) Joaquin Camarena 1.0 
     In this game, played on the birthday of the late Frank Marshall, Reshevsky was awarded the Marshall Memorial Brilliancy Prize. It also clinched first place for him. I am not so sure it’s a “brilliancy” so much as it is a crush by a super GM of a much weaker opponent! 

     Dr. Jose Brodermann was born In 1918. In 1936, he in his first tournament, the Cuban Junior Championship. In 1938, while studying medicine in Bonn, Germany he won the city championship and when he returned to Cuba he was one of the country’s strongest players. The date of his death is unknown.




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Friday, February 14, 2020

Browsing Chess Review January 1944

     On January 1st, Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, a rhythm and blues and jazz dance band, hit No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts with their song Ration Blues although I can’t figure out why!

 

     Some things were hard to get because of the war. New cars for example, but 8-10 year old used cars could be had for $50-150. Men’s Nunn-Bush shoes cost, $10.00-13.50 a pair and Van Heusen shirts cost $2.50 each. 
     Kellog’s Corn Flakes cost 8 cents for an 11 ounce box and hot dogs were 37 cents a pound. Coke was a nickle a bottle. A 9 gallon metal garbage can cost $0.98 and Ex Lax, the laxative, cost 19 cents for a package of 18. 
     A year’s subscription to Chess Review cost $3.00 per year. Lest one think that the subscription price was cheap, the median civilian wages and salaries of primary families was about $2,697 a year and the minimum wage was $0.30 an hour, or about the equivalent to $4.45 in 2020 dollars. So, to get a subscription you’d have to work about 10 hours. 
     There was a big debate going on in the Letters to the Editor column in which players were voicing their opinion on whether Kt (preferred by most readers!) or N should be used for Knight. You’d be surprised how passionate some people were about the issue! 
     One fellow wrote, “I view the proposed change with distinct horror. It is not only a change which contradicts the actual spelling...but is quite useless because of the established state on the Kt abbreviation.” Another wrote, “I would like to say N is for Nuts to this idea.” 
     Robert Willman and Arnold Denker tied with a score of 8-1 for the Manhattan Chess Club Championship. Reuben Fine announced that he would be playing in the upcoming US championship to be held in April. Isaac Kashdan announced he would not be playing and it remained to be seen if Samuel Reshevsky, who also claimed he wouldn’t be playing, could be coaxed into playing or if he really meant it. 
     As it turned out Reshevsky really meant it and Denker played the tournament of his life when he went undefeated and beat Fine in their individual game. It was Fine’s only loss and he finished second. 
     A few players mentioned were in the military. Private First Class Herbert Seidman, an Army Military Policeman, was leading the Marshall Chess Club Championship with a 7.5-0.5 score. Tied for second were Anthony Santasiere and Albert Pinkus. 
     Private Olaf Ulvestad was stationed in North Africa. While there he gave a couple of simultaneous exhibitions that had over a hundred spectators against 25 opponents each. Spectators were quite impressed that he was able to play a blindfold game at 5 seconds per move. 
     Corporal Roger Johnson of Pennsylvania scored an impressive 9.5-0.5 to win the championship of the Washington D.C. Chess Divan ahead of Martin Stark and Oscar Shapiro. Also in the military was Lieutenant Nat Halper who was, or eventually became, a Master. 
     One of the features of the magazine was that it published readers’ games “with annotations by Chessmaster I.A. Horowitz.” Any subscriber was welcome to submit games for consideration to Chess Review at 250 West 57th Street, New York 19, New York. Today both Horowitz and Chess Review are gone and all you’ll find at that address is a Starbucks. 
     In my day the games were annotated by John W. Collins and when I once sent in a postal game involving a positional Queens sacrifice and it got published it was pretty exciting. That is until I got to the chess club and nobody saw the game. OK, so they were not “postalites.” But, out of the dozen or so postal opponents I had at the time only one saw it and all he said was, “Nice game.” What I learned from that was nobody really cares about games played by mail...they want OTB games. 
     Be that as it may, here’s postal game from one of Chess Review’s Victory tournaments. They were 7-man tournaments and the top three players got credit for entry fees in additional tournaments. 
     This game is an object lesson that illustrates the evils of neglecting development by moving the same piece twice in the opening without a very good reason. W. Wagner’s rating was 1180 (Class B) and William Nyman’s was 950 (Class C). 
     Chess Review had its own rating system and the ratings did not compare to the current Elo system. Looking through the rating list I spied some familiar names in the highest class, Class A: master and a member of the Canadian chess Hall of Fame Frank Yerhoff (1280), New York masters, Lieutenant Harold Sussman (1202), Lieutenant Nat Halper (1216) and California master Irving Revise (1208). Also in Class A was Edna Horowitz, Al Horowitz’ wife 
     In Class B with a rating of 1100 was a 15-year old Arthur Bisguier, master Dr. Erich Marchand (1100), the 1946 Ohio Champion John Hoy (1174) and 16-year old future master John A. Hudson.

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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

What’s In A Name?


   What do Beverwijk, Wijk aan Zee, Hoogovens, Corus and Tata Steel all have in common? 
     Beverwijk is a small town that includes the beach resort of Wijk aan Zee. Being an industrial town dependent on the proximity of the Tata Steel Works, Beverwijk does not rate high as a tourist destination. The main reasons for visiting it are to go to the beach and to visit the Bazaar, supposedly the largest covered market in Europe. 
     Wijk aan Zee is a small town on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk in the the Netherlands. Due to its seaside location, Wijk aan Zee has become a popular destination among tourists. This is reflected in the village economy which consists to a large extent of bars and hotels and in 1999, Wijk aan Zee named itself "Cultural Village of Europe", recognizing the special nature of village life in general.   
     Today Wijk aan Zee is the city where the prestigious Tata Steel tournament is held, but it wasn’t always called the “Tata Steel Tournament.” 
     After Max Euwe became World Champion, the steelworkers at Hoogovens started a small chess club and held their first New Year's tournament in 1938. Thus, the tournament was originally known as Hoogovens, or sometimes Beverwijk which was the city where it was held. In 1968 it was still called Hoogovens, but it was held in Wijk aan Zee which the tournament was also sometimes called. 
     Then beginning in 2000, the tournament became known as either Corus or Wijk aan Zee. Finally, in 2011, the name for the tournament was changed from Corus to Tata Steel. 
     It can get confusing. It was called the Hoogovens tournament from its creation in 1938 until the sponsor Koninklijke Hoogovens merged with British Steel to form the Corus Group in 1999, after which the tournament was called the Corus tournament. Corus Group became Tata Steel Europe in 2007 which is the name we know the tournament by today. But then, again, sometimes the tournaments have been referred to by the locations, Beverwijk and Wijk aan Zee.
     Despite the name changes, the series is numbered sequentially from its Hoogovens beginnings; for example, the 2011 event was referred to as the 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament. 
     Since 1938, the list of winners have been some of the best players in the world. Of the eight World Champions since 1946, only Vasily Smyslov and Bobby Fischer are missing. 
     In 2001, nine of the top ten players in the world participated. They were Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Adams, Leko. Morozevich, Shirov, Topalov, Ivanchuk with only the number 10 player Gelfand missing. 
     Past winners of these tournaments include: Max Euwe, Bent Larsen, Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres, Lajos Portisch, Boris Spassky, Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, Jan Timman, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik, Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, and Magnus Carlsen. 
     The early tournaments were small, starting with groups of four Dutch players. The first five tournaments continued this way, with the contest held annually early in January. But from this humble beginning, the event grew into a monster. 
     The very first Hoogovens was played in 1938 in Beverwijk, with four participants and first place was a tie between Jiling Van Dijk and Philip Bakker with 2.5 points, Jan Zoontjes (1.0 points) and Piet Van der Bronk who failed to score even a half point. 
     The 1939 event was won by Nicolaas Cortlever ahead of Van Steenis with Van Dijk and Bakker tied for third. These fellows were the “usual” players until 1940 when Euwe finished ahead of Van Steenis, Cortlever and Arthur Wijnans.
     In 1943 and 1944 the tournament field was doubled in size to eight players with no tournament held in 1945. The first international tournament was held in 1946. There were ten players until 1953 when it was increased to twelve and an international women's tournament was also held. In 1954 the tournament field was returned to ten players. The field was enlarged to 18 in 1963 then reduced to 16 in 1964 and by that time the tournament had become the strongest international tournament in the world. 
     As the tournament grew in stature, the ancillary women's tournament became a regular feature, as did a Masters event and Masters Reserves event. There also began a tradition where the winner of a lesser category event would receive an invitation to the next higher event the following year. 

     The 1946 tournament was one of the first European international tournaments after World War II. Food shortages were still a problem in Europe, so the post-tournament banquet featured an inexpensive fare: pea soup which was what a lot of people were eating at the time. In subsequent years pea soup was served as the first course of the concluding banquet, a tradition continued when the tournament was moved from Beverwijk to Wijk aan Zee in 1968. 
     I am assuming that by “pea soup” they mean “split pea” soup. The difference between peas and split peas lies in how they are processed. To make a split pea, a green pea is peeled and dried. The skin is removed and a natural split occurs in the cotyledon...a type of leaf that is part of the developing plant inside a seed and that either stores food or grows from the seed to produce food. 
     It is possible to split the peas by hand, but I imagine that could be tedious and time consuming. Hence, a machine called a pea splitter is used and you can watch one of them in action on YouTube HERE. 
     Like beans, lentils and split peas are low in fat and high in protein and fiber and they have the added advantage of cooking quickly without the need for soaking. There is a recipe for a delicious split pea and lentil soup HERE. 
    Now, having learned all about the names the tournament has gone by and probably more than we want to know about peas and pea soup, let us return to the tournament...specifically the first international one in held in Beverwijk in 1946. 
     Foreign participant Sir Stuart Milner-Barry was one of a group of prominent chess players who worked at Bletchley Park during World War II and after the war he joined the British Treasury. He was invited to the tournament, but his professional obligations would not allow him to participate. Swiss master Henri Grob was also invited, but was he, too, was unable to attend. 
     Another British player, William Winter, was invited, but he could not get a visa. During World War II he served in the Honourable Artillery Company, but was an ardent Communist who had served a 6 month prison sentence for sedition, so perhaps his past had something to do with his inability to obtain a visa. 
     Stoltz from Sweden was considered the favorite and his plane arrived only hours before play began. After Stoltz arrived, the drawing of lots took place and play, which took place from 1-6 pm, started immediately afterwards. 

 Final standings:


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Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Gisela Kahn Gresser

     Gisela Kahn Gresser was an interesting lady who dominated women's chess in the United States for more than three decades. She was, with Mona Karff, one of the first two female players in the United States, and one of the first seventeen players in the world, to be awarded the Woman International Master title in 1950. 
     She was born on February 8, 1906 in Detroit, Michigan. Her father was Julius Kahn (March 8, 1874 – November 4, 1942), an engineer, industrialist, and manufacturer and a multi-millionaire. He was the inventor of the Kahn System, a reinforced concrete engineering technique for building construction which he patented in 1903 and it was soon used world wide. For anyone who is dying to know more about the Kahn System, Wikipedia has a pretty good article on it HERE. He was also president of a steel company. 
     As a young girl Gisela had passion for Greek and in a 1945 interview stated, “When the other children were out playing, I used to study Greek. I loved it just the way I love chess now.” She went on to study the classics as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College where she won a prestigious Charles Elliott Norton fellowship which she used to continue her studies at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece. 

     In 1927, she returned to New York and married William Gresser, a New York City lawyer and musicologist. He died in 1992. After her marriage she became a housewife who raised their two sons, Ion and Julian, both of whom became quite successful.   
    Gresser learned chess at a late age while she and her husband were on a cruise returning from France to New York in the late 1930s. She borrowed a chess manual from a fellow passenger and taught herself how to play. By the end of the cruise, she was hooked. But not completely hooked. Gresser considered men obsessed with chess bizarre. She said, “You know women are too reasonable to spend all their time on chess.” Her wealth and luxurious lifestyle allowed her to pursue many hobbies such as horseback riding, sculpting, painting, and reading in ten different languages. Gresser was also an accomplished musician and she was still going on safaris even in her eighties. 
     In 1938, she was a spectator at the first US Women's Championship that was organized by Caroline Marshall and held at the Rockefeller Center in New York City. The tournament was won by Adele Rivero. By 1944, Mrs. Gresser, was good enough to win the US Women’s Championship. She also won in 1948 (with Karff), 1955 (with Nancy Roos), 1957 (with Sonja Graf), 1962, 1965, 1966 (with Lisa Lane), 1967 and 1969 at the age of 63. 
     Gresser represented the United States in several international events and played in five Women's Candidates tournaments and three Women's Chess Olympiads. She was also Women's World Championship challenger in 1949 and 1950. 
     She retired from professional chess at the age of 82 and lived in comfort on Park Avenue in Manhattan where she had an entire floor to herself in an apartment filled with antiques.  She died at home at the age of 94 on December 4, 2000. 
     Mrs. Gresser sported the WIM title and in April 1963, with a rating of 2211, she became the first woman in the United States to achieve the title of National Master. In 1992 she became the first woman inducted into the United States Chess Hall of Fame. At the time of her death her USCF rating was 2090. 
     Mrs. Gressers’ opponent in the following game was Jozsa Langos (August 28, 1911 – May 17, 1987) a WIM from Hungary. It was the 8th Women's World Championship and it took place in the winter of 1949–1950 in Moscow. The title had been vacant since the death of Vera Menchik in 1944. The tournament was dominated by the Russian who took the first four places. 

 1) Lyudmila Rudenko 11.5 
2) Olga Rubtsova 10.5 
3-4) Elisaveta Bykova and Valentina Belova 10.0 
5-6) Edith Keller and Eileen Tranmer 9.5 
7) Chantal Chaude de Silans 9.5 
8) Fenny Heemskerk 8.0 
9) Clarice Benini 7.0 
10-11) Jozsa Langos and María Teresa Mora 6.0 
12-14) Gisela Gresser, Nina Grushkova-Belska and Mona May Karff 5.0 
15) Ingrid Larsen 4.5 
16) Roza Germanova 3.0

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Monday, February 10, 2020

MANIAC I Plays Against Itself

     The MANIAC I (Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator And Computer Model I) was an early computer built under the direction of Nicholas Metropolis at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. It was based a model developed by John von Neumann. 
     As with all computers of its era, it was a one-of-a-kind machine. The name was chosen in the hope of stopping the rash of silly acronyms for machine names. MANIAC weighed about 1,000 pounds. 
     The first task assigned to the Los Alamos MANIAC was to perform more precise and extensive calculations of the thermonuclear process. 
     The lab got hold of one of the computer, one of the first, so that its scientists, H-bomb researchers, wouldn't have to stay up nights solving their voluminous equations with pencil and paper. In 1953, the MANIAC obtained the first equation of state calculated by modified Monte Carlo integration over configuration space. 
     Remember the Monte Carlo analysis feature in Rybka that was so eagerly hyped several years back? Basically with the Monte Carlo analysis you start with a position, activate the feature, and then the Rybka engine played a whole lot of games (hundreds or even thousands) against itself until you stopped it and then it stored all of the moves of those games in tree form and you could see the results of games played from the position under investigation. 
     The MANIAC ran from March, 1952 until it was shut down on July 15, 1958. However, it was transferred to the University of New Mexico in bad condition and was restored to full operation by Dale Sparks, PhD. It was featured in at least two UNM Maniac programming dissertations from 1963 and remained in operation until it was retired in 1965. It was succeeded by MANIAC II in 1957. A third version MANIAC III was built at the Institute for Computer Research at the University of Chicago in 1964. 
     In 1956 mathematician and mathematical physicist Professor Stan Ulam had done some very important work in connection with atomic energy involving “computing machines”, as they were known in those days, and he and his colleagues had also written about chess playing machines. 
     Normally, Professor Ulam, a decent chessplayer himself, worked at the Los Alamos (New Mexico) Scientific Laboratory, but later was a visiting professor in the mathematics department at MIT where he conducted experiments in which a computer was able to play a game on the basis of operating instructions of only a very general nature. 
     Earlier, Claude Shannon had succeeded in getting a small homemade computer to play a few simple position without exceeding the computer’s memory. 
     In a letter to the editor from Edward Lasker that appeared the January, 1957 issue of Chess Review, at the request of Claude Shannon, Lasker sent them an article by Stan Ulam and his colleagues that discussed a chess program they had written for MANIAC I. 
     Lasker stated that he had discussed the subject of chess-playing computers with a few players who were not familiar with Shannon’s paper and they flatly refused to believe that a machine could play chess and the idea of a machine “thinking” was “violently” rejected! 
     The reasons MANIAC I used a 6x6 board was so that it could see two moves ahead for each side (later to be known as 4 plies) in a reasonable amount of time. It also cut down the number of legal moves per position roughly in half. MANIAC I was not the fastest computer in their laboratory, but rather an older, slower one. 
     MANIAC I could perform 10,000 elementary operations per second. It selected its moves based on two factors, the greatest mobility and material. The very first game pitted the computer against itself. The first human that lost to the computer was an unidentified lady who had learned the game only a week earlier; it was the first time a human had lost to a computer in a game of intellectual skill.
     Early on, moves averaged about 10 minutes for a two-move look ahead, but that quickly became three moves, four moves, five moves ahead and it quickly reached the capability of seeing 12 moves ahead. 
     At one time when Princeton physicist Martin Kruskal checkmated the MANIAC, the machine responded with an illegal move. Programmers traced the problem to the fact that the computer had not been programmed to resign and as a result got stuck in a loop.

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Friday, February 7, 2020

Lake Hopatcong

Alamac hotel on an old postcard
     Today Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey is a bustling recreational site and the lake is used for boating, water skiing and swimming, with waterfront eateries and bars. It was also the location for a couple of chess tournaments that were held at the Alamac Hotel (the name was a combination of Latz' mother's and father's first names). 
     The hotel itself had an interesting history. In 1918 it was sold to Harry Latz, owner of a hotel of the same name on the ocean in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Latz renamed his new Lake Hopatcong property the Alamac and completed a major renovation, adding a sun parlor, new furnishings, tennis courts, a play area for children, a bachelor lodge, miniature golf, and more. In 1923 he built another Alamac Hotel at Broadway and 71st Street in New York City and yet another one on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida. Today the latter two have been converted to apartments. 
     Latz hosted many different competitions which brought attention to the hotel. Swimming championships featuring national competitors were regularly held and a checker tournament featuring life-size pieces and a large landscaped playing board in front of the hotel took place in 1922. 
     In the mid-1920s the famous dance instructor Arthur Murray was in charge of social events which included a live orchestra, motion picture screenings and a host of daily activities. 
     In the late 1920s the hotel was sold to the Jacobs family, who adopted a kosher menu and billed it as “Alamac in the Mountains.” That’s when the hotel became a favorite of one of vaudeville’s newest headliners and later television star Milton Berle.
     The hotel closed in the late 1930s due to the Great Depression, but it reopened during World War II. After the war, the hotel was in need of renovation, but continued to host local meetings. New owners took over in 1947, but during renovations the hotel caught fire and was completely burned down on February 21, 1948. Only the hotel’s boathouse and a few outbuildings survived. 
     Hotel owner Harry Latz was a chess enthusiast and he helped organize the elite New York 1924 tournament. He was also involved in an early attempt to arrange a world championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine. 
     In 1923 the hotel hosted the 9th American Chess Congress that was held August 6-21. In that tournament Frank Marshall and Abraham Kupchik shared first. Marshall was undefeated, but was held to 5 draws, three of which were against the tailenders. Kupchik lost two games (Marshall and Edward Lasker who finished 4th) and he had only one draw (against Roy T. Black who finished 6th). 
      In 1926, Capablanca won without difficulty as at no time was he in danger of defeat. He scored all of his wins in the first five rounds and so coasted to victory in the remaining rounds. 
      Maroczy got off to a promising start by winning his first two games, but then lost two. In the 9th round he missed a chance to unseat Kupchik when he was a P up with winning chances in their individual game, but Kupchik managed to hold on to the draw. 
      Marshall was a great disappointment. He started off with a loss to Maroczy then won his only game when he defeated Edward Lasker. The rest of the tournament was a disaster. His only satisfaction was drawing both of his games against Capablanca. 
     But, Marshall’s disaster wasn’t as big as Edward Lasker’s who lost his first five games, but finally managed to pull himself together to defeat Marshall in round 7. In round 10 he outplayed Kupchik and was a P up, but a draw was all he could get. 
     No doubt the biggest surprise (at least to modern readers) is the placement of the unheralded Abraham Kupchik (1892-1970) whom Arnold Denker described as “The Frightened, Little Rabbit” in his book The Bobby Fischer I knew. 
     He described Kupchik as a tiny, whisper of a man with the saddest eyes he had had ever seen. Described as a gentle man, known to club members as “Kuppele” or “Kup” he was, according to Arnold Denker, repulsed at the idea of attacking an opponent and defensive chess was the name of the game. However, he was extremely effective at 10-second per move chess.
     Chessmetrics estimates his highest rating to have been 2641 in 1926. In 1935 at the Warsaw Chess Olympics, playing 3rd board, Kupchik scored an impressive +6 -0 =8. He was considered for an invitation to the famous New York 1924 tournament but it was finally decided that his inclusion would not have added anything to the tournament. His strength was unappreciated even in his day and his defensive, do nothing style would have made him right at some 94 years later. 

 Final Scores 


      


     
     
     As a curiosity, going into this tournament which was held in July, Chessmetrics’ March 1926, rating list shows the players to have the following estimated ratings and world rank: Capablanca (2751/4), Marshall (2694/6), Maroczy (2637/14), Lasker (2573/24) and Kupchik (2554/28). 
     In the following game Edward Lasker played the opening in what was at the time an original fashion, holds his own for most of the game, but finally drifts into an inferior position. In the end Capa gives up his Q for two Rs against which Lasker’s Q is helpless. 
     Edward Lasker has never been given much recognition, but up until the late 1920s Chessmetrics estimates his rating to have ranked him in the top 50 players in the world.

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