Frank, the chess player, was born in Minnedosa, Manitoba on October 22, 1888. His father was a prominent lawyer and District Registrar of Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. The family moved to Toronto when Frank was just a youngster. He already knew how to play chess and soon won the city championship.
In May of 1912, listing his occupation a student, he crossed into the U.S. through Buffalo, New York and headed for New York City in order to follow his passion...he had hopes of becoming a full time chess player. He was a member of the Manhattan Chess Club and Frank Marshall's Chess Divan.
In December 1912, Beynon took part in a handicap tournament at the Manhattan Chess Club. The players were grouped in three sections and Beynon apparently won the C section ahead of Magnus Smith, also a Canadian born player who was a prominent New York player of the time.
In January 1913, he was one of the twenty-one players pitted against George J. Beihoff who gave a simultaneous exhibition at the Manhattan Chess Club. Beihoff (1879-1937) was the 1913 New York State champion. He took 3rd place in the 1910 Manhattan Chess Club championship, behind Marshall and Johner. In the exhibition Beihoff scored +12 -5 =4 and Beynon was one of the winners.
In August 1913, Beynon entered his first master-class tournament, a fourteen-player event at the Rice Chess Club. Capablanca won the top prize with a perfect 13-0 score. Roy T. Black and Abraham Kupchik tied for second and third with 7.5. International star Oldrich Duras finished fourth followed by Albert Marder and Oscar Chajes.
Marder (1887-1938) was a member of the Rice Progressive Chess Club and was rated as one of the leading Greater New York area players. Marder ended up in the Army and served in World War I and served with the 305th Infantry.
In the tournament Beynon finished tenth with a 4.5-8.5 score and only his losses survive. His game against Capablanca appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of July 17, 1913. Columnist Herman Helms said that Beynon “put up an excellent defense, but Capablanca was again in a brilliant mood and sacrificed a Bishop at his thirty-third move. This gave him two connected passed pawns on the sixth rank, a force sufficient to win against the Knight that opposed them. Irving Chernev included the game in Capablanca's Best Chess Endings.
In April, 1917, for the second anniversary of Marshall’s Chess Divan there was held an 8-player tournament at 20 seconds per move. Marshall won it followed by Janowski, Oscar Chajes, Charles Jaffe, Jacob Bernstein and Albert Hodges, Roy T. Black. Beynon was last and scored but a half a point.
Because the United States had entered World War I earlier in the month, the dinner after the tournament was opened with patriotic music and a bunch of speeches. Marshall and Hodges spoke for the United States, Janowski for France and referred to his internment in Germany at the Mannheim tournament and his subsequent escape to Switzerland. He also had high praise for the hospitality he had experienced in the United States.
Hudson Maxim, the famed inventor (high explosives, brother of the inventor of the machine gun) and chemist was scheduled for a speech, but he failed to make an appearance. He sent an apology and fifty copies of Defenseless America, a book he authored after one of his good friends died on RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. In the book, Maxim argued for an improvement in America's defenses and for an active war effort against Germany.
For Maxim’s association with chess, see THIS article. The Game of War produced by Drueke. For photos of the game visit Board Game Geek.
The 36-year old Frank Marshall had offered his services by writing to President Woodrow Wilson and Maxim wrote to Marshal telling him he didn’t believe Marshall could do any better than what he was already doing. He told Marshall, “Don't go to the front and get yourself shot up.” Maxim reminded Marshal that after the war was over “a large number of war cripples” would find solace and comfort in playing chess and checkers, so Marshall couldn’t do any better than to stick to his present work.
At the end of the speeches, the chairman did what good chairmen do...he called for even more speeches. This time from Henry Koehler who had server as scorekeeper for the speed tournament and Oscar Chajes who were to represent Germany and Austria, respectively. Both promptly proclaimed themselves American citizens.
Not long afterwards, after being given a farewell party at Marshall’s Chess Divan, Beynon returned to Canada to join the Canadian military. He enlisted with the Queen's Own Rifles. His volunteer papers were drafted in June of 1917 and his occupation was listed as a professional chess player.
Private Beynon was killed in action on September 2, 1918. He was the first chess player of prominence from Canada (or the U.S.) to die in the war. The exact circumstances of Beynon's death are not clear, but according to Veterans Affairs Canada, Beynon was buried in Dury Mill British Cemetery in Pas de Calais, France. The location of the cemetery is close to Dury Memorial, a World War I Canadian war memorial that commemorates the actions of the Canadian Corps in the Second Battle of Arras that took place on September 2-3. It is very likely that Beynon was one of the 5,600 Canadian soldiers killed in that battle that pushed back the German defensive lines.
Beynon is one of those unfortunate players who had more losses survive than wins and the only one I could could locate was his interesting win over Jacques Grommer at the aforementioned Rice Masters tournament.
Professor Jacques Grommer (January 25, 1877 - 1928) was born in France and was the Champion of Paris before moving to the United States in January 1912. He was the uncle of Aristide Gromer (April 1, 1908 - July 6, 1966) who was the French Champion in 1933, 1937 and 1938. See An Obscure Chess Master by Edward Winter.
In a 1921 issue of the American Chess Bulletin there was a brief mention of a simul by Reshevsky and it was noted that one of the opponents he defeated was Prof. Grommer who had won the Rice Chess Club championship shortly after arriving in the U.S. The article also mentioned that Grommer had became an invalid in 1918 and so refrained from playing chess.
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