Published 2000
Plastic cover  203 Pp
 

In 1985 I discovered in the John White  Department of the Cleveland Public
Library a box with the original game scores of the 1936 US Chess Championship Tournament.  I copied all of them by hand, intending to publish the tournament book in 1986, but many of the game scores were missing so I quit.  Several years later John Donaldson mentioned that some persons were going to publish the book so I sent all my games to him.

Because of the Great Depression the US had many great players in the 1930s.  As Arnold Denker wrote (The Bobby Fischer I Knew) and Other Stories) there wasn’t any work available but Masters could make some dimes and quarters playing chess.  As a result the US won the F.I.D.E. Team Tournaments in 1931, 1933, 1935, and 1937 with Isaac Kashdan, Frank Marshall, Israel Horowitz, Reuben, Fine, Herman Steiner, Arthur Dake, Abraham Kupchik, Albert Simonson. In 1907 Marshall claimed the Title of US Chess Champion and this was accepted because no one else cared.  He defended his “Title" once, winning from Edward Lasker in 1923 with five wins, four losses, nine draws.

Marshall accepted a challenge from Kashdan in 1933 but they couldn’t raise enough money for the Prize Fund so the match wasn't held. Marshall then agreed to play in a tournament for the Title but later decided to retire, "undefeated".

In addition to eight players named above, Samuel Reshevsky was seeded.  Four qualifying tournaments were held in New York City, from which came Simonson and Samuel Factor, Denker and Weaver Adams; George Treysman and Sidney Bernstein; Harold Morton and Milton Hanauer.

Kashdan started with wins over Simonson, Bernstein, Horowitz and Denker.  As White vs Simonson 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0-0 Be7 6 Qe2 b5 7 Bb3 0-0 8 c3 d5 9 exd5 Nxd5 10 Nxe5 Nf4? 11 Qe3 Ne5 12 d4! (And not 12 Qxa8?.  I believe this is old analysis and 12 d4 was played by Carl Schlechter).  Instead of losing a Pawn without compensation Simson tried the desperate 12 Nh3ch 13 gxh3 Ng6 14 Qxa8 and White won in 23 moves.

Hanuer had lost four games and had Black against Kashdan in Round Five.  They began with the same moves but then Kashdan played 9 d3?  WHY?  Probably because he found something good for Black after 9 exd5 Bg4 10 dxc6 e4.  This is better but White should still win.  Kashdan must have mis-analyzed the position.  After 9...Bg4 Kashdan foolishly tried to win material.  10 h3 Bh5 11 g4? Bg6 12 g5? dxe4 13 gxf6 exd3 14 Qe3 Bxf6 and was properly crushed.  15 Nbd2 Qd7 16 Kg2 Rad8 17 Ne4 Be7 18 Bd2 Kh8 19 Rael f5 20 Nc5 Qd6  21 Ne6 f4 22 Nxf4 exf4 23 Qe6 Qxe6 24 Rxe6 Bd6. It is not known why Kashdan played on in an utterly hopeless position, two Pawns and then three Pawns down until move 60. Hanauer won and finished in 14th place with 4.5-10.5. Kashdan lost to Reshevsky, Fine and Treysman and finished fifth with 10 - 5.

After losing to Bernstein in Round Three and Horowitz in Round Four Reshevsky had only 1.5 points. CHESS REVIEW said the New York Times published the Rd 4 game and said: "The game that cost Reshevsky the Championship". Reshevsky was Polish and could barely read English (that’s a joke) so he then had nine wins and two draws and won the tournament with 11.5- 3.5 Simonson, only 21 years old, was second with ll-4, but never again played so well. According to Denker he was wealthy and not much interested in chess.

Fine and Treysman tied for third with 10.5- 4.5 Treysman was a coffee-house player who, at age fifty-five "went thirty-two games without defeat - a skein that began with the Rice-Progressive Chess Club Championship, continued through the qualifying tournament, and ended in Round 10 of the final" (Denker) . Except it wasn’t Round Ten, but Round Five, where he lost to Simonson, who played the Budapet Gambit: 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5 3 dxe5 Ng4 4 e4 h5. Treysman was a superb endgame player, which is important. After one knows all the tricks it still requires technique to win. Algebraic notation. Excellent printing and binding. Good diagrams. Bold type for game
moves and light type for analysis. In addition to running commentary the tournament games are accompanied' by contemporary analysis - which means that they are NOT always correct.

That is all the authors can do. You  either hire a Grandmaster to annotate the games properly or you do the best with what you know.

They found 116 of the 120 tournament games and have added 31 games from the qualifying events. BUT they begin with sixty pages containing forty-four games by US players in other tournaments, along with a condensed "history" of US Chess. While I don’t believe it is all historically accurate, it is interesting. Unfortunately they waste FIFTEEN PAGES telling the utterly boring details of WHY a match between Marshall and Kashdan was NOT held. They make many egregious errors, such as: "Wilhelm Steinitz in 1891... "/ but WILLIAM Steinitz was a naturalized citizen of the US. by then. He did NOT call himself "Wilhelm".

MANY of their comments are worthless: "The one and only draw of the first round".  "Time never lets its victim escape in the end" AND,  '''in the end"? "Winning the Marshall. Chess Club Championship for the third time, no less". How insulting to write “no less". "A treat for kibitzers" Even more insulting is their frequently. incorrect and' demeaning 'OPINIONS. “No doubt Adams found the conclusion some what less amusing".  They can’t possibly know what Adams thought.

"The American triumph at Warsaw reinforced the view in this country, rightly or wrongly, that the United States was the strongest chess playing nation. This belief would persist for another decade, until shortly after World War II, when the illusion was to unequivocally shattered by the Soviet Union"t. The USA was, by far, the strongest chess playing nation in the 1930s. ALL the -rest of the chess-playing world knew it, and said it. As
the British Chess Magazine, said: "The USA Team at Warsaw 1935 have five Masters who could have played on first board."

The USSR was NOT a "nation", it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. A federation of many nations. I think there were 30 countries by then. How does losing to a Federation of Thirty Nations in 1945 have any relevance to how strong the USA was in 1935?