Master and Patron: Frank Marshall and Herman Behr By John S. Hilbert Love of chess takes many forms. Some very lucky individuals have the combination of ability, opportunity (some might say necessity) and personality that allows them to become great masters. Others love the goddess Caissa just as deeply, but are unable or unwilling to devote the lifetime of toil required by her for the highest honors. And sometimes lovers of the game are in a position to offer material assistance to those whose devotion has cost them material gain. Such was the case between Frank Marshall, long-time national champion of the United States, and Herman Behr, long-time lover of the game. When Marshall … [Read more...]
Chess and the Start of the American Civil War
Chess, the New York Clipper, and the Start of the American Civil War: April 1861 By John S. Hilbert With its April 13, 1861, issue the New York Clipper, a weekly sporting and theater magazine owned and edited by Frank Queen, announced the close of its eighth year. Begun in 1853 as a four page spread devoted to a variety of entertainment, the Clipper was not modest. Queen's editorial that week prided itself on denouncing the "sport" of dog fighting, for instance, because it had become "but a pretext for the basest swindling, for law breaking; for the grossest demoralization of the man and cruelty to the brute." The Clipper would no longer report the disgraceful doings of men who set … [Read more...]
A Forgotten Kaufmann Game
A Forgotten Kaufmann Game by Olimpiu G. Urcan One of the chief difficulties of researching lesser lights in the field of chess biography is finding an adequate number of representative game scores. This proved a particularly challenging task when working together with the Vienna-based Dr. Peter Michael Braunwarth on Arthur Kaufmann: A Chess Biography (McFarland, 2012). Despite assiduous searches in Viennese archives, our volume recovered only 71 games played by Kaufmann throughout his chess career between the 1890s and 1930s. Considering Kaufmann's enigmatic life and his highly intermittent chess play in Vienna, that's a reasonably satisfactory number. However, disregarding many such … [Read more...]
That’s Entertainment
Lasker, Simultaneous Exhibitions, and the Languages of Chess Performance by John S. Hilbert Chess has been likened to many things, and perhaps most often to art. The “artist at the chessboard” image has been dragged forth often enough to warrant status as a venerable, if tiresome, cliché. Likening chess to sport has an equally long and listless pedigree. My favorite metaphor for the game is that of language: a language of the mind, requiring all the thought and effort involved in the learning of a foreign language, in order to speak it fluently, eloquently and forcefully across the board. Undoubtedly this metaphor has ancient roots as well. There are more recent examples of it, of … [Read more...]
James Walker Osborne
James Walker Osborne: “Perpetual Beginner,” Siamese Chicken, Brawling Lawyer by John S. Hilbert Not every Manhattan Chess Club member at the end of the nineteenth century was an excellent chess player. While the masters are remembered, as well they should be, for their extraordinary play, clubs didn’t survive on the ingenious cogitations of a few gifted and often honorary members. The driving forces of a chess club, especially a gentleman’s chess club, were the members who served as officers and directors, the men who through their constant attendance, loyal payment of dues, and ever-ready willingness to provide “a little extra” for special occasions, sustained the organizations which … [Read more...]
Minor Historical Joyrides
by Olimpiu G. Urcan Undoubtedly, the most valuable chess history research is that which concentrates on little-explored primary material, old newspaper chess columns included. Immersed in such vast material either in a local library's microfilm section or logged in to a digital repository online, an experienced researcher generally keeps in mind two distinct matters: first, precise information closely related to a specific undergoing project (e.g., a biography, a history of a chess club, a tournament monograph, and so forth); secondly, often fueled by an incurable optimism, he keeps a more general lookout for the "big names," that is forgotten games played by some of the best players of a … [Read more...]