WASHINGTON CHESS LETTER April 1953 By Russell (Rusty) Miller

(Once upon a time I did a column in a number of issues of NORTHWEST CHESS about what was reported 20-15-10-5 years ago. Seems like time to do some of that again but I plan to only do the 50 years ago part for now. I have a complete set of WASHINGTON CHESS LETTERS [WCL], NORTHWEST CHESS LETTERS [NCL] and NORTHWEST CHESS [NWC] Magazines starting in 1947!)

As is very common for many many issues of WCL April 1953 issue finds Dan Wade of Seattle as Editor of an 18 page issue. Assistant Editors are John Nourse of Port Blakely, F.W. Weaver , O.W. Manney, E. Zemglais and Ken Mulford all of Seattle. Washington Chess Federation President was O.W. Manney. There is a full page announcement for 1953 Tourney for Women to be held May 17, 1953, $1.00 entry fee. All entries fees will go the winner. Tournament was to be held at site of Seattle Chess Club, 616 Madison St, Seattle, the basement of Knickerbocker Hotel in knockout style. Jim Schmitt reports from Portland of the plans for an OREGON CHESS BULLETIN. (I don’t know if it ever got off the ground) An announcement for US Junior to be held August 10-15 at Kansas City YMCA was printed. Entry fee was $5.00 for a 10 round swiss. There was an appeal for funds to send Elmars Zemgalis to the 1953 US Open in Milwaukee, WI. They had raised $30.00 so far. In the GAMES SECTION are a draw between Arthur Dake and Elmars Zemgalis, a win by J.L. Sheets over E.G. Short (notes by the winner), James Schmitt defeated Charles Ballatine, D. Meador beat Dan Wade, These games were from an Oregon-Washington Match held in Centralia, Washington. F.W. Weaver did a column of information taken from CHESS LIFE The column reports about a 50 board simultaneous done by GM Samuel Reshevsky in Cleveland Ohio. One player beat Reshevsky in the simul and also beat him in the blindfold game. (I once got to play the GM in a simul and the blindfold game part of the exhibition but of course I lost them both) The column also reports on Dr. A. A. Murray scoring 2-0 for San Antonio, TX in match with Houston TX. Dr. Murray still plays at Seattle CC today! O.W. Manney did a 4 position problem section. The Yakima CC reports will be holding a double round robin tournament over five weeks at regular club meetings. Ollie LaFreniere did the notes to three games from the recent Washington Jr. Ollie beat Jim McCormick and Richard Odlin and lost to Ted Warner. Postal Chess Director R.R. Merk column appeared as usual. There were 48 players on the postal rating list, with only last names for most of the players. Mr. Greene was the top rated player.

WASHINGTON CHESS LETTER May 1953 By Russell (Rusty) Miller

No change in editor from the April 1953 issue but Mrs. Wade was added to the Assistant Editors list as was O. LaFreniere of Yakima.and J.L. Sheets of Seattle for game annotations. Dan Wade was now also President of Washington Chess Federation. $49.00 now for Zemgalis US Open fund and $55 in pledges. Don Kendall who I now believe lives in Omak won the two player Pierce County Jr. He was then a Lincoln High School of Tacoma student. Charles Ballantine won the Uof Washington title 4-0. Small announcement for 1953 Oregon Open to be held June 13th at Portland CC. No woman appeared for the 1953 Washington Women’s Tourney so the 4 men players present played a double round robin with Dan Wade winning 6-0. Sixteen delegates and directors named as attending the Annual meeting of the board of directors of Washington Chess Federation plus 8 unamed others per the vote for Publicity Director of 14-10... Dan Wade was elected the new President by vote of 11-10 over O.W. Manney. O.W. Manney became V-P., Peter Husby - Secretary, W.H. Raleigh -Treasurer, Ken Mulford - Publicity Director, O.W. Manney - Tournament Director. Dan Wade was awarded the “Oscar” for the year. Weaver did his usual From CHESS LIFE column. GM Svetorar Gligoric of Yugoslavia won the Mar del Plata Internatioal Tournament 16-3. CHESS LIFE reprinted the Sheets-Zemgalis game from Washington State Championship as had been printed in WCL. More Oregon -Washington Match games appeared, this time Ivars Dalbergs beating O.W. Manney on board 4 with notes by Zemgalis, Carl Burnham beat Russell Vellias in a long game with notes done by the loser, No notes to Charles Joachim win over S. Eikrem and a few noted by Wade for the John Nourse loss to F. Aiken. From Washington State Open event, a game between Ivars Dahlberg (sic) and L. Sheets won by Sheets and played Sept 27, 1952 was given, no notes. Dan Wade did a two page column FROM THE RECORD about the history of organized chess in Washington State dating back to 1936. This whole column probably so be reprinted sometime. O.W. Manney did his usual problem page with 4 puzzles. One is a mate in seven where White has a Queen at b1,c1,d1 and Black has a King a a8. There is no White King. The Queens are not to leave the first rank. 51 players in the Postal Chess Rating list done by R.R. Merk. Postal Sections were $.50 each!

WASHINGTON CHESS LETTER June 1953 By Russell (Rusty) Miller

No change in the editor or helpers from May issue. V.W. Bever is reported as the winner of Bellevue Chess Club winter tournament 10-1 over 6 other players. One of the major chess events of each year use to be Chess International, a match between Washington and British Columbia. This issue announces the 10th in the series to be held July 26 under the Peace Arch near Blaine, Washington. Arthur Dake is winner of Oregon Open held June 13-14, 1953 at Portland Chess Club Nineteen players under direction of Deane Moore took part. Dake went 5-0, beating O.W. Manney, Ted Warner, Siverdt Poulsen, Ivars Dahlberg (sic) and Joe Cerretelli. Tied at 4-1 were Dan Wade and Dahlberg(sic). Dake got $30 for his win. Guess they did not split cash prizes in those days for Wade got $15 and Dahlberg (sic) got $8.00. Players came from Portland (6), Seattle (5), Yakima, Olympia, Centralia, Fort Lewis, Fresno CA, Forest Grove, OR, Cottage Grove (2). One had the travel to play chess in those days. O.W. Manney of Seattle while on a business trip to Boise Idaho picked up on tie-break the Idaho Open title over Laverl Kimpton of Filyer, Idaho. He could not play the Friday rounds so a friend played the first two games winning one and losing one, then Manney took over to score 6.5-1.5. Article on chess ratings work done by E. G. Shoit of Portland was printed. He rated both international and Northwest Players. Botvinnik was the top rated international player in his listings at 1533 with Geller second at 1504. Top USA players were Reshevksy 1439, Fine 1384, Evans 1332. The Tournament Director’s Report gave summary information on the years past events in somewhat humorous manner i.e. “The Puget Sound Open Tournament was won by Portland’s Jim Schmitt. These continuous Portland victories are giving out experts a fit!” Part II of FROM THE RECORD by Dan Wade appeared covering Washington Chess History after World War II up to 1946 i.e October 1946 saw the first round of the first season of Puget Sound League with teams from Queen Anne, UofW, Tacoma CC, Seattle CC, Skagit County, Bainbridge Island and Everett plus Bremerton. In the late 40’s and early 50’s team matches was one of the main chess activities in Puget Sound area. Something that is not done much these days. In the FROM CHESS LIFE column by Weaver it was reported the Dake-Zemgalis game from Washington-Oregon team match held in Centralia was reprinted in CHESS LIFE. The notes were by Dake. USCF was doing ratings twice yearly then and NW players listed were Elmars Zemgalis 2626 (one of the top ratings on the list), Arthur Dake 2475, Jim Schmitt 2148, Joachim 1964, Manney 1988, Sheets 1959, as Class B: Allen, DeWitt, Martin, Vellias, and Weaver as Class C: Collins, LaFreniere and Dickey. There was full page ad for Seattle Seafair Open to be held at Seattle CC on August 1-2, 1953. Entry fee was $3.00 for the six round two section swiss. A SPOKANE SPEAKS column by Dr. Griffith H. Parker appeared this month. He talks about starting an organized Spokane Chess Club in Nov 1950. There was some play at the YM before this but none of those people showed up for the 1st meeting Dr. Parker had called and gotten written up about in the newspaper. The Spokane CC rented in room in University Club for $2.50 a night and dues were $1.00 for three months. There were about 33 members and 12-20 showing up each week. The U Club moved which almost caused Spokane CC to die but the chess club was able to find space at the Spokane Hotel. Spokane paper did a “poorly written” feature story on the Club in fall of 1952 which was a help to find new members. There have been some team matches with Pasco and Yakima teams. As often happens the editor was forced to print his own games, a loss to Ted Warner, a win over S. Poulsen and loss with notes to Duane Meador. Greene still tops the Postal Chess Rating List.

- Discusions

- Print version