Beth Cassidy, with Gms Spassky and Stein
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1 JULY 2019 Chess News and Chess History for Oklahoma Beth Cassidy, with GMs Spassky and Stein Beth Cassidy HER REMARKABLE LEGACY OF CHESS PHOTOJOURNALISM FROM A GOLDEN AGE by Tom Braunlich In This Issue: • “Oklahoma’s Official Chess Beth Cassidy • Bulletin Covering Oklahoma Chess IM Donaldson on a Regular Schedule Since 1982” Review Pop Quiz: http://ocfchess.org • Oklahoma Chess Plus • played in a FIDE Chess Olympiad? Foundation News Bites, • was friends with many world champions? Register Online for Free Game of the • interviewed many top GMs and wrote Month, articles about them for Chess Life and Editor: Tom Braunlich Puzzles, British Chess Magazine? Asst. Ed. Rebecca Rutledge st Top 25 List, • is perhaps best known worldwide, Published the 1 of each month. Tournament especially among chess historians, for Send story submissions and Reports, taking many rare candid photos of tournament reports, etc., by the and more. masters and grandmasters? th 15 of the previous month to mailto:[email protected] The answer to all these questions is: Beth Cassidy. ©2019 All rights reserved. 23 Don’t know her? I wish I had known her better, as I had only met her twice, in 2008. For the last ten years this chess treasure was living here in Tulsa at a high-rise apartment downtown, and I forgot about her. Wrapped up in my own things, I procrastinated about going to visit her again until I found out it Beth Casidy (right, age 81) with GM Susan Polgar in 2008. (Braunlich) Sean Coffey (who runs an Irish chess website) and David McAllister. (They found some tantalizing info — many thanks to them for their valuable help!) They found an article “Chess is a Woman’s game Too” from the Irish Independent newspaper, December 1, 1951, which has a short profile of Beth that gives us this insightful Beth Cassidy, flanked by Boris Spassky (right) and Russian chess background for her: GM Leonid Stein in the 1960s. “Clontarf Club sponsored Ireland’s I had mentioned her briefly in my article in first International Chess Congress held Chess Life in 2008 about the U.S. in Dublin last August: and treasurer Championship in Tulsa, where she visited one and fund raiser of the Congress day and caused a stir among the players. I Committee was Miss Beth Cassidy. said, Miss Cassidy is an assistant in a Dublin drapery store. “Ms. Cassidy was a member of the Ireland chess team and a journalist with British She learned chess almost by accident. Chess Magazine. She knew many of the Last Easter she was visiting a patient classic GMs from the 40s and 50s. While a in a hospital. Books palled, manager of the Manhattan Chess Club in the conversation lagged. The patient 1960s she wrote extensive detailed articles wanted to play chess and he wanted on the great masters that hung out there, an opponent, so he taught Beth. And including Fischer, Lombardy, Kmoch, all summer she brought a chessboard Steinmeyer, etc. She worked for Shell and around with her, playing in between when she retired chose to live in Tulsa.” dips at the Swimming Club. She is the first woman secretary of the Irish She was born in Dublin, Ireland; but other Amateur Swimming Association, than that we knew little about her personal Leinster Branch. Now she is taking life. But Harold Brown was able to find some part in two international contacts in Ireland who could help learn correspondence competitions, one more about her chess career: with London and one with 2 45 Manchester. She was runner-up in the two famous Piatgorsky Cup grandmaster the Leinster Ladies’ Senior tournaments with her husband in California in Championship initiated by the 1963 and 1966.) Clontarf Club and run in August last in conjunction with the International Tournament.” (Irish Independent, 1951) So, she learned chess at about age 23 and became an avid player quickly. It is clear she was a well-organized person, getting involved in volunteer secretarial jobs for the chess and swimming clubs, which must have been good preparation for when she moved to New York and did the same. The overcrowded scene at the first Women’s Chess Olympiad in Emmen, Netherlands, 1957 in which Beth Cassidy played. A comical newsreel film report on it is here, in Dutch: Beth played in the famous Hastings Chess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Finale_wereldschaaktournooi_voor_ Congress (in England) in early 1952, and she dames_landenteams-517813.ogv won the Leinster Ladies’ Championship four times in a row from 1952-55. (Leinster is the Cassidy wrote a funny article about the 1957 major Irish province that includes Dublin). Women’s Olympiad experience for British Chess Magazine, which can be viewed here: Cassidy never won the Irish Ladies’ https://www.icu.ie/articles/223 Championship in five tries. She tied for first in it in 1953 but lost a playoff match to Hilda “I suppose the most aggravating Chater, the perennial champion and Beth’s thing women chess-players have to rival during that time period 1952-57. contend with is the superior male attitude. One of the masters coming out of the adjournment room was overheard to say that he could not bear to watch the games any longer - the play made him quite ill and completely upset his nervous system. Poor fellow! Admittedly he was up till four in the morning analysing a long drawn out but clear-cut win for a player who succeeded in losing in five minutes flat. Then there was the case of Antonia Ivanova. Her husband, the Bulgarian master Closeup of the players in the 1954 Irish Championship in Bobotsov, insisted that she played Belfast. Cassidy is seated 3rd from the left. Her constant under her maiden name so she rival, Hilda Chater, is seated at right. (Photo courtesy of would not harm his reputation ... "The Albert Long Collection") this in the face of the fact that Cassidy was included on Ireland’s first whilst Ivanova is an international women’s team when the very first FIDE master he is merely a Bulgarian Women’s Chess Olympiad was played in 1957 one.” — Beth Cassidy in Emmen, Netherlands. (One of her opponents there, by the way, was American Jacqueline Piatgorsky, who later sponsored 3 67 The criticism of the play of the event was not was somewhat accepted as part of the “in entirely unjustified, however. In the only game group.” When visiting famous players like of Beth’s found online she resigned in a winning Spassky and Stein came through they soon position against a Romanian player. See it online became friendly with her as well. here: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gi As a photojournalist this trust in turn gave her d=1818258 rare access to camera-shy players like Fischer. Cassidy did some work as a photojournalist for This is evidenced by her ability to take rare BCM in England, but soon decided to immigrate and revealing photographs of many great to New York. The reason for this is unclear. players in candid and playful situations. She One explanation I’ve heard says she married an did this from 1962 until 1970 (and at least on a American oil executive and move there with few occasions after that as late as 1977) and him. Another explanation is that she wanted to amassed a rare collection of photos that rivals improve her chances of making her living as a any other in the chess world. In 2008 when photojournalist. Frank Berry first met her in Tulsa, he arranged to scan and digitize her photos for In any case, she soon landed a job at the posterity. I have access to Frank’s personal Manhattan Chess Club and was there compilation, and below I present a selection of throughout the 1960s during the era of the rise my favorites. of Bobby Fischer. At first she was apparently a receptionist at the club, but she soon became Many of these photos are of unidentified described as the “assistant manager” under players or FIDE officials in play at the club or the great Hans Kmoch (1962-65). My in tournaments or banquets held in New York. understanding is that she then became the IM John Donaldson working with Frank and defacto manager from 1966 to at least 1969. It other players from that era in New York (such may be, however, that the title of manager as Anthony Saidy and the late Walter was rather loosely applied to the small staff Shipman) were able to identify many of the there. Sometimes she was referred to as the players pictured. It is fascinating to a chess club secretary. In 1969 for example Al fan to see the great players of that era, at a Horowitz in his New York Times column called time when players often wore suits and ties to her “one of the secretaries at the MCC and its tournaments or clubs. ever-ready factotum…” In addition to these photos, Beth Cassidy also The impression given is that she was very began writing regularly for Chess Life in 1963. popular there among the regulars as well as She did insightful interviews of players along visiting masters, and thus was the “go-to” with photos. Soon she was being sent to cover person if a club member needed something or some chess events for the magazine. if an event needed organization. She had a rare combination of skills that made her good Her trusted position allowed her unique access for the job — she had a sweet female — a great example of this is how she was there personality that presumably made her calming to cover GM William Lombardy’s ordination as and attractive to the club members, most of whom were competitive males, and yet also they appreciated that as a good chess player herself she understood the players and their needs.