TO THE MARSHALL CHESS CLUB FRANK MARSHALL, UNITED STATES CHESS CHAMPION A Biography with 220 Games by Grandmaster Andy Soltis McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data are available Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Soltis, Andy, 1947- Frank Marshall, United States chess champion : a biography with 220 games / by Andy Soltis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Q ISBN-13: 978-0-89950-887-0 (lib. bdg. : 50# alk. paper) � I. Marshall, Frank James, 1877-1944. 2. Chess players- United States- Biography. I. Title. GV1439.M35S65 1994 794.l'S9 - dc20 92-56699 CIP ©1994 Andy Soltis. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640 CONTENTS Preface IX One: When Chess Was Young 1 Two: Paris 1900 14 Three: Sophomore Marshall 26 Four: Cambridge Springs 57 Five: Consistently Inconsistent 73 Six: Candidate Marshall 98 Seven: The Longest Trip 116 Between pages 152 and 153 are 8 pages of plates containing 14 photographs Eight: A Year at Home 153 Nine: Swindle! 167 Ten: The Great Tournaments 175 Eleven: Farewell to Europe 207 Twelve: The War Years 230 Thirteen: The House That Marshall Built 245 Fourteen: Another Lasker 255 Fifteen: European Comeback 273 Sixteen: A Lion in Winter 292 Se,:enteen: The Gold Medals 320 Eighteen: Sunset 340 Tournament and Match Record 365 Bibliography 369 Index 373 v Preface My first serious contact with chess began when, as a high school sophomore, I took a board in a simultaneous exhibition at the Marshall Chess Club. With some difficulty I managed to locate the club's ivy­ covered, Greenwich Village brownstone and, after getting past the front door, climbed for the firsttime the ancient staircase that leads to the club's main, second-floor playing rooms. At the top of the stairs a tiny, gray-haired lady collected my $3 fee for the exhibition, smiled and directed me to a table and chessboard next to what I later learned was a 130-year-old fireplace. The room bustled with well-dressed adults who all seemed to know one another and a lot about chess. I sat quietly and waited for the lecture by grandmaster Larry Evans and his first move in the simul. After an hour or two I turned down my king, collected my scoresheet and schoolbooks and began to make a discreet, slightly embarrassed exit. But the petite woman who'd been at the top of the stairs stopped me with another smile, complimented me on my play and gave me an application for club membership. She said people called her Mrs. Marshall but her name was Carrie. I knew Carrie Marshall during the last nine years of her long life. I heard a great deal from her of her husband, Frank. I learned how he was United States Champion for a record 27 years and how he captained four world champion U.S. Olympiad teams, how he broke his own record for games played in a simultaneous exhibition and how he had been named one of the firstfive gra ndmasters of the game. From the copy of My Fifty Years of Chess that she gave me I discovered the richness of his sparkling imagination. I also learned, though not from Carrie, that Frank Marshall was the most beloved chess master America has ever produced. Thirty years have passed since my first visit to the Marshall Chess Club. Most everyone who knew Frank and Carrie is gone, and his books are out of print. As a result of the passage of time, today's players are losing vii viii PREFA CE all contact with the era when chess was transformed from a pastime to a profession, the era of Frank Marshall. In trying to rectify this I've relied heavily on Marshall's own words­ from handwritten notes he left and from his autobiographical, final book. The notes, written in pencil on yellow legal pad paper, were the basis for the book, hereafter referred to as My Fifty Years. The notes are part of the archives of the Marshall Chess Club, without whose help this book would not be possible. Grandmaster Andy Soltis New York City June 1993 Chapter One When Chess Was Young Before Frank Marshall, chess was a different game. Through the prism of his lifetime we can appreciate how it grew from amateur infancy to the professional competition that today fascinates millions. Before Marshall there had been barely a dozen international tourna­ ments. Records indicate there were only four tournaments of any kind held the year he was born, 1877. The round robin or all-play-all method of conducting a tournament had been introduced only fifteen years before and replaced the prevailing knockout system. Swiss System pair­ ings, which now predominate, were decades away. Chess was slower then. Serious games were played at a rate of 15 or so moves per hour. The firstchess clocks - using sandglasses - had made their appearance after the London tournament of 1862. Pendulum clocks only began to replace them in the 1880s. Theory about the way to conduct a game was scant. In English a few, sketchy opening books had been written, and they dwelled largely on the many facets of the King's Gambit. Only a few dozen chess books were generally available, even in the finerlibrarie s. By the turn of the century the choices had broadened only slightly. You could buy Staunton's Hand­ book, for about a dollar, and the tournament book of Hastings 1895, which cost a bit more. The most expensive chess book around, Tarrasch's Three Hundred Games, cost more than $2 - at a time when you could buy a good pair of shoes for $1.75. Even notation for recording moves was relatively new. Marshall wrote "castles," rather than "0-0," on his score sheets throughout his career. At the board, masters announced mates. Analyzing of adjourned games was still legally banned - but gaining private acceptance. The idea of seconds was decades away. The modern scoring system-in which a draw is scored as a half point for each player-was not universally ac­ cepted and, in fact, some of the strongest events before WorldWar I re­ quired draws to be replayed. Also absent was the modern draw-by- 2 FRANK MARSHALL repetition rule; identical positions were sometimes repeated six, seven or eight times before the stubborn opponents agreed to shake hands. It was a time when chess masters seemed larger than life. They rou­ tinely drank and smoked too much. They gambled and cursed, and on oc­ casion even challenged one another to duel. Some carried guns: "I had a permit and always carried a revolver." Marshall wrote about his European trips in his unpublished notes. "Would 1 have used it? 1 never did in all my travels, though three times 1 pulled it- the last time to throw it away." Frank James Marshall played the role of master well. He was tall, well over six feet, like rivals such as Alexander Alekhine and Siegbert Tarrasch, and towered over others such as Richard Reti and Savielly Tartakower. He dressed like a Victorian gambler, and was rarely without his ascot tie. His hair was reddish and grew darker as he aged. He chewed cigars and usually had one in his mouth, according to Arnold Denker, who was in his teens when he met the then august Marshall in the late 1920s. "When asked to speak he had the nervous habit of always clenching his hands behind his back, thus thrusting out his chest and rocking back and forth," Denker recalled. "He had a peculiar combination of characteristics we call 'color,'" said Chess Review in a tribute: "a natural air of distinction, a keen sense of showmanship. When he entered a public place, people turned to look at him, then leaned their heads together and whispered." And while he lived for chess, Marshall never took the game - or anything else, including himself-overly seriously. Once when Chess Review editor Kenneth Harkness arrived at the Marshall Chess Club he saw the great man finishingup a lesson with a beginner. "See that fellow," a beaming Marshall said as his student left the building. "Six weeks ago all he could do was set up the pieces." "Now," he added, after a stage pause, "he doesn't even know how to do that." Marshall loved games. Almost all games: chess, checkers, bingo, casino gambling, even something called saita, one of many games he mastered in a remarkably short period of time. Salta was a two-player game using 30 numbered checkers on a WO-square board and resembled Chinese checkers and the Russian game ugolki. It was invented about the year 1900, and to promote it a series of international tournaments were held, beginning with one in June 1900 at Paris. Not knowing who would make a good salta-ist, as they were called, the organizers invited the world's best chess players - including Harry Pillsbury, Mikhail Chigorin, and Dawid Janowsky-and the best checker When Chess Was Young 3 players, as well as the few recognized salta experts. Marshall, who couldn't have known of the very existence of the game before he arrived in Paris a few weeks before, finished in a tie for third prize with the world's best checker player, Isidore Weiss. A year later at Monte Carlo he won a "world championship" at the game and 3000 French francs - more than he would win at any of the chess tournaments at Monte Carlo.