April 1937 -- Games 168 and 169

After a long layoff, I'm back at scanning Henry's chess journal tonight. We're up to April 24, 1937. Lots of commentary on the quality of the games and their status. We end this installment with Mr. Hanson's wife having suffered a stroke.

Latshaw vs Horak, 1937

Its been awhile since my last post to this blog. My vernerable old XP computer finally got replaced. After losing its CD drive last November, its clearly been on its last legs. I managed to get an extra year or two out of it by replacing a power supply, the hard drive controller, and other bits, but it was definitely getting dangerous to use that fellow.

The problem with the replacement is... Vista. My day-job at Sandia will soon involve Vista; teaching at the CSF requires Office 2007 and any day now they'll be using Vista. And Vista didn't like my old Visioneer scanner. Now, a couple week's later, I've got an HP Deskjet F4280 printer/scanner and I'm set to go.

Here's Henry's game with a gentleman named Latchaw. On the last page of this series, an original Grin and Bear It from 1937. Ya gotta love chess humor. :-)

Interview with Henry Horak

I'm taking a break from scanning and just having a chat with Henry this morning while waiting to get an online boarding pass for my nephew.

Henry first went down to the YMCA by taking the Brooklyn streetcar (for 10 cents). Possibly in 1933 or 1934. He would have been 14 or 15 at the time. There he met ___, who was the senior player at the time. He still sends a Christmas card to his daughter living on Catalina Island, CA, so its only a matter of time until we discover his name.

In those days Masters and Grandmasters came through with some regularity. Henry recalls:

Rubin Fine--a very strong player; played 60 simultaneous games; didn't start out aggressively, but played steadily towards an end game where he would finally conclude the matter in his favor; got irritated with Henry because he wasn't playing fast enough during a simultaneous match.

Horowitz--We have records of the game in January 1940. Horowitz was traveling with the New England Champion, Harold Morton, when he played in KC. Afterwards there was an automobile accident in which Morton was killed but Israel survived. (Henry recalls it was "near Topeka," but Chessopedia shows it to have been February 17, 1940 in Iowa). This would have been a month to the day after Henry's game.

Bobby Fisher--probably in 1962 or 1963 while Henry was in Lawrence.

Henry also fondly recalls a gentleman by the name of Latshaw. He may have been more of a chess spectator. He remembers the two of them following the Euwe vs Alekine match game by game. They would go down to the Kansas City Star offices on Saturday and read the chess listings.

Played some chess with a Master in LA while at Wx school. I'll have to work on getting the details.

KC Chess Club in England. Met Latshaw on a double-decker bus in London during the war. He had been taking a war orphan home after buying him dinner. This act of kindness made a great impression on Henry.

Through the Catholic Chaplin, Henry learned about a chess player in Kettering (near the base at Grafton-Underwood). He was not a particularly good player, but chess players of any caliper were hard to find during the war. Henry's mother Leota kept up a correspondence until her death with several of the women that Henry met through this gentleman. I believe they were older children sent to the countryside to avoid the bombings in the cities like the Pevensies in the Chronicles of Narnia.

In England Henry came across a beautiful red and white ivory chess set (the King about 4" high). Some estate under financial stress was having to sell it. He picked it up for the equivalent of $200. Back in the mid-60s Lou crafted a walnut and beech board for the set. I'll post photos of the entire kit sometime soon.

April 20, 1937

A blank page precedes the next game from April 15th against a Mr. Harris.

There follows the next game, also against Harris on the same day.



Yet another game on April 17th against Harris.



This series is summarized by critical notes written on April 20 and 23.

The 1937 Kansas City Open Championship Tournament

I continue to scan Henry Horak's chess log. Today's installment is the beginning of the 1937 Kansas City Open Chess Tournament. We begin with a substantial chapter title page followed by a results matrix, an interesting statistical note, an introduction, and then the first game with W. E. Campbell. What with 12 players, there's much more to come.

Introduction

Continuing with my scanning of Vol. 2 of Dad's chess diary, let's go back to the beginning of the binder. It has one blank sheet before the first coversheet.

	The cover sheet is dated April 8, 1937 and signed with Henry's elegant signature. Interestingly, April 8 was on a Thursday in 1937.
	On the obverse, a quote from Napoleon.
	There follows a handmade and signed interior title page.
	Another quote, this from Anthony Santasiere, an American master from the 1920s to the 1950s.
	A photograph of Henry taken Thanksgiving, 1938. (Thanksgiving was Nov. 24 that year and I assume this was taken sometime between the 24th and 27th.)

Chess in Kansas City?

I know that people are out there blogging about everything under the sun, but I think I've got a topic that's a little new and different. This blog is mostly for family and friends, but there are bound to be a few people out there interested in Depression-era history, the history of chess, and Kansas City history.

What, you may ask, is all this talk about history? Isn't this a blog about chess in Kansas City?

Well, yes, its a blog about chess in Kansas City, but its about chess my father played in Kansas City from 1937 until 1940 when WW II intervened.

Its all beautifully documented in a chess diary I found while unpacking Mom and Dad into their new assisted-living facility. There, on top of the box for his beautiful ivory chess set that he brought home from England during the war was a faded S. S. Kresge Co. collegiate binder that contained Vol. 2 of his chess diary. I'm starting in the middle and skipping right past Vol. 1 (but we'll get to that eventually). I'm going to gradually scan a few pages a week and put them online until the entire corpus is digitally conserved.

So here's the first installment--a game with the famous Master (Grandmaster IMHO despite never holding the title), Israel Albert Horowitz from Jan. 17, 1940. The match lasted 5 hours and when Horowitz offered my dad a draw it was accepted--he had an early class the next day.

From the scan (200 dpi jpg) you can get a feel for the fragility of the faded old pages and the character of the binder (Model 3070, made in the U.S.A.). The pages are 5½" by 8½" and the pre-printed score sheet shows indications of the time: a misprint on line 13 and, it being just days into the new year of 1940, "39" scratched out.

Just a few pages earlier in the diary, there is a small note at the top of a page, "War ruins chess! (among other things)." Truer words could not have been written and within 12 months, Henry was drafted and Pearl Harbor would be bombed.