Draft:Chess in the United States
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Chess in the United States has been widely played since the sport was brought over via European colonialism in 1641. A book by Esther Singleton entitled Dutch New York detailed the game and its rules. In 1786, the first dedicated chess literature was published in the United States: "The Morals of Chess", an essay on the game by polymath and statesman Benjamin Franklin.[1][2] The United States Chess Federation is the governing body of chess in the country.
The United States has been the playing country of two World Chess Champions, Wilhelm Steinitz and Bobby Fischer. The American team has won the Chess Olympiad on six different occassions, with six runner-up placements and eight third place finishes. The women's team has also won one silver and one bronze medal in the Women's Chess Olympiad. Historically, the United States has hosted various professional chess tournaments attended by players around the world. The American Chess Congress hosted in New York City was among the first, attended by players such as Paul Morphy and Frank James Marshall.[3] The famous New York 1927 chess tournament won easily by José Raúl Capablanca was also hosted in New York.
The U.S. Open Chess Championship and U.S. Women's Open Chess Championship have also been hosted annually with 123 iterations since 1900, and are open to players from around the world. The World Chess Championship 2016, played by defending champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Sergey Karjakin, was hosted in New York City.[4] The Classical World Chess Championship 1995 was also hosted in New York City, on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower.[5] The Saint Louis Chess Club annually hosts the American Cup, an invite-only elimination tournament, and the Sinquefield Cup, a globally recognized invite-only round-robin "supertournament".[6]
The United States has also hosted various interior championships open to solely American players. The US Chess Championship, which began official play in a round robin format in 1936 and is the oldest ongoing national chess championship in the world, has been played 67 times, and won multiple times by Bobby Fischer (8 times), Samuel Reshevsky (8), Walter Browne (6), Larry Evans (5), Gata Kamsky (5), Hikaru Nakamura (5) and Jackson Showalter (5). Its counterpart, the US Women's Chess Championship, has also been played since the open, with repeat winners including Gisela Kahn Gresser (9 times), Irina Krush (8), Mona May Karff (7), and Diane Savereide (5).[7]
History
[edit]Early history (17th century to late 19th century)
[edit]In 1826, the fraudulent chess-playing computer the Mechanical Turk opened an exhibition in New York City.[8] Later that same year, the same exhibition opened at Julien Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, with its operator Johann Nepomuk Maelzel continuing to con audiences by claiming that the Turk had faced much less trouble in New York and that the Boston players were much stronger opponents. Maelzel and the Turk's tour continued through Philadelphia, Baltimore and Richmond, defeating Declaration of Independence signatory Charles Carroll of Carrollton and inspiring the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's expository essay "Maelzel's Chess Player". Eventually, the Turk was destroyed in a fire at the National Theater in Philadelphia.[9]
In 1837, Paul Morphy was born to a prominent family in New Orleans. A likely apocryphal story related by Morphy's uncle Ernest claims that Morphy spotted a missed win in a game between Ernest and Morphy's father Alonzo, despite Morphy presumably having no knowledge of the rules.[10][11] At nine years old, Morphy was soon considered among the strongest chess players in New Orleans, and inflicted numerous defeats from the ages of eleven and twelve upon players including Eugène Rousseau, Johann Löwenthal, and United States Army General Winfield Scott.[12][13]
Early tournament play (late 19th century to mid-early 20th century)
[edit]The series of Anglo-American cable chess matches played between America and Great Britain were eventually lost by the United States, though notable players who won their games included Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Jackson Showalter, Frank Marshall, and Albert Hodges.[14][15]
Fischer era, chess "boom" (1969-1990)
[edit]Scholastic era (1990-present)
[edit]Culture
[edit]Atlanta
[edit]Charlotte
[edit]New York City
[edit]New York City is widely known for its bustling chess culture.
St. Louis
[edit]The Saint Louis Chess Club located in the Central West End of St. Louis
Notable players
[edit]- Bobby Fischer (1943-2008), chess prodigy, Grandmaster, and eleventh World Chess Champion
- Paul Morphy (1837-1884), chess prodigy widely acknowledged as the world's greatest player during his career[16]
Publications
[edit]See also
[edit]- Scholastic chess in the United States
- United States Chess Federation
- U.S. Open Chess Championship
- U.S. Women's Open Chess Championship
- U.S. Chess Championship
- U.S. Women's Chess Championship
- American Cup
- World Open chess tournament
References
[edit]- ^ McCrary, John. "Chess and Benjamin Franklin-His Pioneering Contributions" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
- ^ "Chess - The Peopling of New York City". eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-18.
- ^ "First American Chess Congress Opponents". Archived from the original on 2008-10-06. Retrieved 2008-04-17.
- ^ Carlsen wins tie-break and remains World Champion!, chessbase.com, 30-11-2016
- ^ The Week in Chess 358, 17 September, 2001
- ^ "On Chess: Super-tournament Sinquefield Cup to become part of prestigious international tour". STLPR. 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
- ^ Soltis, Andy (2012). The United States Chess Championship, 1845–2011. US: McFarland. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-7864-6528-6.
- ^ Levitt, 68–69.
- ^ Levitt, 97.
- ^ Levitt, 97.
- ^ Lawson 2010, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Lawson 2010, p. 18.
- ^ Lawson 2010, p. 20.
- ^ "America wins the chess cup". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 15 March 1896. p. 7.
- ^ Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1984). The Oxford Companion to Chess. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Winter, Edward (December 3, 2022). "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess". Retrieved 22 January 2023.