WASHINGTON CHESS LETTER July 1953 By Russell (Rusty) Miller

A 20 page issue had Daniel Wade as Editor as usual. The Assistant Editors were John Nourse, W.H. Weaver, O. Manney, Ollie LaFreniere, J. Sheets, Mrs. Wade and W. Couturs plus R.R. Merk for circulation and Postal Director. Mr. Greene was a top the postal rating list of 49 players. I believe the only players on this list still alive today and Ken Mulford and Don Kendall. Editor Wade reports: “Chess paraded up 4th Ave. in Seattle, Friday eve. July 31st! The occasion was the annual Seattle Seafair. Our game was represented by three decorated cars with signs advertising the Chess Letter, Seafair Tourney and Seattle Chess Club.” Seems like an idea that all chess clubs should be trying to do today. They had a couple of young ladies riding on the front of one car.

Elmars Zemgalis won a 4 player RR training tournament 6-0. Manney, Sheets and Ballantine all scored 2-4.

You could join Washington Chess Federation and get WASHINGTON CHESS LETTER for $2.00 a year back in 1953. The Washington Open in 1953 was to be held over Labor Day weekend with a $3.00 entry fee. Funds were being collect to help Elmars Zemgalis attend the US Open. They had $170.00 as of July 29th. Guess that means the July issue of WCL came out in late July.

On July 26th the Washington – BC match was held at Peace Arch near Blaine, Washington. Washington won 18-12 in the A division but BC was tops in the B section 9-8. O.W. Manney the WCF tournament director played board one for Washington and drew with Jack Taylor of BC. Players who I believe are still alive today from the event are Ken Mulford, Jim McCormick, Terry Nelson all playing for Washington.

Zemgalis won Annual Seattle Seafair tournament and more details were to be reported in the August issue. Seattle CC was located at 616 Madison St and between 16 and 30 players were turning out on Friday evenings. Members of the Tacoma CC got a thank you letter from the Red Cross for their coming to Madigan Hospital to play chess with hospitalized servicemen.

Ollie LaFreniere reports in from Yakima that William Hoge won the Yakima County Championship 17-1-1. Hoge also won Eastern Washington District open 7-0. Hoge was 33 years old in 1953 and born in Yakima and active from the start of the Yakima CC which took place in 1947. Pasco CC defeated a Yakima group 12.5-7.5.

From the “FROM CHESS LIFE by WEAVER” pages we learn that Sam Reshevsky won a match in Bueos Aires against Miguel Najdorf in 1953. Arthur Dake of Portland was scheduled to play in US Team match against Russia but it was canceled. A survey of chess publication was reported on. It listed 31 in USA and 4 in Canada. 52 newspapers and magazines had chess columns. USCF was doing ratings and only California and New York had more events rated than the 8 Washington events. Report says Mechanics Institute Chess Club of San Francisco adopted “Minute Chess”, 30 moves in 30 minutes for its club championship.

Dan Wade published a page of information about the first year of Puget Sound League play which took place in 1946 and 1947 which he got from the PUGET SOUND CHESS NEWS publication (your writer has copies of this publication). The Tacoma CC won that first year of PSL play. Fred Howard won a West Seattle CC event 16-4. The club met at High Point Recreation Center on 2nd and 4th Fridays. Pasco CC beat a team from Spokane 14.5-5.5.

WASHINGTON CHESS LETTER September 1953 By Russell (Rusty) Miller

Dan Wade’s helpers for this issue, Circulation: R. R. Merk, Assistant Editors: J.N. Nourse (Nourse AdNauseam), F. H Weaver (From Chess Life), O.W. Mannery (Diagram Page, etc.), K.M. Mulford (Art-Cartoons), O. LaFreniere (East Wash. News), E. Zamgalis (Game Annotations), J.L. Sheets (Game Annotations) Mrs. D.E. Wade (Whimsical Side), William Couture (Problems, etc).

Full page given to schedule of 1953-54 Puget Sound League, West Seattle, Seattle Y.M.C.A., U of W, Seattle CC, Olympia, Kitsap County, Tacoma CC and McNeil Island Prison. Page and half story on 24 player Washington Open won by Jim Schmidt of Portland 7-0. Don Turner of Portland was second on tie-break with 5-2 score. Dean Moore then of Portland now of Finland (I think) is the only player still alive who played in the tournament. First place was worth $34.00. Best game prize chosen by Zemgalis went to O.W. Manney of Seattle for his win over M. Paterson of Portland. The game with notes by Zemgalis appeared is this issue.

There was a report on the 24 player 10 round Swiss National Junior Championship held in Kansas City. Saul Yarmak of Passaic NJ won with 8.5-1.5. John Penquite of Des Moines (not sure if this is Iowa or WA) tied for second. He was the only player to beat the winner. I believe this John was for a long time the top rated postal player of our NW Postal Chess Group. Other players who readers today might know: 4th place Karl Burger of Brooklyn, Larry Remlinger age 11 of Long Beach CA was 8th. A newspaper article from Long Beach newspaper was reprinted about Remlinger who had at that point only been playing 14 months. Jim McCormick of Renton WA was 17 then and took part in the event, winning 4 losing 4 and drawing 2. 4 of Ted Warner wins from US Open were printed plus his loss to N. Rossolimo.

Editor Wade did a full page of predicting who would win Puget Sound League, writing a little about each team and came up with Seattle Y.M.C.A. as the team that would win. Greene and Mulford were still the top postal players on the rating list.