Arthur Dake

Arthur William Dake (born April 8, 1910 in Portland , Oregon , † April 28, 2000 in Reno , Nevada ) was an American chess player .

In the 1930s, Dake was one of the best players in his country and won the Chess Olympiads in 1931 , 1933 and 1935 with the national team . He then ended his professional chess career and later only appeared sporadically in the tournament arena. In 1954 he received the title of International Master (IM), in 1986 he was made an Honorary Grand Master (HGM).

Life

youth

Arthur Dake's father, William, immigrated to the United States from Poland . He was originally called Darkowski, but had his name Anglicized. In 1908 he married Anna Sather from Norway , with whom he had two children: Arthur and his younger sister Lilian. The family's financial situation was strained. William Dake earned just enough as a shipyard worker to support his family. Arthur therefore started working at a young age and made money as a newspaper seller. At the age of twelve he ran away from home and drove to Hollywood , where he hoped to meet the movie stars he knew from the cinema. After a week, he was picked up by the police penniless and sent home. His parents' marriage was in crisis, which bothered him very much. At the age of 16 he was hired as a cabin boy on a merchant ship that sailed between the USA and Asia.

On his return he went back to high school and spent much of his free time at the YMCA Young People's Christian Association in Portland, where he learned the rules of chess in April 1927. He turned out to be talented and was first tutored by a Russian émigré named Abrikosov. A little later, Dake became a member of the Portland Chess and Checkers Club , where he quickly made further progress. In the spring of 1928 he took the train to Los Angeles , where the reigning world chess champion Alexander Alekhine gave a simultaneous performance. Dake managed to keep the game drawn , after which he immediately traveled to San Francisco , where Alekhine's next appearance took place two days later. Since word of the Oregon boy's success got around, he was allowed to play there for free. Alekhine was now warned and turned his attention entirely to this game, which he was able to win quickly this time. From the summer of 1928 Dake undertook further journeys as a seaman, which took him to China, the Philippines and the Soviet Union, among others.

Professional chess player from 1929 to 1936

Dake spent the winter of 1929 in New York City and met the checkers Kenneth Grover on Coney Island , who played there for small bets against passers-by. The two became friends, and Dake began playing chess for cash, usually 25 cents a game. Grover and Dake also tried running a place where poker was played, but gave up after becoming victims of an armed robbery. While Dake earned his living playing games against weak players during the day, he visited chess clubs in the evening to be able to compete against serious opponents. At the Marshall Chess Club he met Reuben Fine , who was four years his junior and with whom he had a friendly rivalry over the next few years.

In May 1930 Dake won a Junior Masters Tournament with 5 points from 6 games, leaving Reuben Fine, Arnold Denker and Al Horowitz behind. This qualified him for the state championship of New York in Utica , where he finished third with 7 points from 10 games behind Norman Lessing and Anthony Santasiere . In December 1930 he won the club championship of the Marshall Chess Club with 6.5 points from 8 games and was appointed to the American team for the 1931 Chess Olympiad because of this success. In order to cover travel expenses, he completed a simultaneous tour of California in the spring of 1931. He then played an international tournament in New York, in which ex-world champion José Raúl Capablanca also took part. After draws in the first three rounds against Isaac Kashdan , Herman Steiner and Abraham Kupchik , Dake met Capablanca in the fourth round. He reached a winning position with the black pieces, in which Capablanca, according to his own statement, already considered giving up the game on move 37. But then Dake let himself be carried away to hasty moves, after the 40th move he refused to cancel as a hanging game and even lost. Dake also had to pay tribute to his inexperience in later rounds. He lost to national champions Frank Marshall , Al Horowitz and Isador Turover. In the time emergency phase, he felt disturbed by Dake's outburst of temper and lodged a corresponding protest with the referee , whereupon the point was awarded to him. With a total of 3 points from 11 games, Dake only came in 9th to 11th place, the tournament winner was Capablanca. Dake rebuilt his battered self-confidence by beating Reuben Fine 2-0 in a competition.

At the end of June 1931, the Olympic team consisting of Dake, Horowitz, Kashdan, Marshall and Steiner traveled by ship across the Atlantic to Europe. The Prague Olympics began on July 12th and ended on July 26th with a victory for the American team. Dake played on board 3 and scored 8.5 points from 14 games. At the tournament he met world champion Alekhine again and sent him an invitation to a tournament in Pasadena the following year , which Alekhine accepted. Following the Olympics, Dake played an international tournament in Antwerp at the invitation of George Koltanowski , in which six Belgian players competed against foreign champions according to the Scheveningen system . Dake won the tournament with 5 points from 6 games, shared with Akiba Rubinstein and Frederick Yates tied for points .

After his return to the USA, Dake gave simultaneous performances again and gambled for stakes. Because of the economic crisis , however, it became increasingly difficult to earn a living in this way. In the summer of 1932 the tournament took place in Pasadena. Dake managed to win his game against world champion Alekhine, which caused a sensation. However, he lost two games, against Samuel Reshevsky and the Mexican player José Araiza, and ended up with 6 points from 11 games on the shared 3rd to 5th place.

In March 1933 Dake played a match in 10 games against Al Horowitz in New York, in which he had to admit defeat prematurely with 0: 4 in 4 draws. In May, also in New York, a qualifying tournament for the Olympic team took place, in which Dake came third with 7 points from 10 games behind Reuben Fine and Albert Simonson and thus secured a place in the team. At the Olympics in Folkestone , England , the Americans were able to defend their title, Dake contributed to this success with 10 points from 13 games on board 4 and achieved the second-best result after Frank Marshall. Among other things, he won against Marcel Duchamp , who played in the French team. After his return to the USA, Dake played a match against Reuben Fine, against whom he had a positive record until then, but this time lost 4-2 in three draws. Also at the Western Open in Detroit , which took place shortly afterwards, Reuben Fine was the tournament winner, while Dake had to be content with third place. Dake showed his class in blitz chess in early 1934 when Alexander Alekhine visited the Manhattan Chess Club , when he won six blitz games in a row against the world champion, who began to fear for his reputation in view of the numerous lapwings . However, the evening ended conciliatory with a joint drinking tour through New York bars.

In July 1934, Dake took 3rd place at the Western Chess Championship in Chicago , and in August 3rd to 4th place, shared with Reuben Fine, at an international tournament in Syracuse . Samuel Reshevsky won both tournaments, establishing himself as the leading player in the USA. In early 1935, Dake, along with Reuben Fine and Herman Steiner, received an invitation to a tournament in Mexico City . The three Americans proved to be clearly superior to the Mexican players and shared the first three places with 11 points from 12 games. In June Dake played a match against Herman Steiner in Los Angeles for the title of Champion of the Pacific Coast , which he won 4-1 in a draw. 1935 recommended Dake by a 2nd place behind Reuben Fine at the Western Open in Milwaukee again for the Olympic team. The Olympics took place in Warsaw and ended with a victory for the American team for the third time in a row, although Samuel Reshevsky did not participate due to other commitments. Dake, whose father had recently passed away, felt particularly motivated to do well in the land of his ancestors. He achieved an outstanding result on board 4 with 15.5 points from 18 games. On the way back across the Atlantic he met his future wife Helen Girard (born November 24, 1908 on Long Island as Helen Katherine Gerwatowski), who had visited relatives in Poland. They married just a few weeks later, on November 14, 1935, in New York. Groomsmen were Al Horowitz and Carolyn Marshall, wife of Frank Marshall.

In 1936 his playing strength was at its peak, his historical Elo number at that time was 2655. In April 1936 the first official tournament for the national championship of the USA began in New York. Frank Marshall, who had previously defended his title in competitions against individual challengers, voluntarily resigned to make way for the new generation. It was held as a round-robin tournament with 16 participants. Reuben Fine, Al Horowitz, Isaac Kashdan, Alexander Kevitz , Abraham Kupchik, Samuel Reshevsky and Herman Steiner as well as Dake himself were pre-qualified , the remaining participants had to qualify via one of a total of four regional elimination tournaments. He had high hopes for the title and $ 600 prize pool. After the 9th round he led the table with 7 points, but then lost to the eventual tournament winner Samuel Reshevsky. With Black against the Queen's Gambit he chose a variant with an early queue exchange and tried to simplify the position, but got at a development disadvantage, which ultimately led to a decisive loss of material. Dake couldn't take this setback. He lost two more games in the course of the tournament, in the 12th round against Herman Steiner and in the 13th round against George Treysman . In the end, Dake ended up with 9 points from 15 games only on the 6th to 7th place, which was disappointing for him. In the fall of 1936 he took another attempt at a national title at the American Chess Federation Congress in Philadelphia . His chances were good because both Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky were playing in Europe at the time. He led until the last round, but then lost the decisive game against Donald H. Mugridge, whereupon he only reached 2nd place behind Al Horowitz.

Employed and occasionally playing chess from 1937 to 1972

After these relative failures, Dake tried to build a steady income existence. First he got a job as a chess teacher at public schools in Milwaukee through the mediation of Professor Arpad Elo . His daughter Marjorie was born on April 17, 1937. Shortly thereafter, the young family moved to Dake's hometown of Portland. In the years that followed, Dake tried his hand at various professions there, including as a gas station attendant and insurance agent. In the spring of 1938 he took part again in the state championship in New York, but only came in 6th place. From autumn 1943 to October 1945 he served as a military policeman , after which he was given a job as a driving examiner .

Although he was hardly active in chess, he was appointed to the national team for a competition against the Soviet Union, which took place in Moscow in September 1946 . The American team (Reshevsky, Fine, Denker, Horowitz, Kashdan, Steiner, Kevitz, Dake, Ulvestad, Pinkus and Adams) made a stopover in Stockholm on the way there and played there in a blitz tournament against the best Swedish players. Although he was unfamiliar with the blitz game with a chess clock, which is common in Europe , because 10-second blitz was mainly played in the USA, Dake finished 2nd to 3rd behind Samuel Reshevsky. The American team was enthusiastically received in Moscow. The double-round competition took place in the columned hall of the house of the trade unions in front of over 1,500 spectators, with former world champion Max Euwe acting as referee . Dake played twice against Andor Lilienthal , the Soviet team won the competition with 12.5: 7.5. For Helen Dake, who was accompanying her husband, the trip turned out to be a disappointment. She asked the Soviet authorities to allow her to visit her Polish relatives. She was then flown to Warsaw, but because of the chaotic situation in the war-ravaged city, she was not allowed to move around freely, so she had to return without having achieved anything.

In the following years Dake played only a few regional tournaments in addition to his professional activity. In 1948 he won the Oregon Open and in 1949 the Pacific Northwest Masters . In the first Elo list published by the United States Chess Federation in November 1950 , Dake had a rating of 2598 and the rank of Senior Master .

In February 1950 he took part in the radio competition USA against Yugoslavia and lost 0.5: 1.5 against Stojan Puc . In 1952 he won two smaller tournaments, the Oregon Open and the Pacific International organized by George Koltanowski in San Francisco, and took part in the Hollywood International in Beverly Hills , which was organized by Herman Steiner . There he got a draw against tournament winner Svetozar Gligoric and the runner-up Arturo Pomar ; overall he came in 4th to 5th place with 5 points from 9 games. In 1953 he again won the Oregon Open and played the US Open in Milwaukee, in which he scored 7.5 points from 12 games. In the summer of 1954 he traveled to his former adopted home New York and took part as a substitute in the USA against the Soviet Union. He was only used in one game after Arnold Denker lost three times to David Bronstein and asked for a break. Dake also had to admit defeat to Bronstein. The Soviet team won clearly with 20:12. In 1955 Dake again took part in the US Open , which this time took place in Long Beach , and came with 8 points from 12 games in 11th place among 156 participants.

After he was able to win the Oregon Open again in 1958 and 1959 , Dake withdrew completely from the tournament arena. He continued to work as a driving examiner and took over 70,000 exams by his retirement in 1973. In his spare time he turned to the bridge game .

Comeback between 1973 and 1989

In 1973 he appeared completely surprising at the Lone Pine Open and scored 2.5 points from 7 rounds, including a draw against Lubomir Kavalek . In 1974 he played again in Lone Pine, this time he improved his result with 4 points from 7 rounds. He defeated Grandmaster Levente Lengyel and drew with Julio Kaplan . After a 1st place shared with Yasser Seirawan at the 1974 Oregon Open , he decided to play another international tournament abroad. In February 1975 he visited Trondheim , his mother's hometown, and then played a nine-round tournament in Sandefjord , in which he came 7th with 4 points. He also took part in Lone Pine again in 1975 and got 3.5 points from 10 games, where he managed a draw against tournament winner Vladimir Liberson . In 1976 the Lone Pine Open was  one of the busiest tournaments of the year, with $ 8,000 in prize money for the winner. Dake achieved another impressive result with 5.5 points from 12 rounds and won a game against Kenneth Rogoff . A year later, however, he had to pay tribute to his age, could not win a game for the first time when participating in Lone Pine and came to 5 draws with 4 defeats. Then Dake retired from tournament play for a few years.

In 1987, the US Open took place in his hometown of Portland , to which he was invited as a guest of honor. He decided to venture out again into the arena, and brought by a shared first place in the short time before in San Diego discharged US Senior Open in shape. In the US Open he then got a respectable 8 points from 12 games. Spurred on by this, he played three more tournaments and was at that time the oldest active grandmaster in the world. At the American Open 1987 in Los Angeles he reached 3.5 points from 8 games, at the New York Open 1988 he got 3 points from 8 games and was able to defeat an international champion with Kamran Shirazi . His last tournament was the American Open in Los Angeles in 1989, where he achieved a positive result with 5 points from 9 games.

Last years

In 1991 he was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame . On April 1, 1994, his wife Helen, with whom he had been married for 58 years, died. He wrote a moving obituary for her in the chess magazine Chess Life .

Until the end of his life he was interested in chess events, so he attended the FIDE World Championship in Las Vegas in 1999 as a spectator . To celebrate his 90th birthday, the Portland Chess Club hosted a gala dinner on April 8, 2000. The night before his death, Dake was playing blackjack at a casino in Reno, Nevada.

Personality and style of play

Dake learned the game of chess relatively late, at the age of 17. Although he did not receive a thorough chess training, he quickly rose to become one of the best players in the USA, which speaks for his great talent. Arnold Denker, who knew Dake personally well and who had campaigned for the FIDE honorary grandmaster title, dedicated a separate chapter to him in his book The Bobby Fischer I knew and other stories , in which he described Dake as an "American original" and compared his chess perception with that of Bobby Fischer . In his tournament games, he often needed little time to think it over . However, he lacked the ability to work systematically on improving his weaknesses. He mostly played openings that were not well developed in his day, such as the English opening and the Sicilian defense , and trusted his ability to improvise. He was considered very strong in the final , but occasionally overtook his position by overly optimistic attempts to win. Defeats bothered him hard, he started well in several tournaments and drew heavily towards the end.

A report in the chess magazine The Chess Review in 1933 characterized him as a player whose style had caused a sensation in chess circles, who was an excellent blitz player and could defeat world-class players in tournament games, but could also lose to second-class players on bad days.

Fred Reinfeld wrote in a preliminary report on the 1936 state championship that Dake had played too much on tactical tricks at the beginning of his career , which was accompanied by a certain superficial assessment of the position. In the 1931 New York tournament he only used between 30 and 45 minutes to think about his games. Dake's character assessed Reinfeld as impulsive and undisciplined. However, he has made great strides since the 1932 Pasadena tournament, he is playing more solidly and not so hastily. His game is resourceful and very effective, especially against weaker players. Reinfeld considered him the fourth best player in the United States after Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky and Isaac Kashdan at that time.

Dake's most famous game is his victory against the world champion at the time:

Arthur Dake - Alexander Alekhine , Pasadena 1932

Dake - Alekhine, Pasadena 1932

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Position after 24. Nf3 – g5

1. e2 – e4 c7 – c6 2. d2 – d4 d7 – d5 3. e4xd5 c6xd5 4. c2 – c4 Ng8 – f6 5. Nb1 – c3 Nb8 – c6 6. Ng1 – f3 is the Panow attack of the Caro Kann Defense . Alekhine had previously analyzed this variation together with Dake and now played a new move that turned out to be not good: 6.… Bc8 – e6 7. c4 – c5 g7 – g6 8. Bf1 – b5 Bf8 – g7 9. Nf3 – e5 Qd8 – c8 10. Qd1 – a4 Be6 – d7 11. 0–0 0–0 12. Bc1 – f4 a7 – a6 13. Bb5xc6 b7xc6 14. Rf1 – e1 Nf6 – h5 15. Bf4 – d2 Re8 – a7 16. Re1 -E2 Bd7-e8 17. Ra1-e1 f7-f5 . The last black pawn move is a mistake. According to Reuben Fine, Black could have achieved a playable position with 17.… g5. After 18. Ne5 – f3 Nh5 – f6 19. Re2xe7 Ra7xe7 20. Re1xe7 f5 – f4 Alekhine tried to counterplay with pawn sacrifices . 21. Bd2xf4 Nf6 – e4 22. Bf4 – e5 Bg7 – h6 23. Nc3xe4 d5xe4 24. Nf3 – g5 , now the knight cannot be captured without a great disadvantage. On 24.… Bxg5 Dake says 25. Rg7 + Kh8 26. Rc7 + with a queen win. Even better, however, is 26 Db3 and Matt in a few moves. 24.… Qc8 – f5 25. Qa4 – b3 + Be8 – f7 26. Ng5xf7 Rf8xf7 27. Re7xf7 Qf5xf7 28. Qb3 – b8 + Qf7 – f8 29. d4 – d5 : the decisive breakthrough. If the pawn is taken, the c-pawn goes through. 29.… e4 – e3 30. f2 – f4 Qf8xb8 31. Be5xb8 Kg8 – f7 32. d5xc6 Kf7 – e8 33. b2 – b4 g6 – g5 34. g2 – g3 g5xf4 35. g3xf4 Ke8 – d8 36. a2 – a4 Kd8 -C8 37. Bb8-d6 Bh6-g7 38. Kg1-f1 1: 0

literature

• Casey Bush: Grandmaster from Oregon. The life & games of Arthur Dake. Portland Chess Press, Portland 1991, OCLC 24203479 .
• John Hilbert: Essays in American chess history. Caissa Editions, Yorklyn 2002, ISBN 0-939433-59-1 , pp. 202-204.
• Arnold Denker and Larry Parr: The Bobby Fischer I knew and other stories. Hypermodern Press, San Francisco 1995, ISBN 1-886040-18-4 , pp. 221-235.

Web links

• Obituary in the New York Times (May 11, 2000)
• Arthur Dake (1910-2000) in The Oregon Encyclopedia
• Image Dakes from 1932
• Casey Bush: King Arthur , 1859 Oregon's Magazine , January 1, 2013 (with 8 photographs)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arthur Dakes results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
2. ↑ Game to replay at Chessgames.com
3. ↑ Chessmetrics player profile
4. ↑ Game to replay at Chessgames.com
5. ^ The first USCF National Rating Lists
6. ↑ Arthur William Dake. US Chess - Hall of Fame. In: World Chess Hall of Fame. Retrieved May 1, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Helen Dake, 1908-1994 , Chess Life, July 1994, p. 7
8. ^ Obituary at The Week in Chess , May 8, 2000
9. ^ AA Freeman: Don't give up the cup. In: The best of Chess Life and Review. Volume 1. Simon and Schuster, New York 1988, ISBN 0-671-61986-1 , p. 32.
10. ^ John S. Hilbert and Peter P. Lahde: New York 1936: the first modern United States Championship. Chess Archeology Press, Sands Point 2000, ISBN 0-9702794-0-X , pp. 89-90.
11. ↑ Game to replay at Chessgames.com

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 16, 2009 .