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Isaac Kashdan

Submitted by: Wojciech Bartelski from Poland, owner of OlimpBase.org

Isaac Kashdan was born on the 19th of November 1905 in New York, USA. Awarded the GM title in 1954 and the IA title in 1960 he played on five US Olympiad teams between 1928 and 1937.

He was one of the strongest players in the world in the 1930’s and Alekhine mentioned one day that Kashdan might be next World Champion.  He earned the well-deserved nickname of "the little Capablanca" because of his unique ability to extract victories from seemingly even positions.  Unfortunately Kashdan could not engage seriously into a chess career.  He resorted to earning a living as an insurance agent and administrator in order to support his family.

He participated in the 1928, 1930, 1931, 1933 and 1937 Chess Olympiads.  He won three gold and one silver medal with US team.  He won 52 games overall and lost only five.  He never scored worse than 70%.  He won two gold, one silver, one bronze, individual medals and one fourth place overall finish.  In Stockholm, 1937, he scored 14/16, the best individual record of all the players.  His all-time Olympic record of 79.7%.

He defeated Lajos Steiner (+5, =2, -3) in 1930 and was US Open Champion in 1938 (jointly) and 1947 but never won the Open Championship outright.  In 1930 he won 1st prizes in Berlin, Stockholm and Gyor.  He was 2nd, right behind Capablanca in New York, 1931 and tied for 4th in Bled on the same year.  In 1932 he tied 2nd behind Alekhine in Pasadena, tied for 1st prize with Alekhine at Mexico City and tied 2nd with Flohr at Hastings.  He tied with Samuel Reshevsky in 1942 US Open but lost the subsequent play-off match (+2, =3, -6).

After World War II, Kashdan maintained his ties to chess by organizing and directing tournaments.  He was editing the chess column for the prestigious Los Angeles Times from 1955 until 1982.  He was also the co-founder of Chess Review.  In 1950 he was awarded the IM title, and in 1954 he got the GM title.  He passed away at the age of 79 in 1985.

Few have contributed more to the development of the chess life in USA than GM Isaac Kashdan

To download 386 games by Isaac Kashdan, in a 90.4 kb zipped PGN file, Click Here.

Jon Haskel writes:

I don’t know if you are aware of it, but Isaac Kashdan was on an episode of “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx.  I happen to have the DVD.

Bob Avery writes:

I have a personal anecdote on Isaac Kashdan.  In the early years of the Lone Pine tournament, he was the TD.  He was already quite old.  I played in first one when you only had to be an expert to qualify.  In those days, there was no sudden death, but we were playing one round/day, so it didn't matter.  We did, however, seal after the 2nd time control to finish the game early the next day.  I reached a winning position in one game but had to seal my move.  I was still using English descriptive notation and sealed the move P-N4.  I wanted to test Mr. Kashdan to see how "with it" he still was.  When the envelope was opened, he saw the move and noticed that I still had both N pawns remaining on the board on QN2 and KN3. Pointing that out, he asked me somberly, "You know what that means, don't you?"  "Yes," I replied. "It means this one [the KNP] is pinned [by a black bishop on b8]."  Breathing a sigh of relief for not having to forfeit me, he pushed my pawn and punched the clock.  Unfortunately, he had flunked my test to my great disappointment, but I never told him I was testing him.

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