US Championship 1942 — New York
Incomplete record. This archive holds 48 of the 120 games played; 72 are missing.
Isaac Kashdan and Samuel Reshevsky finished the 1942 championship level on 12½/15, and the title went to a play-off that Reshevsky won 7½–3½. What the tournament is remembered for, though, is one ruling: in a drawn endgame against Arnold Denker, Reshevsky's flag fell, and the director picked up the clock, turned it round, and forfeited Denker instead. Kashdan's half point never came.
A wartime field
The country was five months into the war and the entry list showed it: Chess.com's account of the event notes that Reuben Fine, Fred Reinfeld and Arthur Dake were all absent, leaving a field thinner than usual at the top. Matthew Green withdrew partway through and forfeited his remaining games.
Kashdan played the more forcing tournament — eleven wins, one loss, three draws — while Reshevsky won ten and drew five without losing at all. They came out exactly level on 12½ from 15, two full points ahead of Denker and Albert Pinkus on 10½, with Herman Steiner on 10 and I. A. Horowitz on 9.
Kennesaw Mountain Landis of chess
The one point that separated a shared title from an outright one came in Reshevsky's game with Denker. Wikipedia's account of the championship records that in an objectively drawn endgame the flag on Reshevsky's clock fell, and that the tournament director, L. Walter Stephens — standing behind the clock — picked it up, turned it around, and announced that Denker had forfeited. Told of the mistake, Stephens declined to reverse himself. Wikipedia's article on Kashdan puts the consequence bluntly: Kashdan would have been US champion in 1942 but for Stephens scoring Reshevsky's time-forfeit loss as a win.
Denker told the story for the rest of his life. The version he published in Chess Life in 1990 dates the incident to the 1938 championship rather than 1942, so the retellings do not perfectly agree; the ruling itself, and Stephens' reply, are constant in all of them.
The archive preserves the Reshevsky–Denker game as it was scored at the time, 1–0.
“Does Kennesaw Mountain Landis ever reverse himself?”
The play-off that toured
The title match ran to eleven games and was staged, unusually, as a travelling exhibition. Chess.com's account records that the first three games were sponsored by the USO and played at military installations — the Fort Jay YMCA, the Camp Upton service club, and Plattsburg Barracks — with Kashdan winning the Camp Upton game through the noise. Games four to six moved to the Marshall, Queens and Manhattan chess clubs, and the last five were played at the Henry Hudson Hotel under the sponsorship of Chess Review. The time limit was two hours fifteen minutes for the first 45 moves.
Reshevsky and Kashdan traded the first four games, two wins each. From there Reshevsky won four of the last seven and drew the rest, closing the match 7½–3½. Kashdan's Wikipedia biography calls the failure to win a US Championship the central failure of his chess life; 1942 was the closest he came.
All eleven play-off games survive here in full, alongside 37 of the round robin's 120 scheduled pairings.
Final standings
The standings below are the historical final result. Only 37 of the 120 games played survive in our source; the remaining 83 are lost and appear as · in the cross table.
| # | Player | Score | Record | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| =1 | Kashdan, Isaac | 12½/15 | +11 -1 =3 | games |
| =1 | Reshevsky, Samuel Herman | 12½/15 | +10 -0 =5 | games |
| =3 | Denker, Arnold Sheldon | 10½/15 | +9 -3 =3 | games |
| =3 | Pinkus, Albert Sidney | 10½/15 | +10 -4 =1 | games |
| 5 | Steiner, Herman | 10/15 | +8 -3 =4 | games |
| 6 | Horowitz, Israel Albert | 9/15 | +6 -3 =6 | games |
| 7 | Seidman, Herbert | 7/15 | +6 -7 =2 | games |
| =8 | Levin, Jacob | 6½/15 | +3 -5 =7 | games |
| =8 | Levy, Louis | 6½/15 | +5 -7 =3 | games |
| =10 | Chernev, Irving | 6/15 | +4 -7 =4 | games |
| =10 | Pilnick, Carl | 6/15 | +4 -7 =4 | games |
| =12 | Baker, H | 5½/15 | +2 -6 =7 | games |
| =12 | Lessing, N | 5½/15 | +3 -7 =5 | games |
| =14 | Altman, Benjamin | 4/15 | +2 -9 =4 | games |
| =14 | Green, Matthew | 4/15 | +2 -9 =4 | games |
| =14 | Hahlbohm, Herman H | 4/15 | +1 -8 =6 | games |
Cross Table
| Rank | Player | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kashdan, Isaac | ½ | 1 | · | 0 | · | · | · | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | · | 1 | · | · | |
| 2 | Reshevsky, Samuel Herman | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | · | ½ | |
| 3 | Denker, Arnold Sheldon | 0 | 0 | 1 | · | · | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 4 | Pinkus, Albert Sidney | · | 0 | 0 | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 5 | Steiner, Herman | 1 | 0 | · | · | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | |
| 6 | Horowitz, Israel Albert | · | ½ | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 7 | Seidman, Herbert | · | 0 | 0 | 0 | · | 0 | · | · | 1 | · | 1 | · | · | · | · | |
| 8 | Levin, Jacob | · | 0 | 1 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | ½ | |
| 9 | Levy, Louis | 0 | 0 | 0 | · | 0 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 10 | Chernev, Irving | 0 | 0 | 0 | · | · | · | 0 | · | · | · | 1 | · | · | · | 1 | |
| 11 | Pilnick, Carl | 0 | ½ | · | · | · | 0 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 12 | Baker, H | 0 | 0 | · | · | · | · | 0 | · | · | 0 | · | · | · | ½ | · | |
| 13 | Lessing, N | · | 0 | · | · | 0 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 14 | Altman, Benjamin | 0 | 0 | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | |
| 15 | Green, Matthew | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | ½ | · | · | · | |
| 16 | Hahlbohm, Herman H | · | ½ | · | · | · | · | · | ½ | · | 0 | · | · | · | · | · |
Each cell shows the row player's recorded results against the column player. ● = same player. · = game played but lost (not preserved in our source).